A Stitch in Haste

Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
when looked at with an ice-cold eye?
--"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished," Wicked

All tastes and preferences are subjective. That includes people's tastes and preferences for saving the planet:

[R]esearch shows our fondness for particular animals could have detrimental effects on preservation efforts. These so-called "glamour animals" dominate fundraising campaigns and news headlines, siphoning money away from more needy -- if less photogenic -- creatures, according to some experts.
...
In a 1998 issue of Conservation Biology, Czech et al. found that "advantaged subjects," including birds, mammals and fish, were under the protection of significantly more nongovernmental organizations. The allocation of benefits from the U.S. Endangered Species Act were similarly skewed.

The Politics of Pull becomes the Politics of Plush. Go figure.

There is of course nothing wrong with private persons prioritizing their charitable giving toward some environmental causes over others, just as there is nothing wrong with giving money to scholarship funds rather than to disease research. All tastes and preferences are subjective.

But perhaps a tad bit of humility, and "an ice-cold eye," are warranted among the Greens and the animal-welfare activists. There is a difference between "saving the Earth" and "saving just the parts of the Earth that you happen to think are cute."

Politicians and bureaucrats, meanwhile, have a more explicit obligation: to administer environmental laws (however wise or foolish they may be) as logically and objectively as possible. A species is either endangered or it isn't; an ecosystem is either threatened or it isn't. If you want to be a central planner, then you have to take the bitter with the sweet, and the ugly with the cute.

Meanwhile, my long-standing thesis remains: the best way to preserve the environment is to buy it.