The Magic Word

It appears that trafficking in animal parts is not a mere environmental issue after all; hence the US State Department has been spurred into action against poachers in Africa and Asia. Besides tusks, horns and other bits and pieces, the more sophisticated poachers are also smuggling more up-to-date American aphrodisiacs such as drugs and guns; and to add insult to injury they are crossing national borders at will: an activity which in a well-ordered world should be the exclusive privilege of drone missiles, CIA torturers and cheap labour. Still, now that the magic word security has been invoked, the State Department has undergone a revelation about the undesirability of trafficking in body parts taken from endangered species. This opens up some potentially fruitful avenues for the environmental movement; although it remains to be seen whether a six-degree rise in global temperatures, with all the emergency provision opportunities afforded thereby, is a sufficiently marketable threat. Certainly, in comparison to the abolition of Christmas or Iran's weapons of mass nearlification, the Anthropogene Extinction Event has some catching up to do.