The topic of this week’s readings was that of de-extinction, a burgeoning technology which combines our knowledge of ecosystems, genealogy, and the extinction process with our knowledge of cloning and genetic modification. This technology would enable us to effectively “bring back” species both from the brink of extinction as well as back through history.

In his ‘Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species’ Ron Sandler specifies between recently extinct species and ones that have not been around for a long time, calling these latter projects ‘deep de-extinction’, and focusses his paper on these. Sandler goes over some objections to this technology, namely “that it is unnatural; that it could cause animal suffering; that it could be ecologically problematic or detrimental to human health; and that it is hubristic or akin to playing God” (Sandler 4). He also discusses arguments that favour de-extinction efforts, “that it is a matter of justice; that it would reestablish lost value; that it would create new value; and that we need it as a conservation last resort” (2). Sandler concludes that these are valid considerations and that ultimately “de-extinction is in many respects a luxury. It is fine to pursue if people want, so long as it does not interfere with or compromise ethically important things” (6).

I enjoyed Sandler’s paper, agreeing with his thoughtful analysis of both sides of the issue, but found myself in disagreement with his conclusion. I do not believe that de-extinction, especially deep de-extinction is “fine” to pursue on the whim of humans for luxurious hobbyist purposes.

For me there are many unknowable risks (or perhaps these are simply unknowns to me, someone who is scientifically illiterate): Animals exist within an eco-system. If we bring back long-dead species, they may not have the appropriate habitat or food available. Additionally, they could be competition for whatever species have moved into their place in the ecosystem, putting them at risk. How will they learn the behaviours needed for survival in their new environment?

Quite often these animals are only brought back for study and are not released into the wild, which Sandler defends by saying there are many animals who live in lab conditions and that “the animal welfare concerns [raised] do not significantly differentiate it from many other research and conservation practices involving animals” (5) concluding that deep de-extinction should not be abandoned due to this. However at this point I am forced to wonder; if we are not bringing these animals back to release them into the wild, to fill some ecological gap, for what purpose would we be pursuing this? If the animals are destined to live in a lab, other than our own vanity and desire to play with science, what benefit does deep de-extinction bring? And especially what benefits does it bring that actually outweigh the possibility for suffering? My opinion is that there is very little value.

As a result of the above concerns I was refreshed to watch Stanley Temple’s Tedx talk. Temple argues that de-extinction should be pursued with the utmost caution, but helped enlighten me to some areas in which the technology can be used in cases of more recently extinct species who went extinct as a result of their habitats being eroded but now those habitats are thriving, or when they went extinct due to extreme hunting, but now we are better at preventing out of control hunting like that today, especially through the use of ecological reserves and the like.

The most promising case to me though was the cases he described in which an ‘evolutionary bottleneck’ has occurred. This happens when a species is so endangered that there are so few members left that cloning and other de-extinction technologies can be used promote greater genetic diversity and healthy reproduction.

So this is the main way in which I agree with Sandler: de-extinction is best used as a conservational last resort (4), in tandem with other conservation efforts to promote the other factors that are affecting that species’ ability to thrive. When a species is on the brink of extinction and we are actively working to conserve that species’ habitat so we know it will have a context in which to thrive, I argue that de-extinction technologies can and in fact should be used to promote biodiversity and to prevent the unknown impacts that losing that animal could have on its ecosystem. However, I believe there are too many unknowns about long extinct species, and bringing them back just to live in a scientifically studied context is just not worth the potential harms to the animals.

• Renée

 

Sources

Sandler, Ronald. (2013) ‘The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species’ Conservation Biology, Volume 28, No. 2, (pp 354–360). Boston MA. Available at:

https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1111/cobi.12198

 

Temple, Stanley. (2013) ‘De-extinction: a game-changer for conservation biology’. TedxDeExtinction Talk. Available at:

https://reviverestore.org/events/tedxdeextinction/de-extinction-a-game-changer-for-conservation-biology/

The first reading I did this week was Jonathan Pugh’s ‘Driven to Extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-drive technologies’, in which he disputes two arguments  against gene-drive technology and concludes that it is too soon to form a moral opinion on the tech because it is so new and the consequences of its implementation are not yet known. Conversely, in the petition ‘A Call for Conservation with a Conscience: No Place for Gene Drives in Conservation’ the authors argue that gene drive technology would “irretrievably [release] genocidal genes into the natural world” and they and their many high profile signers “call for a halt to all proposals for the use of gene drive technologies […] especially in conservation.” (citation). When I first read this perspective I was taken aback, it seemed dramatic and like a rather hard line to take on a new and emerging technology. However, I agree that the extermination of a species under the banner of “conservation” is horribly hypocritical and I would argue that their passion and message of caution is warranted.

These documents offer insight to the contrast between the utilitarian/consequentialist philosophy exemplified by Pugh versus the more deontological view expressed by the signers of the above petition. In the deontological view all beings possess inherent worth. The petition signers do not want extinction to be used as a tool for conservation because it is ultimately antithetical to the stated goals of conservation.

This debate reminded me of the ‘Technological Fix’ and ‘climaterian’ discussions from week 6 of this course. In the choice between eating meat and going vegetarian there are moral considerations to be made and one could argue that one ‘should’ choose not to eat meat and further that they ‘should not’ need a technological fix to help them. This is one of the many arguments discussed in Hopkins and Dacey’s paper on ‘Vegetarian Meat’, and they conclude that rather than the seeking of new tech being a moral failing on our part, “champion[ing] the development of new technologies, [can be a] step toward the production of a world that in fact, and not merely in ideal, mirrors the moral vision we possess for it” (Hopkins and Dacey 17).

In this case, the moral vision of conservationists is one that is not anthropocentric, in which not all decisions are made for the benefit of human beings, and all life is valued. The implementation of gene drives is not a step toward a world that mirrors their moral vision, so in this case I would argue that it is not a good technological fix for conservationists.

However, I do agree in part with Pugh’s conclusion: that it is too soon to definitively either way, and that the utmost caution ought to be used in the testing and implementation of this tech (Pugh 3-4). I believe there must be ways of implementing tech like this that would help human beings without the goal of extermination, since this is clearly antithetical to the goals of conservation and environmentalism.

• Renée

Sources:

‘A Call for Conservation with a Conscience: No Place for Gene Drives in Conservation’

https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/final_gene_drive_letter.pdf

Pugh, Jonathan. ‘Driven to Extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-drive technologies’. J Med Ethics 42, 578–581 (2016)

https://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca/pluginfile.php/6160359/mod_resource/content/1/Pugh%20Driven%20to%20Extinction%20the%20Ethics%20of%20Eradicating%20Mosquitos%20with%20Gene%20Drive%20Technologies.pdf

Hopkins, P.D., Dacey, A. ‘Vegetarian Meat: Could Technology Save Animals and Satisfy Meat Eaters?’. J Agric Environ Ethics 21, 579–596 (2008).

https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1007/s10806-008-9110-0

In William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” he argues that humans have constructed the idea of ‘wilderness’ and that this construction continues the harm to the ecosystems that this term was constructed to protect as well as humanity. Cronon argues that by creating a polarisation between the human and the natural, we distance ourselves from our responsibility and connection to it. The consequences of this are that “If we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then our very presence in nature represents its fall. […] We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable human place in nature might actually look like” (11). Cronon’s solution to this duality is to recombine the wild with the human in our minds, to see the whole of the world as our home, because “[h]ome, after all, is the place where finally we make our living. It is the place for which we take responsibility, the place we try to sustain so we can pass on what is best in it […] to our children” (19). It seems key not to forget that much as we create many unnatural things, humans are as much a part of nature as anything else. Or are we not animals evolved from the primordial soup like all others?

This reading reminded me of the inner conflict I felt when doing the readings on utilitarianism earlier in the course, I am fairly depressed now as I was then, but reading Cronon was at least a little more uplifting in comparison. I remember thinking that in utilitarian terms I really should be dead. If we want to promote the good of the highest number of conscious beings (referencing Peter Singer here) then humanity should not necessarily be top of the list. In fact, there are more chickens than humans, and they certainly do not need us to thrive. There are many areas one can extrapolate this type of thinking out to, especially because it often feels like no matter what choice you make as a consumer you are contributing in one way or another to the death of our planet. Take clothes shopping for instance: if you want to shop ethically and not contribute to the enormous waste and bad ethics of the fast fashion industry there are plenty of pricey brand options at your disposal, with biodegradable fabrics and fair working conditions for their employees. However, suppose you do not have the money, or you do not have the (thin) body type that these sustainable brands tend to cater towards, then you could always thrift! But many thrift shops do not pay their workers well, the majority of the clothing donated to them ends up in a landfill in the end, and most times you still will not find what you are looking for. I find this cycle crops up in many of the choices I have to make on a day to day basis and Cronon addresses this sort of climate-depression (not using that exact language) in his essay. Cronon argues that “if wild nature is the only thing worth saving, and if our mere presence destroys it, then the sole solution to our own unnaturalness, the only way to protect sacred wilderness from profane humanity, would seem to be suicide” (13). By constructing this duality between the human and the natural, we humans have left ourselves in a murky spot since It does seem a difficult task to save the environment while also punishing ourselves.

Buying from sustainable fashion brands and thrift shops has a similar effect in my opinion to what Cronon describes as the effect of visiting nature preserves and national parks. “We work our nine-to-five jobs in its [society’s/the non-wild’s] institutions, we eat its food, we drive its cars (not least to reach the wilderness), we benefit from the intricate and all too invisible networks with which it shelters us, all the while pretending that these things are not an essential part of who we are. By imagining that our true home is in the wilderness, we forgive ourselves the homes we actually inhabit” (11-12). Whether you are ‘escaping to the wilderness’ or buying from thrift stores, both have the effect of displacing our guilt over the choices we don’t really have. Cronon’s solution, while imperfect in my opinion, at least lends us some forgiveness and assists in our ability to fight for the planet as a whole. Humans are not the devil, we all live here, we simply have to do our best to treat our planet as a home and to fight for change at an institutional level.

(disclaimer: I am not arguing that attempting to shop ethically is not a good thing to do in our fight to do our best, instead I am saying that it can in some instances act as a way to make ourselves feel better when the problem goes much deeper than individualized decisions.)

• Renée

 

Sources:

Cronon, William. (1995) “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (pp. 69-90). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Available at: https://www.williamcronon.net/writing/Trouble_with_Wilderness_Main.html

In ‘The Technological Fix Criticisms and the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate’ Dane Scott effectively explains various philosophical and practical critiques of the ‘technological fix’, and how these arguments have been applied to the agricultural biotechnology debate against genetically modified (GM) foods. Scott defines a ‘technological fix’ as “[…] the solution to a problem that results from reframing a social problem as a technological one [reducing] seemingly insurmountable social problems to manageable levels.” (Scott 209), Scott describes multiple practical oppositions to GM foods, the third of which resonates with me the most; “First, technological fixes do not solve problems and, second, they create new problems. The third criticism is that” (Scott 215) “technological fixes for the problems of intensive agriculture are designed to preserve the current technological system by fixing it, rather than looking for alternative systems. In some cases, it may be wiser to question that system itself; to ask, in effect, ‘Is the current system worth conserving?’” (Scott 219).

In this blog post I would like to expand upon the third practical criticism of the agricultural technological fixes as described by Scott, not to argue against the technology of GM foods themselves, but to argue against the systems that technology exists within. For example the analogy Mark Lynas presents in his talk at the 2013 Oxford Farming Conference ‘if you oppose the technology of genetic modification because it comes from a big corporation do you also oppose the wheel because it is sold by big auto companies?’ (paraphrased from Lynas), of course we don’t, but that does not mean we should not still oppose the excesses of Big Auto. I would argue that for ‘technological fixes’ to be useful and worthwhile they need to be reframed as technology to add to the human roster (like the wheel) and not as fixes at all. It is not right to be against GMs just because they are new tech, but it is important to criticize the systems treating this technology as a fix and what ideals that approach upholds.

I believe the main blockage that causes our inability to properly utilize technological advancements to end world hunger, for example, is that we make these advancements and immediately ask, ‘how can we exclude anyone else from using this technique/product without paying us first?’ I would be more in favour of technological advancements if their circulation were made more egalitarian in nature. Of course, patents are necessary to ensure that no dupes are made that compromise the effectiveness of whatever invention is in question, but, for example, as Tim Folger describes in his article ‘The Next Green Revolution’, patents also allow for the exploitation of farmers since their “[…] contract with Monsanto does not allow them to save seeds for planting; they must purchase its patented seeds each year” (Folger). This coupled with Scott’s explanation that “the costs of high-yield varieties and the technological input combined with the profits made from increased yields encourage[s] farmers to plant as much of their land as possible in the high yield [crops]. This decrease[s] the availability of a variety of foods and access to micronutrients [for the farmers]” (Scott 224). By forcing farmers to only plant one type of crop (both through legal means in the case of Monsanto and through profit motives) we limit their ability to feed themselves, and even their ability to grow varied crops and thus diversify their income, putting them in a precarious position. This example illustrates that while crops giving a higher yield and this advancement in technology in general is a good thing, the systems that distribute the technology still perpetuate and reproduce systems of inequality.

By framing advancements in technology as “fixes” we limit ourselves, by framing technology as something to be patented and sold we lose the ability to be truly helpful in society. As long as there is a profit motive in the fight to end world hunger, we choose not to end it.

• Renée

Sources:

Scott, Dane. “The Technological Fix Criticisms and the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 24, no. 3, June 2011, pp. 207–226. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=phl&AN=PHL2170640&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Lynas, Mark. “2013 Oxford Farming Conference”. Retrieved from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/56745320

Folger, Tim. “The Next Green Revolution”. National Geographic Magazine. Retrieved from the National Geographic website. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/green-revolution/

There are many reasons to go vegetarian, Noam Mohr’s ‘New Global Warming Strategy’ exemplifies the vegetarian that wants to lessen the effect of the meat industry on the environment, and Patrick D. Hopkins and Austin Dacey’s ‘Vegetarian Meat’ exemplifies the vegetarian that wants to stop the ill treatment of animals. I will argue that if both camps want vegetarianism to win out in society, they will need to join forces and fight with both perspectives in mind.

I want to start with Hopkins and Dacey’s ‘Vegetarian Meat’, and first say that fellow blog-contributor Olivia made some excellent points regarding their misrepresentation of meat-eaters as weak-willed and as only eating meat because it’s cleanly packaged at the grocery store and that they don’t think about the real animal that died. However, as Olivia correctly points out, many cultures have outdoor meat markets in which you can see the animal killed in front of you, and that many cultures have traditional dishes that involve meat and that it does not make people weak-willed for continuing to participate in these traditions. I would like to add to this line of reasoning that the advent of grocery stores has not made people more interested in meat, even if consumption is up due to availability, people have been hunting and farming their own meat for centuries. Reading this article as a resident of Alberta, land of Alberta Beef, it reads as patronising to claim that people wouldn’t eat meat if they saw it being killed, considering the many pig and goat roasts I was taken to as a child. Maybe there is something morally wrong with people who have the emotional fortitude to kill their own dinner, but the fact remains that they exist.

While I would argue that the majority of animal rights activists are interested in climate change and the environment (most likely due to its impact on animals/habitats) there are many environmentalists who focus their efforts in other directions than animal rights, such as sustainability of production, the transportation costs of food, on plastics and other elements of the fight. Many environmentalists consider meat morally and environmentally acceptable as long as it is local (to reduce transportation costs and therefore reducing emissions). These are people who are perfectly aware of the way their meat gets to them, they may even buy it in bulk, directly from the farm and feel better about it because it’s packaged in butcher’s paper rather than in plastic. However, they may not be aware, as Mohr’s points out, that “the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture” (pg2) and that “shifts in diet lower greenhouse gas emissions much more quickly than shifts away from the fossil fuel burning technologies that emit carbon dioxide” (pg3). Not knowing these things means that many environmentalists may end up spinning their wheels trying to make an impact without cutting out meat. By increasing education about what actions make the most environmental impact, rather than guilting people for not being as affected by animal suffering as the next person, Mohr’s concept of ‘Climatarianism’ would allow environmentalists to make more of an impact on the environment than they are currently doing, and would have the added benefit of decreasing animal suffering over time as people change their habits.

If during this transitional period the ‘cultured meat’ described by Hopkins and Dacey becomes more widely available, then people will be able to enjoy the meat they are used to without both the moral and the environmental implications (Hopkins & Dacey pg7).

By combining the environmental and animal rights perspectives in the vegetarian movement, both sides can make greater a far greater impact.

Sources:

Mohr, Noam. 2005. “A New Global Warming Strategy: How Environmentalists are Overlooking  Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool  Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes.” An EarthSave International Report. [http://www.earthsave.org/news/earthsave_global_warming_report.pdf ]

Hopkins, P.D., Dacey, A. Vegetarian Meat: Could Technology Save Animals and Satisfy Meat Eaters?. J Agric Environ Ethics 21, 579–596 (2008). https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1007/s10806-008-9110-0