by Dave Jackson » May 9, 2012 10:54 pm
I definitely understand where you're coming from on this, but here's the trouble, as I see it: being unconcerned about the swap (or even thinking that it's a good thing) assumes that Peabody Coal will act responsibly and comply with ESA, rather than skirting the law in every conceivable way. How many times has the general public assumed that because there are laws in place, companies will obey those laws, rather than breaking them and paying proportionately small fines after the fact? This is the reason that we are forced to resort to things like the Superfund. Here's a simple way to think about this: it is the job of Peabody Coal to do everything in their power to destroy whatever they need to destroy to earn money. It is their job to find every possible loophole in laws to enable them to earn as much as possible. To balance this massive force, it makes sense for people who care about bats to do what they can to prevent Peabody from having the chance to destroy endangered bats.
I'm also concerned about the idea that it will be a good thing for Peabody to "fund research to compensate for any habitat they might destroy." This looks like a Faustian bargain. This implies that it's fine to kill or further endanger endangered bats as long as money is provided to increase our human understanding. Very dangerous and flawed science, medicine and engineering are based on such ideas. In the past, species and artifacts have been entirely wiped out in the name of understanding them better. We often learn later that our methods and understanding at the time were primitive, and we are left with a weak understanding of an extinct species or destroyed artifact. It is my belief that we would benefit by thinking about the quote from medical ethics, "First, do no harm."
I should close by saying that I don't mean any offense with these comments, I'm just looking at this a little differently. Let me know what you think.