The author would describe the idea that "we can persuade people to save nature by making it possible for them to sell it" as a fallacy, because if people's motivation is money, they might sometimes choose money over preserving nature. In the passage, the author's tone indicates skepticism about reducing nature to a commodity that can be bought and sold, suggesting that this approach might ultimately undermine genuine conservation efforts.
"Useless
Creatures" by Richard Conniff
Improbably, wildlife conservationists now also often hear the call of the useful. Along with a large contingent of eco-finance bureaucrats, they try to save threatened habitats by reminding nearby communities of all the benefits they derive from keeping these habitats intact. Forests, meadows and marshes prevent floods, supply clean water, provide habitat for species that pollinate crops, put oxygen into the atmosphere and take carbon out, and otherwise make themselves useful. In some cases, conservation groups or other interested parties actually put down cash for these ecosystem services-paying countries, for instance, to maintain forests as a form of carbon sequestration. The argument, in essence, is that we can persuade people to save nature by making it possible for them to sell it. They can take nature to the bank, or at least to the local grocery. They can monetize it. (The new revised version of Genesis now says, "God made the wild animals according to their kinds, and he said, 'Let them be fungible?'
Use the passage to answer the question.
How would the author describe the idea that "we can persuade people to save nature by making it possible for them to sell it"?
(1 point)
a fallacy, because if people's motivation is money, they might sometimes choose money over preserving nature
a bias, because choosing the
• value of nature over the value of money is a personal judgment
a slippery slope, because if people value money over animals, they might start valuing money over people
a false dichotomy, because it
• presents the idea that there are two opposite choices
I understand the logic, or at least the desperation, that drives conservationists to this horrible idea. It may seem like the only way to keep what's left of the natural world from being plowed under by unstoppable human expansion and by our insatiable appetite for what appears to be useful. But usefulness is precisely the argument other people put forward to justify destroying or displacing wildlife, and they generally bring a larger and more persuasive kind of green to the argument. Nothing you can say about 100 acres in the New Jersey Meadowlands will ever add up for a politician who thinks a new shopping mall will mean more jobs fopage 1 of 1
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