Stop Being Unequal, You Things!

It's a useful phrase: "all other things being equal." It usually means something like, "if everything else stays the same except the variable I'm talking about..."

So, "if I just study more, then, all other things being equal, I'll get better a better grade." Here we're assuming the coursework will not get harder as you go, and that the professor doesn't take a sudden mysterious dislike to you. And that the lovely face of a new classmate doesn't distract you from following the lecture. (You're counting freckles like stars).

Now, keeping this phrase, "all things staying equal," in mind, here's a phenomenon I'm noticing these days, in environmental reporting.

On the one hand I'm seeing a lot of reports on strategies of response. On how to deal with this and that problem by changing this or that variable. What's often implicit in these reports is an "all things being equal" state. 

On the other hand, I'm also noting a large number of reports on how quickly things are changing in the natural and the built environment. Not, in fact staying equal. 

In other words I'm noting contradictions. Competing voices that, if you play them against each other, add up to a pretty big HMMM of inequality.

For instance, a bunch of experts recently got together to address the significant problem of falling fish populations. The problem, as they see it, is mostly in our catch policies, and all that needs to be done is such and such. Here's an article about it. And hey let's assume these people really are right. That all other things being equal, with a few intelligent policy changes, our fishies might be breeding prolifically, and once again filling our nets with lightning flashes of silver.

Ah, but wait:

Maybe all other things are not staying equal! Maybe the oceans are getting hotter. Maybe the phytoplankton is dying. Maybe a fish population that's intelligently managed still won't be able to grow because it's being asked to spawn in a hot tub without food.

HMMM.

Or take the challenge of farming on land in an age of rising populations. Here's an article full of of ideas, mostly about how to use the farmland we have more efficiently. 

But wait, we also want electricity. And, being the clever species that we are, we now aspire to produce our electricity as cleanly and efficiently as possible. So, bring on the wind farms, bring on the solar farms! Wait, did someone say farms?  

Turns out that farmers, at least in certain locations, are leasing out their land to renewable power companies, as a hedge against fluctuations in commodity prices. No surprise there. But um, if more and more farmers follow the same strategy, what consequences might that have for general food production? The article doesn't really address that question. 

HMMM.

All this is just intended as observation. I'm simply saying that I'm noting these sorts of contradictions more and more, and that I think they're worth keeping an eye on. Worth pondering. Knowing that they exist might, just might, prevent us from making naive assertions about how easy it will be to fix this or that, with just a bit of clever tinkering. Or for that matter by means of any kind of intervention at all. Except to our own behavior. 

We might for instance consider interventions and adjustments in the unfamiliar vectors of modesty, humility, restraint, and reverence. Or would that be expecting too much?

HB