"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.’ ”) 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 for local voters (and contributions to his campaign war chest). Nothing you can say about the value of rhinos for ecotourism in South Africa will ever matter to a wildlife trafficker who can sell their horns for $30,000 a pound in Vietnam.

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”?

A. a slippery slope, because if people value money over animals, they might start valuing money over people
B. a fallacy, because if people’s motivation is money, they might sometimes choose money over preserving nature
C. a false dichotomy, because it presents the idea that there are two opposite choices
D. a bias, because choosing the value of nature over the value of money is a personal judgment

Answer 1

The author would likely describe the idea that “we can persuade people to save nature by making it possible for them to sell it” as:

B. a fallacy, because if people’s motivation is money, they might sometimes choose money over preserving nature.

This option aligns with the author's critique of measuring nature's value solely in terms of economic benefits, suggesting that this perspective might lead to circumstances where financial incentives take precedence over genuine conservation efforts. The argument highlights a concern that emphasizing the usefulness of nature in financial terms could undermine its intrinsic value.