Corn has duped us again

I found this video of Michael Pollan on the TED.com lecture series. Here he argues that perhaps humans aren't the pinnacle of evolution, but just one species duped by another into fertilizing and spreading another. It's a humorous but fascinating view of ecological systems - one that he argues may help us all address current and future food security crises.

The approach is also useful for considering other natural hazards. Much flood mitigation debate is stuck in the "nature wins, we loose" or vise versa. Lewis county commentaries on the recent December flooding often pit environmental policies for preserving stream ecological systems for salmon habitat against flood victims, arguing that debris buildup and dredging restrictions causes more extensive flooding. Others arguments for why flooding occurred pit marshland protection against developers. What we need to look for is solutions enhance human and non-human system interactions.