>>10997716the “muh pandas” thing in the 90s. the world wildlife federation got real dominant in the mid 90s and they chose to prioritize saving the maladapted panda over trying to look at the big picture. same reason why they thought nuclear fission was bad—“oh look bad pictures of chernobyl, now stop nuclear” which only accelerated the oil surge.
basically the underlying reasons for both of these are that environmentalists in theory mean well but are mostly innumerate hippies who care more about muh feelings and muh pretty animal pics than real quantitative environmental science
