Is All Environment About Wildlife?
Someone recently sent me e-mail and asked whether all environment was about "animals, nature and trees." The answer required far more thought than I was willing to give in a letter response but I did give it a quick try. I still think the question is far too complicated to answer without an awful lot of thought and research, but I decided to stick my neck out anyway and offer some opinions here. You know what opinions are worth!
For many people in the United States, environment is about animals because animals are (1) huggable and (2) people are emotional about them for various psychological reasons I can't even begin to list. Some reasons I can't even fathom.
Environment is about animals because they make easy and popular news from a journalistic perspective. So much can happen to and about animals that there is always some potential animal "news" to cover.
Environment is about animals because we perceive them as the indicators of environmental quality that they are.
Environment is about animals because they're easier to like than many people.
Trees are not huggable, not easily perceivable as individuals, and not very "imagable." It's difficult to "sell" conservation of individual trees. Forests and wildlife are more "imagable" for those in environmental public relations who want to sell conservation. Because forests have big economic and ecological components, the "environment" part of forest conservation can get lost.
Oceans are an economic issue cloaked in environmental concern. Nobody is going to hug a fish. Whales are another story.
You can tell what environment is about, besides wildlife, trees and nature, by listing keywords found in the media: global warming, extinction, ecology, island biogeography, climate change, biodiversity, ozone holes, recycling, natural resources, energy conservation, overfishing, desertification, salinization, population, poverty, sustainable development, nuclear waste, nuclear power, genetic engineering, DDT, dioxin, chlordane, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, Times Beach, Love Canal, Sevaso, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, ground level ozone, drought, flood, fire ant, Mediterranean fruit fly, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, forest policy, water use, waste (solid, toxic, hazardous), rangeland policy, oil spills, cancer, asthma. Enough?
Most of these topics are complicated and not very huggable. Some are not what I call "imagable." This means that the topics aren't easily packaged for public consumption.
Some of these topics remain obscure because they have no champions--nongovernment organizations or government agencies to speak for them. No one knows which topics are more important than others. Many are related to others, some to many others. Some aren't local, national or international enough.
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