Posted on 10/29/2011 8:20:01 AM PDT by Daffynition
Saying a species is endangered isn't enough, conservation advocate and world-renown television personality Jack Hanna said Tuesday.
People need to be interested in animals in order to save species whose numbers are dwindling.
"People are tired of hearing the world is going to end, and this or that animal is going to be endangered," Hanna said in an interview prior a presentation at Penn State Altoona.
The word "endangered" has been used so often that it has lost its effect on people - "It's like water off a duck's back," Hanna said.
"It's supposed to be fun," he said. "People can't save something unless they love it."
"I have no problem with Marcellus Shale," Hanna said. "We need the resource, and we can't be captives to our environment."
He plans to incorporate the fracking sites near his conservation center into his tours.
"We want to show people what fracking is all about in hopes that companies will fund our conservation efforts," Hanna said, noting that entities normally considered detrimental to wildlife have helped save it, in some cases.
Oil company Exxon, for example, was a major donor to the U.S. Save the Bengal Tiger fund in the 1990s, he said.
I think he embraces “reasonable” environmentalism vs. “hysterical” environmentalism, used as a pretext to achieve political control and wealth.
For example, reasonable environmentalism would say that if a plant or an animal is endangered, the best solution is to grow and breed more of it. That is, a solution for scarcity is to create abundance.
Hysterical environmentalism takes the opposite approach, that scarcity must be respected and honored, by diminishing abundance elsewhere. This is because their chosen means to political power and wealth is found in making literally *everything* scarce, so it must be doled out by the government.
It should be noted that in environmental matters, only the former philosophy, creating abundance, actually works, and improves the situation, often very markedly.
The latter philosophy, of artificial shortage, results in no improvement to the environment, but that was never its purpose to begin with.
Ba-da-bing! We have a winner! Explains everything! Thanks 4peas.
I recommend his autobiography. It’s REALLY an engrossing read. It was some years back that I read it, but I still remember the details about how you acquire the necessaries to artificially inseminate rhinos.
Facts are not good or bad; they are correct or incorrect. And a policy based on hysterical refusal to consider all possible facts is neither good, nor correct.
Which brings us to Jack Hanna’s comments for lobbying. I trust no one these days.
Oh no you di’int!
The Kirtland Warbler is a beautiful example of man doing what man does and bringing a bird back from the brink of extinction without really trying. In fact, if the environmentalists got their way, the birds would likely be extinct today.
50 years ago there were less than 50 known nesting pairs in one tiny area of Northern Michigan. The birds thrive in burned over jack pine areas. In absence of fires, habitat was dwindling. Logging and replanting creates the same habitat and now there are thousands of the birds over the whole top 3rd of the lower peninsula with likely sightings in the eastern northern peninsula.
Trusting everyone is an error; trusting no one is also an error.
A healthy skepticism, backed up by a little curiosity and research, is likely what you meant and what we need.
We actually need to be able to trust in the trustworthy among us.
We used to know reasonable environmentalism as conservationism. It was a good thing, a good approach.
Correct. When I was a child, I gave speeches promoting conservationism. The conservation movement was hijacked by leftists and turned into Gaia worship and hatred of humans.
I’m a proud conservationist.
Trust few.
Verify all.
Ditto.
He's allowed to have an opinion. We only hear about it because he is a celebrity. It is not as if being a celebrity causes him to have an opinion.
The loony left celebrities are constantly bombarding us with their uninformed and/or insane opinions. It is refreshing to see a person who the left could embrace had he taken their "correct stance" say things that are reasonable and informed. I am sure this makes their heads spin.
Conservationism was a logical, scientific based movement. Environmentalism is a emotion based, mostly fact-free quasi-religious movement -- no logic, just intense feelings.
Excellent. I understand the need for celebs [catch-all phrase], like Hanna, to constantly find ways to fund their *causes*.
Another case-in-point, is how Dr. Robert Ballard spends most of his time prostituting himself to get funding for his research. As a bona fide scientist, he’d much rather spend his time exploring the unknown. It goes with the territory.
**Hanna hopes energy companies will fund his conservation efforts, and he says such businesses can help save wildlife.**
I blame Oprah.
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