Category Archives: Sustainability

Feedback and Unintended Policy Consequences

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Today has been a day to reflect on the way things actually work and the perverse outcomes that sometimes obtain when we do what seems logical…meaning, of course, that unintended consequences are everywhere. —– Over the past 20 years or so, perhaps more, environmental advocacy groups (Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, etc.) have trained their guns on industrial agriculture, especially industrial ANIMAL agriculture, arguing that the larger our “animal factories” (their term, not mine!) become, the greater risk they pose to the environment. The logical conclusion they reach is… Read More →

Sustainability Conversation?

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In my work as an environmental researcher and Extension specialist, I spend a lot of time with people who work on “sustainability issues.”  I suppose my work is “sustainability related,” too.  And hardly a week goes by in the popular media without someone making a bold claim that this enterprise or that enterprise is “unsustainable.”  (Usually, it’s meat consumption in some form or other; more often than not, beef consumption is the bête noir.) But I don’t have a good fix on what I mean when I use the… Read More →