Us or Them: Spinning Environmental Cuts

(frogworld.net)

In an April 15th New York Times article on proposed cuts to environmental regulation in Maine and Florida, the governor of Maine is quoted as saying, "Maine's working families and small businesses are endangered. It is time to we start defending the interests of those who want to work and invest in Maine with the same vigor that we defend tree frogs and Canadian lynx." His words made me really angry, and I also worried that his message would be persuasive. It's clear that he spent some time crafting his misleading message to suggest that we have to choose: animals or people. He is not only equating jobless people to endangered species, but he is suggesting that protecting animals has a direct negative impact on humans.

There are so many ways in which the statement is illogical, I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with pointing out that the proposed cuts would be to opening up parts of the North Woods to development and suspending a law meant to monitor toxic chemicals found in children's products (according to the NY Times). So when he says protect tree frogs, he means tree frogs, trees, many other animals, and children from toxic chemicals, to name a few. Does he mean that we should protect the interests of those who want to work and invest in Maine above children's health and exposure to toxic chemicals? Also, he seems to be implying that we protect tree frogs and lynx with a lot of vigor, and that we never protect the interest of businesses or investment. Right. I think its also ironic that he states that working families and businesses are endangered. Actually, he's right- just not in the way he means. All of our jobs and businesses that depend on finite natural resources absolutely are endangered. And as scary as it is to think, we as a species are endangered. Even if his statement were true, and we were only choosing between tree frogs and jobs, I wonder if I would even agree with it then? Should we protect jobs with the same vigor as protecting the lives of other animals? Do we have to have jobs that destroy other creatures? I would protect a human life with much more vigor than a tree frog's life, but I don't know that I think we have a right to destroy the homes of other creatures for our work. Even if one considered jobs to be more important than tree frogs, there's a slight problem with that logic: tree frogs do not exist in a vacuum and never do we. We are unavoidably linked to the other creatures in our world and we cannot destroy them without consequences to our own health and prosperity. So even if you doesn't value the lives of other animals, surely you value your own life, and the lives of children that are hopelessly bound to everything else in our environment.

I think it will be interesting to see whether this "jobs are an endangered species" logic is one we will see more of to justify cuts to environmental protection. So much of the struggle to get support for protecting the environmental seems to be about the way we conceptualize these problems and a lot of that has to do with how we talk about them.