Please, Leader, stop insulting people who speak up about the loss of biodiversity by publicly labeling them tree huggers.

Google the phrase and you’ll find it’s a derogatory jab meant to demean people as foolish, annoying, overly emotional, and irrational. There were Ph.D scientists at last weekend’s rally, yet the Leader chose to begin with that insult. It set the tone for interpreting everything that followed. The photos sent a clear message, too — the one labeled “protesters” was blurry and disorganized-looking because it was taken after the rally, yet the other was in-focus, attentive, and labeled “loggers and their families.” 

I believe there were also families on the protester side, but portraying them as an indistinct bloc furthered the perception. The science that was finally discussed on Page 8 came too late to correct the bias, if readers even got that far.

Environmental advocacy comes from a deep and evidence-based conviction that we humans are destroying at an unsustainable pace what’s left of the ecological services that nature provides. Countless peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that old-growth forests mitigate the effects of climate change and loss of biodiversity, and that allowing legacy forests to survive and become old-growth can help mitigate timber harvest elsewhere. But it’s also about respect for, and a sense of belonging to, an ecosystem much larger than us. When presenting both sides of a story, good journalism suggests that our hometown paper should pay more attention to nuance and not use stereotypes that dismiss the seriousness of one side’s position. With what’s in store for us in adverse climate events coming sooner than later, there’s not enough time left to play games.

Karen Sullivan
PORT TOWNSEND