Protecting Biodiversity? Smart Policy, or BULLSHIT (show on Showtime)

[iconoclastNYC]

Showtime airs a show hosted by comedian/magicians Penne and Teller called "BULLSHIT." It's a forum for them to express their libertarian views. It's like an expanded John Stosell 20/20 "Give me a break!" segment spiced up with vulgarity and boobies.

On one show they come out against the notion that there is such a thing as "traditional marriage" that needs to be protected from the gays. "Traditional Marriage" is BULLSHIT. Ahh...I thought, this might be a good series.

But the next episode had this tree hugging liberal seeing red. It was on the Endangered Species Act. They humbly inform the viewer: "The Endangered Species Act it is BULLSHIT."

Penne and Teller, who apparently studied journalism at the Anne Coulter Institute, draw the conclusion that the ESA is ineffective, unnecessary and an intrusion on personal property rights. They glaze over the fact that more often than not it is corporations that are infringed, or rich real estate speculators/land developers who are "harmed" by this law.

Maybe Penne and Teller can have a telethon for the poor millionaire land developers who are unable to realize real estate gains for their projects because some endangered species relies on that land to survive.

Penne and Teller throw a number of statistics at you about how supposedly ineffective the ESA has been at protecting biodiversity. Listening to it couldn't help but think of the line : "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." I tried to find a rebuttal of their arguments online but I couldn't find anything in Google. Penne and Teller also point out the damning fact that EPA scientists have gasp, made mistakes by classifying some species as endangered when in fact they were not.

Penne and Teller's strongest argument was that big corporations like Wal Mart can afford to hire lawyers and environmental scientists to get around the ESA but the little guy can't!

To put a human face on this they found some crippled girl who wants to build a house on some land she purchased near her parent's home. Que the sob inducing music! She can't build on her parcel because the big bad bureaucrats at the EPA say her land is the some of the last remaining habitat for an endangered bird. (Apparently they couldn't find a crippled woman who wanted to build on less sympathetic animal's habitat ... like a slug, or a beetle.)

Now the crippled woman could try to get a waiver from the EPA but it would cost money. Apparently she has money to build the house but no money to hire a lawyer to get the waver from the EPA.

Rich and powerful Wal-Mart on the other hand, has an army of lawyers and environmental engineers to lobby the EPA for a waver, and got to build its' 9000th Super Center.

So the point is : The rich and powerful often times manipulate the system to get their way. Ergo the ESA is BULLSHIT! I guess a future episode will be "Murder laws are BULLSHIT." They can hold up a picture of O.J. Simpson for an hour, and they've made their point.

This show was nauseating. Truly. Imagine the worst of what Micheal Moore does with selective editing. Now multiple that times 100.

Anyone who defended the ESA was mocked and dismissed. It was one of the worst pieces of pseudo-journalism I'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing. No discussion was made of how to improve the Endangered species act, or how to ensure that corporations can't use their resources to bully the EPA into granting wavers. Nope it was nothing more than: This law is BULLSHIT.

Early on Penne and Teller's take great pains to let you know that they just love...love...love endangered lifeforms. Penne and Teller just love the endangered American Eagle but if the government says you can't build that house on the mountain where the eagles nest.....fuck man, that's just BULLSHIT.

The following story got me thinking about a very practical reason mankind has a vested interest in protecting biodiversity: Our future could depend on it:

******
Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&summit=&storyid=2005-08-16T050539Z_01_DIT618322_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-AUSTRALIA-CROCODILE-DC.XML

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system kills the HIV virus.

The crocodile's immune system is much more powerful than that of humans, preventing life-threatening infections after savage territorial fights which often leave the animals with gaping wounds and missing limbs.

"They tear limbs off each other and despite the fact that they live in this environment with all these microbes, they heal up very rapidly and normally almost always without infection," said U.S. scientist Mark Merchant, who has been taking crocodile blood samples in the Northern Territory.

Initial studies of the crocodile immune system in 1998 found that several proteins (antibodies) in the reptile's blood killed bacteria that were resistant to penicillin, such as Staphylococcus aureus or golden staph, Australian scientist Adam Britton told Reuters on Tuesday. It was also a more powerful killer of the HIV virus than the human immune system.

"If you take a test tube of HIV and add crocodile serum it will have a greater effect than human serum. It can kill a much greater number of HIV viral organisms," Britton said from Darwin's Crocodylus Park, a tourism park and research center.

Britton said the crocodile immune system worked differently from the human system by directly attacking bacteria immediately an infection occurred in the body.

Imagine that we had hunted down and killed all the crocodiles. Or drained all the swamps to build more suburbs. We wouldn't have these future antibiotics.
*****

Undiscovered medical advances from wildlife is just one of many reasons we have a vested interest in preserving biodiversity. Penne and Teller didn't bother to tell you about any of them.

Much like how the religious right claims that they aren't anti-gay (No we oppose "special rights"), Penne and Teller pretend to support the notion of biodiversity. They just hate the law that protects it. You know they are pretending to support Biodiversity because they don't offer any ways to fix the ESA, all they do is smear the law to get you to oppose it.

Land developers don't want to have to hire lawyers and environmental scientists to get around the ESA. So they donate to the Republican party, who'll gut the ESA to make it cheaper for the donors to make millions destroying habitat of endangered species to build more suburban strip malls and McMansions.

Thanks to Penn and Teller's, many American's reaction to news of the future gutting of the ESA will be : "Oh that's just a BULLSHIT law anyway."

[kaya33]

1. Unbelievable...truly.

This is such bull****. I am so sick of this administrations lack of concern over any type of environmental law,regulations. It is similiar to global warming, where Bush is quoted as saying "well we have no concrete evidence that greenhouse gases are to blame for the ....." I am a scientist, have a degree in environmental conservation, and this shit just makes me boil! When are people going to realize there can not be a cost put on our natural resources. When something is lost, it is gone forever. We have disrupted and destroyed so many habitats and species due to sprawl, Walmarts, and idiotic self centered ego centric ideas. Enough is enough!

[kaya33]

2. And....

to top it off the latest article in TIME magazine (aug 15) is Bush's proposal to teach "creative Intelligence" in science classes right along with evolution. Basically he is saying, evolution is not determined to be true, some species were made by the hand of god, and we should offer this view point as well. While we are at it, lets teach the world may be flat, right along with the sun revolved around the earth.

God I miss Carol Bronner.

[iconoclastNYC]

3. kicking my own thread