“Extinction is a Choice”

In a single week this past March, federal courts saved the Florida panther’s habitat and restored the Endangered Species Act (ESA), after seven years of litigation. The very next day, a panel of federal cabinet officials called the “God Squad” voted unanimously to exempt the entire Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry from that same law, citing “national security.” This month we tell both stories. The wins: a federal appeals court blocking a 10,264-acre development on top of panther habitat, the ESA getting most of its legal teeth back, anti-wildlife riders stripped from the 2026 funding bill, and the slow recovery of the North Atlantic right whale after years of advocacy. The exploitation: $8 million in oil industry lobbying, 17 anti-wildlife riders that did make it into law, a 26% gutting of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a Gulf whale species with fewer than 100 left on Earth currently fighting for its life. We close with a discussion of what the concept of “shifting baselines” means for how environmental degradation becomes normalized over time within each subsequent human generation.

Co-producers: Brittany Friedman and Olivia Aminatta Jobe

Resources:

“We Won Back Endangered Species Act Protections”

“U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for ‘national security’”

“North Atlantic ‘right whale’ population shows recovery”

“Lawsuit Seeks to Protect Endangered Florida Panthers From Massive Development”

“The shifting baseline syndrome as a connective concept for more informed and just responses to global environmental change”

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