- cross-posted to:
- memes@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- memes@slrpnk.net
cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/memes@slrpnk.net/t/741538
The deer aren’t crossing the road
A concept that will not be understood by those who need to understand it the most
I understand it and agree with the messaging, but its simply wrong. The deer are in fact crossing the road. Thats why this image has annoyed me every time it gets posted. Two different things can be true at the same time.
I have never understood how we could come over to America, a land full of natural beauty, lush forests, majestic mountains, amazing waterfalls…and we decided that what would look WAAAAAAY better, is paved parking lots. Strip malls, walmarts, highways, and a trail of litter down Mt Everest. We’ve made Niagra Falls into a tourist trap, and sell corn dogs on the side of the road, so you can enjoy while your get misted by one of natures most amazing naturally formed wonders.
Then, after spending all that money to pave the forests and build our disposable society, we refuse to even take care of what we built. So in addition to be covered in litter, the pavement is also paved and full of potholes that never get filled because of (blame the political party you don’t like).
I once tried telling my friend to just stop for a second and think about it. We were standing in a parking lot, outside his apartment building. It was on top of a hill, that overlooked Lake Erie. It was a calm summer day. The wind had a gentile breeze. The shores were blue. There were wind surfers in the distance. The whole scene caught my eye. So I said “Wait…look.”
And my friend is looking, like he’s searching for something out of place. He’s looking for the purpose. And says “I don’t see it…” and I said “Yes you do. You’re just not taking it in. Just take in the whole experience, and let’s live, in the moment. Like viewing an art disllay, but in person. Life will pass you by if you can’t appriciate the little things.”
He got mad and said “C’mon Farris Bueller, let’s go.”
He didn’t get it. A lot of people don’t get it. Sometimes you gotta just look at a lake.
More accurately, the road creates new forest edges, which deer populate.
It’s an important reframing. A reminder to not blame the victim. Roads bisect ecosystems. Some flora and fauna can’t ever cross them. Some like deer can but risk being killed. All this has a dampening effect on genetic diversity by bisecting populations into ever smaller areas of smaller populations. For these deer maybe it doesn’t matter so much, but for some species it matters a lot. Roads everywhere cut the landscape into islands (especially for insects for example) meaning populations are often divided into smaller ones of less genetic diversity. Less genetic diversity often means less robust populations. I am not an expert but this is how I understand it. The poster barely hints at this but there’s only so much you can achieve in a poster but the reframing is a start. Jaywalking laws were a reframing that was designed to transfer the blame from the car and driver to the pedestrian in accidents. The new laws said that cars weren’t the problem, the victims being run down were the issue as they shouldn’t have been in the way of the car.
planes are the only option that doesn’t involve building infrastructure through nature.
This is true. It’s also true that deer are possibly the stupidest animals in the forest. And this includes forests that have turkeys in them.