Robby Schetlick
AP Biology
Mr. Ippolito
3/8/18
Citation:
Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ. "A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 March 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180307100718.htm>
Sciencedaily recently posted an article, “A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity” that analyzed some conclusions from a current, published scientific study. Researchers from Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research published an article in Global Change Biology proposing a solution to the rapidly increasing loss of biodiversity across the planet. Increasing agricultural production usually leads to decline in wildlife and loss of ecosystem functions, but this study suggests that by redistributing our global land use could avoid 88% of the future expected loss of biodiversity. If countries somehow dropped their national boundaries, lead author Luka glil says, “global optimization implies that species-rich countries, mainly in the tropics, would be more responsible for safeguarding the world's natural resources-- at the expense of their own production opportunities and economic development.” This would allow for better agricultural and land use planning which makes it more land efficient to produce common food crops. Even if countries were unwilling to go global, just 10 countries could still reduce the expected global biodiversity loss by a third if they followed researcher’s decisions on a national level. Countries including “India, Brazil, or Indonesia” would have the greatest effect on making global agricultural production more sustainable. All countries participating could reduce it by as much as 61 percent.
This article is proof that Globalism is becoming increasingly necessary in our world. While it is true that strong national pride is a way to protect tradition and culture, what good are those things when our planet is dying around us? Creatures that we maybe haven’t even discovered yet could be dead before we get the chance. And it is not just this problem that is emerging because of our focus on our differences, but many other political and ecological problems as well. For example, just recently President Trump decided to put a heavy tariff on steel and aluminum claiming to help American business. But what this really does it create a lot of inefficiency on the global scale (and actually hurts American car producers). The America- first or any other country first mindset is definitely a dangerous one for our societies to continue to take going forward, as it causes us to overlook morally greater problems such as the ones described in the article.
The article is strong because it is efficient—short and to the point. It is credible because it cites all of its sources, and is a longstanding trusted source of science news. It maintains a fairly neutral stance which makes it more professional and accurate. The greatest flaw is that it is lacking in detail regarding some of the statistics, and could benefit from having a more in depth explanation of what they mean and how they are calculated, as some readers might not even know what terms like “global biodiversity.” However, their stylistic choice to economise their words makes scene in that is it meant to be a quick read rather than a lengthy analysis, as evidenced by the hyperlink to a longer original article.
Jack Kochansky
ReplyDeleteAP Biology EF Even
Mr. Ippolito
17 March 2018
“A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity”
By The Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ
Reviewed by Robby Schetlick
Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ. “A Global Conflict: Agricultural Production vs. Biodiversity.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 7 Mar. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180307100718.htm.
Today, I read through Robby’s review of the article “A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity” from Sciencedaily, and he did a great job on this current events assignment. First of all, he chose a very relevant topic, today especially, as we are dealing with both poverty and ecological loss globally. He explains why it matters so much well. Also, Robby effectively used his relevance paragraph to make connections to other current events, such as the new steel tariff, to build easy-to-understand analogies. This helps readers to understand the importance of the study’s findings and what the proposition entails. Finally, Robby’s critique paragraph was strong yet concise. He explains that the brevity and neutrality of the article made it interesting and professional and also describes what could have done better in an easily understandable way.
However, there were also a few ways that Robby could have made his article a little better. For example, I felt like his explanation of the study’s findings was a little confusing, and I do not fully understand what he means. If he had gone into some more detail there, it would have made his review even stronger. Also, while Robby’s inclusion of an analogy to Trump’s steel tariff helps us to understand this proposition, it felt like we could have used a little more information in the relevance paragraph. If had had talked more about the difficult food situation in poor countries and compared it with details of biodiversity loss, it could have further highlighted the dilemma that countless people constantly face. In general, though, the review was very well done.
Although I already knew some things about the loss of biodiversity in the world, every new study that makes a breakthrough is so important. I never considered how much of a difference minimizing national border boundaries could make on improving biodiversity and agriculture at the same time, but it goes to show how every little societal thing has a huge impact on the environment. If we reconsidered small things that we do that have big consequences for the natural world, we could make a big difference in assuaging the environmental and ecological problems we have already created. It is definitely a minor change worth considering to go a long way.