Changing the Endangered Species Act

Fein and Meese espouse the usual conservative rhetoric; namely that development is good and preservation is bad. While arguing for change in the Endangered Species Act to promote human welfare above the welfare of lesser species, they view the issue from a short-term perspective, while asserting man’s dominion over nature.

If jobs are preserved, rather than the northern spotted owl, what happens to jobs once the old-growth forests are depleted? For that matter, if the California coastline is opened up for oil exploration, what happens once the relatively short-term supplies of oil are gone? This is the same intellectual hocus-pocus that brought us nuclear energy without any concern about long-term waste disposal (a problem we are no closer to solving than 10 years ago).

More and more citizens are now realizing that there is intrinsic, unquantifiable value to nature undisturbed. If we follow the lead of these two “scholars,” it stands to reason that nothing short of our national parks will be preserved, leaving society as a whole environmentally impoverished as a result.

PATRICK SPEAR

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