how well meant system solutions backfire...
Locked
how well meant system solutions backfire...
 
|
There’s a general principle that productivity
enhancing sustainable design eventually consumes more resources not
less. Here’s a good example from today’s Science
section of the NY Times. It forces you to think about the
whole system effects when you solve symptoms not problems… Productivity enhancements are profitable because they
relieve bottlenecks for the growth system….! People may
select them for the image of sustainability, but the bank funds them because of
the profit involved. The profit comes from facilitating the
rest of the system they’re part of. The multiplying side effects
of that are not noticed because no one considers them. That’s
also how we became dependent on the technologies that got us in trouble in the
first place… -------- -
Quoting from the article: NY Times 11/17/08
“… Drip
irrigation also generally increases crop yields, which encourages farmers to
expand acreage and request the right to take even more water, thus depleting
even more of it. “The indirect effect is very possibly to undermine
policy attempts to reduce water consumption,” Dr. Ward said.” Article pasted below, link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18obwater.html?ref=science
--
"it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding the
interest in what they say" -- Observatory Drip Irrigation May Not Be
Efficient, Analysis Finds Published: November 17, 2008 In
an effort to make irrigation more efficient — to obtain more “crop
per drop” — farmers have adopted alternatives to flooding and other
conventional methods. Among these is drip irrigation, shown above, in which
water flows only to the roots. Drip systems are costly, but they save much
water. Skip to next paragraph
Or do they? A hydrologic and economic analysis of
the Upper Rio Grande basin in the Southwest, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
suggests that subsidies and other policies that encourage conservation methods
like drip irrigation can actually increase water consumption. “The
take-home message is that you’d better take a pretty careful look at drip
irrigation before you spend a bunch of money on subsidizing it,” said
Frank A. Ward, a resource economist at New Mexico State University and author
of the study with Manuel Pulido-Velázquez of the Polytechnic University of
Valencia in Spain. With
flood irrigation, much of the water is not used by the plants and seeps back to
the source, an aquifer or a river. Drip irrigation draws less water, but almost
all of it is taken up by the plants, so very little is returned. “Those
aquifers are not going to get recharged,” Dr. Ward said. Drip
irrigation also generally increases crop yields, which encourages farmers to
expand acreage and request the right to take even more water, thus depleting
even more of it. “The indirect effect is very possibly to undermine
policy attempts to reduce water consumption,” Dr. Ward said. Policymakers,
he added, must balance the need for more food and for farmers to make a living
with water needs. “It’s fair to say that subsidies are very good
for food security and very good for farmer income,” Dr. Ward said.
“But they may be taking water away from other people.” More
Articles in Science » A version of this article appeared in print on
November 18, 2008, on page D3 of the New York edition. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |