This week in ENVS, we examined wolves, uranium, and the Earth Liberation Front. Wolves were approached with a special eye towards the powerful symbolism attached to them. The three centuries of wolf extermination were predicated on both the economic threat of wolves to ranchers and a hysterical fear and hatred of wolves as wild slaughterers. Wolves posed a threat to the landscape Americans constructed as they spread across the country; the domestication of North America included the near-eradication of wild Canis lupus in the United States. The textbook highlighted notions of masculinity and “noble hunters” as an important dimension to the social construction of wolves, though I think it is necessary to point out the glaring hypocrisies of this social construction. Wolves were systematically butchered by poison, traps, and aerial hunters rather than “idealized solitary huntsmen.” I find it hard to believe that hunters using these tactics to collect their bounties could genuinely consider themselves heroic. Regardless of its motivations, wolf extermination has caused trophic cascades, due to the wolves’ role as apex predators. Ecocentric desires to remediate these effects have created movements to reintroduce wolves across the country. These efforts have been arguably ecologically successful, though are extremely controversial. The textbook illustrated consensus-based institutions as a possible solution to reconcile proponents and opponents of wolves, and advancing deep ecology and democracy.
Uranium is, as the text and the Breakthrough Institute FAQ on nuclear power prove, a very contentious object. The history of uranium mining is filled with environmentally unjust exploitation of indigenous populations. Radioactive pollution is troublesome due to the chronicity and delayed nature of its effects, and the extremely long half-life of radioactive pollutants. The benefits of nuclear power must be carefully weighed against the enormous risks inherent in creating cancer-causing waste. When storage of nuclear waste over a short-time frame has, in the case of Maxey Flat, failed horrifically, how can we assure the safety of nuclear waste storage facilities over 10,000 years or more? In their FAQ on nuclear power, Shellenberger and Nordhaus make the case that nuclear power causes significantly fewer deaths per megawatt hour than fossil fuels or solar energy; while statistically true, this assertion ignores the vastly different dimensions to the risks of solar and nuclear power. Roofing may be one of the most dangerous jobs, yet roofing falls are ultimately an occupational hazard. Nuclear power, by contrast, creates unknown societal risks which are imposed regardless of individual consent or objection.
This week concluded with the documentary If a Tree Falls, an examination of “eco-terrorism” and the Earth Liberation Front. The film was emotionally charged, and it was easy for me to understand the motives behind ELF’s sabotage, and even cheer on some of the direct, radical action depicted. Having observed Occupy Seattle firsthand, the images of protestors resisting riot police were deeply rousing, and the following radical in-fighting and creeping sense of pointlessness depressingly familiar.