Part 2 is found here and should be read before part 3.
Another take on the utilitarian/anthropocentric view is that all life depends upon each other in a great “web of life,” and the extinction of any one species affects every other species in one way or another, including humans. Since breaking the web could impact humans, it is necessary to protect all points of the web from damage and including repairing points that are already damaged, but still intact.
But it cannot be proven that removing Bonneville cutthroat would damage the web. In places where Bonneville cutthroat have disappeared, the habitats seem intact and otherwise healthy. Granted, most of those places the cutthroat has merely been replaced with another trout.
Paul and Anne Ehrlich likened an airplane put together with rivets to “spaceship earth.” The rivets represented species. An airline was earning money by strategically removing rivets from its airplanes to sell for scrap metal. As rivets were lost, it affected the overall integrity of the plane. At some point in time, if the removal of rivets continued, the airplane would not be able to handle the loss and would crash.
“Rivet-popping on Spaceship Earth consists of aiding and abetting the extermination of species and populations of nonhuman organisms. Some…[species]…could supply important direct benefits to humanity, and all of them are involved in providing free public services without which society could not persist.”
As interesting as the rivets and web analogies are, they are flawed because “spaceship earth” will not fall apart because its biotic components disappear. The earth is a geological entity, not biotic (unless you believe in James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis which treats all earth processes, components and biological aspects as one giant organism). So, in a non-Gaia world, the “rivets” from the analogy should be substituted with “mechanical parts” of the airplane’s oxygen, food and waste disposal systems to make it a more accurate analogy.
However, if those things fail, the airplane will not fall out of the sky. In the same manner, a failure in the biotic “web of life” will not cause “spaceship earth” to crash, but rather the earth’s life-support systems will fail. Planet earth would still roll on with or without any plant or animal life.
But, even if the analogy was revised to reflect the loss of the mechanics in the life-support systems, a problem still exists. The assumption is that without non-human biological processes naturally occurring on earth, human life could not exist (we save other species to save ourselves). But this is not true. Food and shelter can be manufactured—it does not need to occur “naturally.” And existing water can be cleansed. All “wild” biota can be done away with and domesticated or fabricated needs.
There is no need to halt the extinction of Bonneville cutthroats because the “web of life” itself is not needed—humans can replace missing life-support systems from “naturally” occurring ones to human engineered ones.
Any new ideas you have that haven’t already been mentioned in the previous posts, feel free to toss them on the table.
(The next post in the series will move away from utilitarian/anthropocentic points of view.)
We don’t need cutthroat to survive we need them to believe and to hope that all the wonderful things created on this globe are real and valuable and needful. To lose that belief and hope is to lose the air in the mine shaft of life. Here we are breathing that air and when that air becomes bad we need to know, to have indicators of the change going on around us. Just as a canary indicates the fate of the miner down that shaft, so does the cutthroat indicate the fate of the environment around us. If we lose the cutthroat is there still more air to breathe…SURE…more rainbows, browns and brookies…BUT…they are not supposed to be there. Something has changed…our belief has changed…that it doesn’t matter. As sure as a poorly presented fly drifts recklessly down a stream and is rejected by the wary native trout, so do we as we recklessly drift through life with poorly planned conservationism. In essence, our anthropocentricness will be cloudly and our hope will not shine as brightly as it once did. We will then be left in the dark, not knowing our true nature, not knowing what we are…losing that wildness, that clean air we so deeply need to breathe. We drag through the current, getting drowned out by alien ideas and influence. Rejecting the trueness of life which is our eternal spring creek of living.
I’m not sure it is true that humans can manufacturer all they need. At least not in the medium to long term. Sure we have domesticated plants and animals but it is a very small gene pool. The point about the rivets is that when all (or most) are in place the spaceship can withstand large perturbations without crashing (freak storms, lightening strike etc). Take some of the rivets away and it can’t. Take more away (without crashing the plane) and it doesn’t need to be freak storms anymore, just strong, but predictably violent storms. Reduce the diversity leaving whatever we have domesticated now and humans will survive for a while (not all of us ’cause there will be a big population crash of those that don’t produce or have access to produced goods). But when a one in five or ten year metaphorical storm comes along there won’t be anything left to replenish the lost diversity (the little that there is) we left ourselves with.
And I still not sure that the loss of cutthroats, especially if they are replaced by another trout would make a difference in the indifferent scheme of things.
Diversity of gene pools–I read an excellent piece about agriculture genetics a few years ago (Wnedell Berry?), and how important diversity was. And that genetic manipulation by humans wasn’t quite cutting it. Anyhow, I really don’t know how viable an option human produced everything is right now, probably not too doable. And certainly a cause for worry, because I think that seems the way a lot of ag science seems to be leaning.
Forgive me cutthroat stalker…for I have sinned. While heading up to Idaho to visit my in-laws I threw my fishing gear in the back on my wife’s sedan just in case there was time and good enough weather to hit the little creek running through the valley they live in. My luck! The weather and time both held out. I hit the little creek around 10:45am and for being November 26th a lovely day. I fished all the spots I had in previous years and found much the same success. This little creek is a tributary of Marsh Creek which connects into the Portneuf near Inkom, Idaho. One of the first things I did after getting married was scout out all the local streams to see if any fish held up in them. Only one did…the one just out the front door of my in-laws. I have fished it for about 7 years now. Much to my enjoyment it harbors a robust population of brook trout…much to my sadness I have caught 3 cutthroat (vs. 100′s of brookies) which has led me to the realization that this was once a native cutthroat stream which my father in-law confirmed from his worming trips in his early childhood (late 40′s). Anywho…It is sad I have fallen to enjoying the little brookies which thrive in this wonderful little creek. But I lack botht the resources and time to do anything to change this little creek’s fate. As long as there is no other native cutt stream in which I can cleanse my soul…I will visit this stream each fall to fish for brookies. No cutts this year. I have not caught one for three years. I may try higher up this summer where I caught my first one. Until then, forgive me cutthroat stalker…for I will sin no more until next Turkey Day.
Sin all you want – I just expect to be in on the sinning next time!