Um...what are we debating here now? It sort of drifted to hierarchy of workplace positions to saving babies or puppies....anyway:

puppies, kitties, and other sentient creatures can feel pain; our actions, knowing this, should reflect this truth and act accordingly. Meaning we shouldn't cause a sentient creature pain. Now this brings up the whole argument over whether pain is good or why we should do good, but I'm not getting into it (I really would like to, but if I did it'd all degenerate into pro-good rhetoric anyway because we like good things like chocolate and pies and cake and donuts). So if a puppy and a baby were both drowning there would be a moral dilemma, because you know that both could die, and either dying is a bad thing. However you would definitely save the baby. My only argument is that saving a baby (assuming that if you went for the baby first you would succeed or something) potentially creates a better good than saving the puppy. The puppy would only grow to be a dog, and while dogs potentially can save lives and be helpful and aide the blind and all sorts of marvellous things, a human can potentially do more. So the 'potential greater good' argument is my stance.

There's all sorts of arguments for environmentalism so I'm not even going to touch that until a thread or a heated discussion starts.