A Funny Lesson
October 19th 2011 17:41
Your week is going well. If not, this should make you feel a little better:
But, it's also something we can examine. Conservation practices that aim only to mitigate a current problem are giving a man a fish. The problem is dealt with for a while and may even go away for a bit, but it's still recurring. Then someone comes up with a 'solution' (teaches the man to fish) and suddenly the problem is solved! Wrong. Many so called 'solutions' have had far reaching impacts that scientists and studies could never have predicted.
Take biofuels for example. Producing corn ethanol reduces use and reliance on petroleum fuels. But it diverts useful cropland to producing fuel, which is a much less efficient use of the same land. That means, somewhere, food prices are rising and more mouths have nothing to eat.
Or invasive species and protection of (non)endangered species. Introducing an invasive species more understood now than it was 50 years ago. But it still happens, at an alarming rate. More worrying is the trend of protecting a species to control another. In Wisconsin, wolves are protected so that they thin deer herds to reduce the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The side-effect is having domestic animal herds attacked as well.
So the next time you see a funny comic, picture, or video that makes the answer seem so clear, take a second and dig deeper. The true consequences may extend further than you think!
But, it's also something we can examine. Conservation practices that aim only to mitigate a current problem are giving a man a fish. The problem is dealt with for a while and may even go away for a bit, but it's still recurring. Then someone comes up with a 'solution' (teaches the man to fish) and suddenly the problem is solved! Wrong. Many so called 'solutions' have had far reaching impacts that scientists and studies could never have predicted.
Take biofuels for example. Producing corn ethanol reduces use and reliance on petroleum fuels. But it diverts useful cropland to producing fuel, which is a much less efficient use of the same land. That means, somewhere, food prices are rising and more mouths have nothing to eat.
Or invasive species and protection of (non)endangered species. Introducing an invasive species more understood now than it was 50 years ago. But it still happens, at an alarming rate. More worrying is the trend of protecting a species to control another. In Wisconsin, wolves are protected so that they thin deer herds to reduce the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The side-effect is having domestic animal herds attacked as well.
So the next time you see a funny comic, picture, or video that makes the answer seem so clear, take a second and dig deeper. The true consequences may extend further than you think!
| 24 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog