The Tyranny of Bad Decisions
In William Odum’s piece Environmental Degradation and the Tyranny of Small Decisions he makes a relatively convincing case for how independent actions often shape larger policies. As he states, “A series of small, apparently independent decisions are made… [and] [t]he end result is that a big decision occurs (post hoc) as an accretion of these small decisions; the central question is never addressed directly at the higher decision making levels.” Certainly this is the case in some instance, like a farmer who owns forest land at the end of his plot that decides to convert it for higher profit. Essentially, he boils it down to an economic issue- independent actions motivated by personal profit that lacks a larger sense of ecosystem integrity. He cites several issues that can be attributed to such processes, such as desertification, declining fisheries and forests, overuse of pesticides and more.
However, I do not think that it is safe to say that the world is in disrepair entirely do to small decisions. Such logic almost entirely absolves governing bodies of responsibility in the issue, something I am not willing to do. Small decisions are governed by individuals yes, but the actions of individuals are in large part decided by the law. If a farmer did not have the right to remove old growth in certain areas the rate of deforestation would drop dramatically. The function of law in many ways mirrors the level of decision making discussed in Donald Worster’s Thinking Like a River. Although he is discussing watersheds, the theory can be extrapolated and should; just as a river should be dealt with on a holistic scale–the watershed as “a complex whole, uniting biota, geochemistry, and energy in a single, interdependent system, in a dynamic balanced set of countervailing forces- erosion and construction, productivity and grace”–so should too a nation be governed based on the various ecosystem units that comprises it.
The main point that I feel truly damns government is the Homestead Acts of the pioneer days. By offering extremely cheap land in the arid west (for farming) the government essentially promoted extreme irrigation use, which leads to groundwater salinization, declining water tables, and rivers no longer reaching areas down stream (the Colorado river for example). Surly such environmental degradation and water stress was not the aggregate of small decisions. It was the result of economic policy being placed over the scientific reality of the situation. It was a purely bad decision, made by higher government powers.
As the section is called, Fragmentation and Cultural Flaws, it is clear to see that there is an overarching cultural flaw the permeates from both the the tyranny of small decisions and those that just blatantly ignore scientific basis. Greed. It is the need for personal material gain- generally money. On the small scale it is more understandable, the farmer who wants better for his children, but on the large scale there is a definite ethical black area when politicians make bad decision for personal gain. As such I feel that the only solution is a spin off of thinking like a river, thinking as a People. How can we overcome environmental adversity? It requires a cultural shift from “me” being the most important aspect of life, to “us” taking a far more prominent role. Only then will we be freed from the Tyranny of Bad Decisions.