An Environmental Outcry

Extinction By Traditional Chinese Medicine – An Environmental Disaster

As China’s massive energy and economic development spawns the largest middle class in history, it’s also creating the largest upper and middle class population on the planet. And they are causing another type of environmental disaster – extinction of endangered species through poaching.

An epidemic of poaching is sweeping the world fueled by the rising rich of China and Asia. Endangered species are being killed at an increasing rate for the sole crime of being the core of bizarre cultural traditions. Caught in this frenzy of nasty rituals are animals like the rhinoceros, which as a species may not be long for this world.

Despite entreaties from the United Nations and many western governments, there is a dense silence from the governments on the receiving end of these body parts. We see this over and over in developing countries on every issue from worker rights to environmental destruction. “The West had its way on this, so why can’t we?”

True. Europe had the original spoiled-rotten rich folks who for centuries could buy whatever, and whomever, they wanted. Then came the United States and its nouveau riche and robber barons who wanted even more trophies of their wealth. Then the Japanese in the second half of the last century did their obnoxious newly-rich stuff. All of these people, and even the not-so-rich, want symbols or rewards for what they see as their achievement in rising to a level previously reserved only for the aristocracy.

And now the Chinese and other rising economies are producing an even bigger population with disposable incomes sufficient to feed their tastes for the traditions that are forbidden or just expensive, things like mixed bat blood and monkey’s milk, meat of a camel’s hump, or plain old hedgehog’s genitals.

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