Natural Resource Management

I ended up in the School of Agriculture. It's true that I was always interested in the environment but I got to the Ag school the long way around. First trying for Environmental Engineering (too much math and I found out that the major prepares you for building damns or running air conditioning for skyscrapers) then Environmental Science (everyone calls economics the dismal science but just take a look at the environment scientifically...an inconvenient truth, plus the science is kind of lab based and number crunching, not really hands on) and then found Natural Resource Management and have not stopped being interested in this yet! This major had (not too much calculus, just two semesters) and included all the topics I liked: political science, economics (also a social science (meaning the study of people) by the way, it's not just for business), and plant/animal/earth science, along with education in judicial system. The only thing this major missed on was the "how to" part of dealing with mismanagement of natural resources: How to actually replace the way we "efficiently allocate goods".

The answer from the view of economics would have to be: go to the top and change the rules. Since business and individuals, governments and organizations are behaving according to stresses and benefits, a proper re-defining of costs and benefits would suffice to change the directions of resource consumption. If the light was turned on by matching our laws more closely with natural laws, who would cut a tree 100 year old tree for a 15 year guarantee on siding, or a deck that lasts about 20 years that requires staining and sealing about every other year (with toxins that last for more than a hundred years) ?

From the answer of the business school: Get to work! There is so much money to be made in making these systems and products more clean, efficient and stress free. No longer does our economy require that we sell more to increase the quality of living but we can sell better. Why we have to buy tires every thirty thousand miles, because no one has discovered a better solution. Why we continue to drive, or sit in traffic: no one found a better solution. Now that we are beginning to open up to the "new" ideas, like public transport and energy efficient homes, I want to know where I can get on and how much it costs?

The answer from the arm chair yogi in me is that people are coming around well enough. Those that choose to take too much advantage of a good thing will in the end pay for it. But still I feel a need to give business back it's good name in that it serves a noble function: A relationship between have and "have-nots" or needs. It no longer has to be a relation of have and never will have or "now that I've got mine, I'll let you get yours". We'll both sleep better at night knowing that I don't envy my neighbor and I can afford all the food and vacation a person could want. It's not expensive to sleep on a beach all day but after a while I would feel like doing something!