Nature Today Is Anything but ‘Natural’: The Myth of the Wild

Nearly all of the earthworms in New England and the upper Midwest were inadvertently imported from Europe. The American earthworms were wiped out by the last Ice Age. That’s why when European colonists first got here, many forest floors were covered in deep drifts of wet leaves. The wild horses of the American West may be no less invasive than the Asian carp advancing on the Great Lakes. Most species of the tumbleweed, icon of the Old West, are actually from Russia or Asia.

The notion that America was “wild” when Europeans found it is more than a little racist; it assumes that Indians didn’t act like humans everywhere else did by changing their environment. Native Americans weren’t Ur-hippies taking only photos — or I guess drawings — and leaving only footprints. They cultivated plants, cleared forests with extensive burning to boost the population of desired animals, and otherwise altered the landscape in ways that may have seemed natural to newcomers but were nonetheless profound. As biologist Charles Kay observes, “Native Americans were the ultimate keystone species, and their removal has completely altered ecosystems . . . throughout North America.”

Kay goes on to note that when we set aside a “wilderness” and then let “nature take its course,” we aren’t preserving “some remnant of the past.” We are instead creating “conditions that have not existed for the last 10,000 years.”

And even then, these supposedly wild places aren’t truly wild. That’s because to the extent they are preserved in their seemingly natural state, it is by humanity’s will. Also, the remaining wild animals in those places are often the ones we decided should live or didn’t accidentally kill. And the plants and animals that ate — or were eaten by — those creatures have never been the same. Without humans, the evolution of dogs, cows, pigs, and chickens wouldn’t have proceeded the way it has.

The wild environment isn’t just about trees and bears and other forms of charismatic mega flora and fauna. I heard Bill Gates on NPR the other day talking about the great strides his foundation has made against malaria and how we may be on the brink of actually eradicating polio forever. Diseases play a huge part of any natural ecosystem, and we’ve been trying to drive them to extinction for centuries.

In other words, we pick and choose all the time what should be “wild” and what shouldn’t.

Last year, the salmon catch in southeast Alaska was the largest ever recorded. It may have been because controversial scientist-businessman Russ George, under contract with the Haida tribe in British Columbia, dumped 120 tons of iron sulfate into the ocean. The idea was to create a phytoplankton bloom that would in turn create feeding grounds for zooplankton, which in turn provide food for salmon and, in turn, the critters that eat them. Supporters believe George’s experiment was a win-win-win all the way up the food chain, for grizzly bears and lox-and-bagel aficionados alike. Skeptics want more data, arguing — fairly — that the experiment needs more study.

Geoengineering proponents hope that such techniques might one day be used to sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere (though studies are mixed on this score), thus diminishing the need for wealth-crushing fossil fuel prohibitions while making food cheaper for humanity. In principle, carbon sequestration is no more outrageous than draining swampland to eradicate malaria and create farmland.

As Robert Zubrin recently wrote on National Review Online, George’s efforts have been condemned by U.N. bureaucrats, environmentalists, and many scientists. The scientists are understandably cautious; the bureaucrats claim George may have violated some treaties.

But some of the ideological responses Zubrin cited are ridiculous. Naomi Klein, writing in 2012, was excited to see so many killer whales when she was in British Columbia on vacation. But when it dawned on her that the orcas might be there to partake of George’s “all you can eat seafood buffet,” she was horrified. In a world of geoengineering, she lamented, “all natural events can begin to take on an unnatural tinge. . . . A presence that felt like a miraculous gift suddenly feels sinister, as if all of nature were being manipulated behind the scenes.”

— Jonah Goldberg is the author of The Tyranny of Clichés, now on sale in paperback.

The wild horses of the American West may be no less invasive than the Asian carp advancing on the Great Lakes.

The story of horses is more involved and imo more interesting than this.

In the standard model, horses evolved in America and spread to Eurasia. They then went extinct in America, at the same time as many other large animals, quite possibly due to overhunting by the ancestors of the American Indians.

If the ancestors of the Indians hadn't wiped out horses, the Indians might have had wheels, carts and cavalry when Europeans showed up, and given them a much harder fight.

There's a concept likely to make a PC-person's head explode!

However, to get back to whether horses are invasive. Let's assume horses evolved here and were wiped out by human action. (Yes, Virginian, Indians really are humans, not an exotic species of wildlife.)

Then Europeans showed up and returned horses to America.

How does that differ in concept, other than in timespan, from reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone? Except of course that it makes Indians "the bad guys," and white men "the good guys."

There are two ways to look at this. The first is from the point of view of rational ecological management, what I would call “conservative, results oriented management”.

A good example of this is Ducks, Unlimited. An organization of duck hunters, they thought there were too few ducks on the west coast, so sought to naturally produce more. They created a few wetlands, and made a few minor changes that were conducive to ducks.

And pretty soon there were so many ducks that natural controls, like disease, came into play to reduce their numbers.

The bottom line is that if there are too few plants or animals, to “make more”, breed a surplus to be released in the wild. While their attrition is high, they are generally healthier, with fewer parasites, and inject new life and strength into the wild population.

However, the other way to look at environmentalism is the “leftist way”, which does not result in positive change, but is instead designed to restrict humanity, and promote shortage.

The end result of leftist environmentalism is ecological catastrophe. For example, the communists wiping out Czechoslovakia’s grand and picturesque forests with industrial pollution; pollution so foul that it caused a drastic increase in birth defects in humans and animals. Entire rivers fouled with pollution, and thousands of square miles horribly contaminated with radioactive isotopes throughout their domain.

No matter what they promise, this is the disaster that leftists deliver. No matter how bright eyed and enthusiastic they are about “restoring nature”, their touch never heals, it only curses and kills.

If you want to imagine what the environment would look like with leftists in charge, look at Mordor, where the Dark Lord Sauron held sway. He must have been a Democrat.

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here. There may be some potential for confusion because the word "natural" is used with various meanings, some of them overlapping, some complementary and some even contradictory.

"Natural Law," for instance, involves an in-depth appreciation of what is unique about our rational natures; and a rational nature includes the capacity to alter our environments and even some aspects of ourselves. So you've got an inbuilt paradox there.

Here's a handy example of this paradox in the specialized field of Natural (Moral) Law: contraceptives would violate Natural Law even if they grew on trees; NFP would not violate Natural Law even if it required a computer.

Jonah G. is surely right when he says a kind of pristine --- meaning "pre-human" --- nature is long gone. Everything in the Creation has borne the impact of human influence, some of it benevolent and some of it not. (In the latter category is the impact of Original Sin, if you want to get into that.)

Not sure if these comments of mine are helpful. I hope I have not been too obscure. Let me just say you have to carefully define what you mean by "nature" and "natural" before you talk about it.

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