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Okay, I think it's my turn to have an opener.

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I don't know where I got this, but I could definitely tell you where it's from.

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It's from the conversation.com.

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Never heard of it before.

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Not sure where I found this article in true Chelsea fashion, February 12th, 2024.

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So probably over a year ago by the time this comes out.

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But an interesting article nonetheless, I was just flipping through articles and I'm

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going to settle on this one.

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And this one is titled, Fascinating and Troubling.

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Australians would rather save a single human life than prevent an entire species from becoming

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extinct.

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And yes, I am focusing on Australians right now.

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Need not where the tension be, but here we are nonetheless.

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I don't know who wrote this.

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Maybe it'll say at the end.

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Maybe it just appeared in the ether.

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No, I just, it just seems to be something that was sent to me at the moment.

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So we're just going to go with it.

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Oh, hold on.

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There's a bunch of authors.

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John Wanarski, Hurston Zander, and Steven Garnett, Professor of Conservation Biology,

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Professor of Environmental Economics, and Professor of Conservation and Sustainable

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Eiffelyhoods.

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Australia is in the grip of an escalating extinction crisis.

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Since colonization, 100 native plants and animal species have become formally listed

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as extinct due to human activities.

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The actual number is undoubtedly far higher.

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Studies suggest Australians want to prevent extinctions regardless of the financial cost

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when it comes to the crunch.

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How much do we really care?

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In emergency situations, there's a long held convention that official respondents such

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as firefighters first attempt to save human life, then property and infrastructure, then

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natural assets.

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Our research published today investigated whether this convention reflects community values.

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We found the people we surveyed valued one human life more than the extinction of an

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entire non-human species, a result both fascinating and troubling.

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Catastrophic events force us to make hard choices about what to save and what to abandon.

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In such emergencies, our choices reveal in stark detail the values we ascribe to different

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types of assets, including plant and animal species.

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Our priorities will become even more crucial under climate change, which is bringing worse

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bushfires and other environmental catastrophes.

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If nature is always safe last, we can expect recurring biodiversity losses including extinctions.

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The unprecedented loss of biodiversity in the black summer fires was a taste of what's

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to come.

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The fires burnt the entire known range of more than 500 plant and animal species and

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at least half the range of more than 100 threatened species.

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The catastrophe led to at least one extinction of a mealy bug species in western Australia.

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I don't know if I said that right, in English I'm pretty sure I'm at least 90% correct,

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in Australian I might be closer to 10%.

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It is a silly language.

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It is.

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It's almost like a joke language.

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The loss has prompted reflection on our priorities.

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The final report of a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into the bushfires, for example, question

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if this hierarchy of protection should always apply.

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Our new research investigated community values on this issue.

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The findings were illuminating.

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Survey involved 2,139 Australians.

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Respondents ranked the assets they would save in a hypothetical bushfire choosing from the

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following options.

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A person not warm to evacuate.

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A person who had ignored advice to evacuate and so implicitly taken responsibility for

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their own safety.

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A population of 50 koalas of which many other populations exist elsewhere.

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One of only two populations of a wallaby species.

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The only population of a native stale species which would become extinct if burnt.

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The only population of a native shrub species which would become extinct if burnt.

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A flock of 50 sheep.

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A house shed in tractor.

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Two items of indigenous cultural significance.

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A rock art gallery and a tree carving.

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Survey respondents overwhelmingly gave the highest ranking to the two options involving

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saving a human life.

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Even the idiot who said I don't have to evacuate.

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That's literally the next sentence.

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Even that idiot who said they were repeatedly told to evacuate.

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As a consequence to that person not evacuating, a snail or shrub species became extinct.

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Saving a person who had not received evacuation warnings was rated highest.

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Ahead of saving a person who ignored evacuation advice, saving the koala population was next

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preferred, followed by saving the wallaby population.

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I'm surprised at that.

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Yeah, it's a weird hypothetical.

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What would you save?

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It's one person or 50 koalas?

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I'd be like if I'm getting in my car I'm not getting 50 koalas.

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Okay everybody in.

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You know what?

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I'm the exact opposite.

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If I'm getting in my car I'm getting 50 koalas.

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There better be 50 koalas if there's no reason to get in there.

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There better be.

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Exactly.

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Like I'm not leaving without 50 koalas.

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Maybe our priorities are just different.

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Their remaining options had negative scores, meaning that respondents were more likely

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to choose them as least important than most important.

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I actually find this to be ranked fairly accurate.

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My qualm with it would be people would react different under the stress of it being real

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time if it was something they're reacting to within a fire.

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I wonder as well if it has to do with the pain that is immediately felt by the, I don't

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know why a wallaby would be under a koala.

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The wallaby versus koala is surprising to me.

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Maybe it's because they're more.

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But obviously the mammals are being saved first other than actually steep rank understrap.

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So I'm not sure about that one.

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Wallabies are kind of like the deer.

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They're basically small kangaroos, right?

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I'm pretty sure they're like small little kangaroos.

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Maybe they just hate wallabies there because they see them all the time.

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Yeah that could be.

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If it was deer, I would have the same thing like why would you want a deer in your car?

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Yeah exactly.

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I don't think kangaroos or wallabies are nice but I'm surprised by this.

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It seems like the things that are most susceptible to extinction were put at the bottom of the

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list pretty much.

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Looking at the list right now, a shed is actually last on the list so.

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You can't save a shed.

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It was on the list apparently.

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That makes me sick.

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I don't, that's such a weird hypothetical to ask people though.

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I feel like that's one of those like team building exercises where they say you're on

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a raft to Desert Island where you're going to spend the next 50 years.

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What do you bring with you of these things?

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Yeah my shed.

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There's a lot of good stuff in there.

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Such useful shit.

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Okay I'm just going to read a little bit more.

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Oh no I didn't want to see that poor burnt koala.

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Amongst the biodiversity assets, decisions based on conservation consequences would have

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meant the top priority with preventing the extinction of the snail and shrub populations.

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Next in line would have been the wallaby population then a relatively less consequential loss

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of koalas.

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But the results were the opposite.

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People prioritized the koalas over the wallabies with less concern for the shrub and the snail.

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Ranked even lower were the items and indigenous cultural significance saving the house and

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shed at lowest range.

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Okay well at least that makes sense.

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I think that's far enough, it does go on not that much longer but I think we get the

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gist.

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I would be interested even thinking about it right now.

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Would I rank this?

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I think I would put human who was not notified that it was sprung upon.

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Then I would do at least three snails.

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Do you have to find the snails?

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That's true.

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Why didn't we think about this?

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To prevent the snails going extinct.

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Saying that there's a huge risk, why don't we save the snails to begin with?

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I don't know snails are probably kind of hard to save.

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Instead of you know going looking for them when they're in flames.

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So I feel like I would go that person who put their safety, I don't think an entire

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two species should go extinct for a person ignoring evacuation advice.

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I'm sorry I don't.

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Because you're putting yourself before who even knows how many species you're ignoring

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evacuation orders.

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So sorry.

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I'd be admitting this on a blog.

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It's fine.

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I don't know.

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Just don't be near Chelsea during a fire.

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I think that's a reasonable thing to do.

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I think the more endangered species take the priority in this as sad as it is.

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It doesn't mean don't leave the koalas.

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It means probably find the ones so we don't wipe them off the earth first.

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And if you find 50 koalas on your way to the shrub or the snail, you might be looking

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for the snails for a long time.

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You'll probably be looking a long time and also that means you know which snails are

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endangered snails.

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Which I'm not up to date enough to know which things in my neighborhood are endangered and

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I need to save in case of fire.

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It's a good thing somebody conveniently keeps a pen of koalas who are trained to jump into

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a car near me.

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But outside of that, it's really hard to save animals.

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I love going to that person's house.

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And just open my car door and going get in.

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And then you speed around with a bunch of koalas for a while.

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But hey, you guys got 48 hours.

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Are you going to save plant, a cactus, three quarters that I found in my ashtray, or syphilis

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riddled ducks?

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You got 48 hours to figure it out before I start the fire, so that's up to you.

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Okay, bye.