(I usually opened our 1st year foundational course with the following)

Contrary to the way humans often think, most issues are not simple dichotomies of good versus evil, heroes versus villains, right versus wrong. There are so many biophysical variables and interactions, so many social variables and interactions, so many interactions between society and biophysical phenomena that resolving environment and resource issues requires a lot of brain cells and a willingness to seek the best evidence while avoiding personal biases and assumptions. This is why this field of work can be so tough – you cannot just be an expert in one discipline and you cannot hide away and pretend the world is made up of people who are all well educated and have noble motives.

Environmental and resource issues are dependent on the basic biophysical limitations with the attendant ability to use science to analyze these aspects. But decision making is complicated by the fact that science never offers certainty – it offers the most probable answer given the data available. There might not be enough data or evidence available to be very certain our environment and resource decisions are correct and yet we may have to make a decision nonetheless because the consequences of dithering or inaction are far worse than choosing the wrong action.

Decision making is of course influenced by people who all have a complex series of motives and ways to arrive at decisions. Rarely are motives purely good or purely evil. Usually, the motives are a combination of logic, emotion, objectivity, subjectivity, self-interest, and altruism. Motives will depend on the cultural history of an individual. Though some may claim to be motivated only and always by the “greatest good for all”, this is not always the case.

We may claim that we’re always fighting for a just cause.

Sometimes we are.

But sometimes we’ve just swallowed our own self-aggrandizing bullshit whole.

This can be viewed as a depressing state of affairs – the world is so complex and humans complex in themselves and hence can make very shortsighted and dumb decisions. The trick is to recognize this is the reality and that if you want to really make a difference in changing the world and resolving environment and resource issues you must do several things:
• Examine your own motives and how you get evidence and make decisions. The answer should be that you are weighing the rights of individuals and the common good – you are weighing short and long term outcomes.
• If you do this, have confidence that at least you are trying to make the best decision possible.
• As you push your agenda though, remember to ask yourself if you have truly done what I list first here – examine your motives and evidence acquisitions and the basis for your decisions and agenda.