ECOLOGY
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come … and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
—Rev. 11:18
1294 Parachuting Cats Into Borneo
According to Dr. LaMont Cole, noted Cornell University ecologist, some years ago in Borneo, there was an epidemic of malaria. Health officers had the whole area sprayed with DDT to kill the mosquitoes.
The insecticide poisoned and partially paralyzed flies, which became easy prey to insect-eating lizards. The lizards became diseased from the DDT in the flies. The lizards, usually able to escape cats, were being killed off by the cats, and the cats in turn died.
That allowed the rat population to flourish, and a plague threatened the population. It got so bad that they had to parachute cats into Borneo!
Just one example. In creating a healthy, safe and conducive environment for man, the welfare of plants and animals must also be considered. Otherwise, man in turn will be affected by a round of repercussions resulting from his actions.
1295 No Instruction Book With Earth
Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller in I Seem To Be a Verb noted, “The most important fact regarding Spaceship Earth: An instruction book didn’t come with it.”
1296 Packaged Trash, C. O. D.
Concerned over picnickers who leave litter in England’s New Forest, the Hampshire Country Council set up a new program. The car license numbers of litterbugs were noted and their addresses traced. Later they received mystery parcels containing their own empty cigarette packets and wrapping papers.
—Wallace Reyburn
1297 Litterbugs To Clean Up
A punishment to fit the crime has been devised for highway litterbugs by Judge G. J. Smith, of the Cass County, Mo., magistrate’s court. He sentences the offender to clean up about a mile of right-of-way under the watchful eye of a state policeman.
Gathering up the bushels of beer cans, bottles, paper cartons, empty cigarette packages and other assorted trash strewn along the highways is calculated to be a sure cure for the habit. And witnessing such a detail of kitchen police also has a restraining effect on other potential trash-tossers. Besides, it saves the taxpayers money that would otherwise have to be spent in cleaning up the highway. The amounts for this unnecessary tidying up run into millions of dollars a year in many states.
—Saturday Evening Post
1298 Postman’s Sideline
A California postman, John B. Hand, brightened the drab countryside of south San Francisco. His special delivery route is in that region. He started the practice of casting wildflower seeds along the way as he drove the mail truck over his 50-mile route in the Los Altos Hills area.
Today a traveler there sees colorful patches of blossoms that provide welcome relief from brown landscape. His procedure: As he enters a 25-mile-an hour zone or slows down for a turn, he scatters seeds. “If I spot a wild plant somewhere that’s doing well, I jot down the location and drop by after work to collect its seeds.”
1299 Bus Driver’s Beautiful Action
A bus driver became annoyed with his job because he had to wait 7 minutes after every run near an open field which “litter bugs” had made into an unofficial dump. He often thought that somebody should do something about that unsightly mess. One day he himself decided to get out and pick up some of the tin cans and other debris which were lying all around. This improved things so much that he was eager to complete his route and spend all his free moments in cleaning up the area. When spring came, he was so enthusiastic about his project that he decided to sow some flower seeds. By the end of the summer many were riding to the end of the line just to see what the motorman had accomplished by doing what he and others had only talked about before.
—Our Daily Bread
1300 Wesley Changes English Countryside
John Wesley rode up and down through the English countryside during the last half of the eighteenth century, his soul touched by the poverty, the drabness, and the ugliness of the village life. One day he hit upon the scheme of distributing flower seeds to the housewives, and offering prizes for the most beautiful gardens, with the result that today the English countryside has the reputation of being the most colorful in the world. One man, almost single-handedly, changed the complexion of the rural districts of an entire nation.
—Glenn Stewart
See: Pollution.