BREAKING NEWS
May 17, 2007
Conservationists Should Heed Lessons of Economics
Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, born three centuries ago, is remembered for devising the system used to this day to classify living organisms. Linnaeus sought to reveal what he saw as the divine order of the natural world so that it might be exploited for human benefit. Linnaeus gave life to an organising hierarchy with kingdoms at the top and species at the bottom.
The system he created has proved both robust and flexible. It survived the rise of evolution. It also survived the discovery of whole categories of organism, such as bacteria. But, rather as John Maynard Keynes observed that "there is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency," so Linnaeus's system is being subtly debauched by over-eager taxonomists, trying to help conservation.
As new areas are explored, the number of species naturally increases. For example, the number of species of monkey, ape and lemur gradually increased until the mid-1960s, when it levelled off. In the mid-1980s, however, it started rising again. Today there are twice as many primate species as there were then. That is not because a new wave of primatologists has emerged, pith-helmeted, from the jungle with hitherto unknown specimens. It is because a lot of established subspecies have been reclassified as species.
Perhaps "reclassified" is not quite the right word. "Rebranded" might be closer. Taxonomists do not always get it right first time, of course, and what looked like one species may rightly later be seen as two. But a suspiciously large number of the new species have turned up in the limited group of big, showy animals known somewhat disparagingly as "charismatic megafauna"-in other words the species that the public, as opposed to the experts, care about.
One reason for this taxonomic inflation is that the idea of a species becoming extinct is easy to grasp, and thus easy to make laws about. Subspecies just do not carry as much political clout. The other is that upgrading subspecies into species simultaneously increases the number of rare species and augments the biodiversity of a piece of habitat and thus its claim for protection.
In the short term, this strategy helps conservationists by intensifying the perceived threat of extinction. The trouble is that the idea of what defines a species is a lot more slippery than you might think. Since it is changes in DNA that cause species to evolve apart, looking at DNA should be a good way to divide the natural world. However, it depends which bit of DNA you look at. The standard technique says, for example, that polar bears are just brown bears that happen to be white. This is not good news for those relying on the Endangered Species Act. For a certain sort of Colorado rodent (with, alas, a nose for prime riverfront real estate) the question of whether it is "Preble's meadow jumping mouse" or a boring old meadow jumping mouse may be a matter of life or death: local property developers are on the death side.
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Species Boom Reveals Higher Organizational Principle
By: Pete Kendall, May 22, 2007 |
At the peaks of expansions, most people feel a stronger kinship with animals and trees. The environmental, or ecology, movement, when expressed in terms such as, 'let's work together to clean up the environment,' is a manifestation of the last stage of the trend toward inclusion. At bottoms of major economic contractions, people care less about the environment and more about survival. Like the peace movement of the late 1960s, the environmental movement will undoubtedly deteriorate into an excuse for hatred. As the contraction unfolds, serious environmentalists and animal rights advocates are likely to embrace more of the philosophy of their radical elements and adopt the ultimate exclusionary philosophy, viewing people as enemies of life and nature rather than as part of it. To the extent that the proponents of these movements gain political power, persecution will result.
The Elliott Wave Theorist, September 1992 |
The peak in social psychology have affected the supposedly objective scientists' minds as much as the rest of us, trying to include more groups of species to promote how "special" we all are. To the point of separating species that are not even different to show that these species too, are endangered. Not only the "new" species are not discovered based on facts (DNA) but are based on "experts" simply stating it so, parallels the fiat currencies we are now using as "value" rather than based on asset's true values.
It's also interesting that the "charismatic megafauna" are much like the "phony" nature of wave B of this rise is more for the benefit of the public than the experts much like the record high of some Equity indexes in "dollars" as opposed to a truer measure of value such as gold.
Finally, the overnight classification of "endangered species" to "common rodents" in some places perhaps is foretelling the eventual change in social mood will have the effect of the importance of self preservation over the current social mood of altruism. Notice the growth of species coincides with the recent bull and bear markets of the rising number of species that lasted until the mid-1960s [when the Dow Industrials reached the peak of Cycle III) and then levelled off, then rising again from the 1980s [when Cycle V hit its stride]. Perhaps it is levelling off again now, or will do so in the near future?
-- Curtis Wee
I think it will reverse in a bear market. In a bull market, everyone, even “the Preble meadow jumping mouse,” is a special friend and worthy of protection. But as the bear market matures, “save-the-world” social concern takes on more strident forms. Environmentalists will become increasingly vociferous in arguing for restrictions that thwart developers to save the river mice and other “endangered” species. By the end of the bear market, however, people will be too concerned with survival to about the mice. They’ll probably get rid of the special classifications, and it will be every mouse for himself, again.
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