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March 5, 2024

A recent study of beaver dams in northwestern Alaska concludes that the explosive repopulation of Arctic terrain by beavers is thawing large areas of tundra and releasing climate-destroying methane. 

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The purported negative climate impact of northern beavers regarding methane is the polar opposite of the vaunted benefits of southern beaver populations which climate scientists have for years claimed sequester vital carbon and rescue humanity from climate change.  The dichotomy between the two beaver populations is paralleled by the tensions between animal rights activists’ views of fur trapping. 

Is it O.K. to trap animals to save the planet?

The beaver problem in Canada and other northern climes is attributed to anthropomorphic causes – warming temperatures and reduced trapping.  Beavers are populating these areas in explosive numbers.  The resultant locust-like beaver onslaught has caused even the study’s authors to raise concerns about how to counter the beaver infestation and protect the planet.  This posture is reverse-mirrored by earlier laments that beavers were unavailable to save the Earth in North America because of European colonizers who trapped them to obscurity.  Trapping, like beavers, appears to be morally climate-binary: It is an “evil” practice against good climate beavers; a “good” practice against bad ones.

Equity and Beaver Fever

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If equity is thrown into the mix, climate assessments get muddied into inscrutable darkness. Earlier beaver loss arguments scolded white people.  One glowing article titled “How the Eager Beaver Helps Protect the Planet” claimed:

Before the European colonization of North America, there were likely hundreds of millions of beavers. Many Indigenous communities revered them as keepers of water and some had strict policies against killing beavers. But the value of beaver pelts and oil—as fashionable fur hats and perfumes in Europe—lured trappers across the continent and beavers were nearly eliminated from the landscape as a result of heavy exploitation. In the process, our waterscapes became less complex, less resilient, and less able to support diverse plant, animal, and human life.

Now scientists allege that Canadians need lots of trappers ASAP to save the world from pesky beavers and suggest beaver meat will make good human food. 

Perhaps the native Canadian tribes whose fur and trapping industry has been thoroughly throttled by progressive animal rights activists will thrive by reducing bad climate beavers.  If that solution is pursued, will white people be denied permits to hunt and eat beaver, or is the climate mission paramount?  Likewise, does putting a colored person on the moon help the environment (as NASA has proclaimed it will do), or are the jet fuels and other pollution colorblind?

This quandary highlights the unavoidable tension between histrionic social justice initiatives.  At times, humanity must choose between competing interests when they are not in accord, such as men’s “rights” to be women versus women’s identity in sports, bathrooms, etc.  As the social justice destruction of the world unfolds, social justice warriors fashioning their plans to create a true Utopia will continually run aground on these inconvenient truths.  Not all paths to “equity” and world salvation coincide.

Attempting to rewrite history on an oppressor-oppressed narrative fails epicly every time.  The Cree Indians who depended (and still depend) on fur trapping used the profits to purchase goods from Europeans – apparently, it was bad for Europeans to trap, but good for Natives.  This patently racist conclusion eludes social justice warrior awareness because logic is not permitted to eclipse feelings.

The Canadian beaver infestation presents this awkward contrast in bold relief.  Shall trapping be encouraged to save the world from beaver methane, or shall the world perish and all humanity (and beavers) die because crazed animal “rights” advocates lay on the road to stop “inhumane” trapping?  These are moral judgments, emanating from a morally deluded cadre of agitators whose sole moral compass appears to be identifying something to attack and destroy.

The intersectionality of conflicting ideologies