The drive south through Myanmar was a front-row seat for the environmental apocalypse being wrought by globalization. The landscape oscillated between giant old-growth triple-canopy jungle and swaths of clear-cut agriculture. As in Africa and most of Southeast Asia, Chinese companies had fallen on the region like a biblical plague, buying up the jungle, stripping it of all the old wood, and replacing it with banana trees, nut palms, and other crops that thrived in tropical climes. The whole world was for sale, Knight observed, and no amount of shopping at Whole Foods, or clicktivists’ retweeting statistics, or protests at liberal universities could stop the invisible iron fist of economics. Soon, Earth would be nothing more than a giant tennis ball covered with the green fuzz of billions of acres of farms. And perhaps someday, that green fuzz would be gone too.

As he crossed into northern Thailand, jungles once again sprang from the earth. The Thai government had not yet sold itself off to outside influences. But rather than give Knight hope, it only reminded him how much was yet to be lost—a sentiment reinforced on the way into Chiang Mai, when he passed several new coffee plantations that had been hacked out of the rain forest.

Knight arrived at the Tiger Palace in the early afternoon. To make time on the road, he had held off on eating lunch, and he was relieved to see that the zoo carried a wide array of Western food options, such as club sandwiches and Johnnie Walker Red, both of which were needed after a long day bouncing down cratered roads that made him feel as if he were in a sweltering paint shaker.

After a quick meal and two fingers of Johnnie Red, he explored the popular tourist attraction, which was mostly populated by Caucasian visitors in tank tops and shorts. Though the zoo seemed like so many others he had insured in the United States, this one offered something extraordinary. For fifteen dollars, visitors could go into the cages and play with tiger cubs and even adolescents. Knight watched two teenage German girls flash the peace symbol as they snapped a photo with one of the larger cats, which was rapidly approaching adulthood. It was a striking image to take in and enough to make a risk assessor’s hair stand on end.

Knight paid to enter one of the cages, where a baby white tiger was curled up half asleep. He had seen white tigers before. They were a rare albino breed of Bengal that were popular on the Las Vegas magic circuit or as exotic trophy pets. It was an important clue to the true nature of this place that billed itself as a tiger “conservation” facility. The fact that white tigers originated in India meant that either this place was committed to rescuing a broad, international array of highly rare and desirable cats, or it was actively breeding them for exploitation.