July was equal to or warmer than the hottest month ever recorded on planet Earth. Eleven billion tons of ice melted off the Greenland ice sheet in a single day. The United Nations biodiversity report recently warned that 1 million species of animals and plants are vulnerable to extinction, some within just decades, because of development, climate change and other causes.
How does the Trump administration, which already has a dismal record on the environment, respond? By clubbing the Endangered Species Act, which has been widely popular with both Democrats and Republicans since it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973. The act protects more than 1,600 species and is credited with saving iconic wildlife including the bald eagle, grizzly bear and California condor.
We've supported efforts to help landowners as well as wildlife when disputes arise, while accepting that saving endangered species is vital but not free. We believe the gray wolf should remain protected in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, which now have nearly 4,000 wolves, rather than being subjected to a slaughter that could devastate their revived population. Not every protected creature is as iconic as the polar bear. But all life is connected.
Indeed, the move by the Interior Department contrasts starkly with the warning issued by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay along with a biodiversity report in May. "We can no longer continue to destroy the diversity of life. . . . We can and must all mobilize, urgently and together, to save our planet and thus humanity." Democratic leaders and presidential candidates immediately pounced on Trump for gutting wildlife protections, while states and conservation groups promise to sue. Putting the nation's most vulnerable species in the crosshairs at a time of environmental crisis isn't a winning position, nor a tenable one.
Editorial on 08/17/2019