Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot's greatest contribution to the sustainability movement was conservationism. He broke away from John Muir's idea of preservationism and saw it as a waste of resources. Often called the father of forestry, he saw the potential in conserving natural resources in a way that would use them to their greatest potential. Pinchot put this to use through 'sustainable yield' forestry. By farming trees for timber use and then replacing them, he greatly increased the amount of timber produced. He and and Muir argued about creating a dam because Muir said it would ruin the quality of the environment while Gifford said to waste the energy that could be gained would be the greater injustice.

Gifford was appointed the first director of the U.S. Forest Service and his views on conservationism still shape the way people think about sustainability today.
See: http://www.pinchot.org/ and http://www.fs.fed.us/



Check out this video to get a better look at his life and contributions. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0c3PnyTfQ>

Capitalism v Socialism

With regards to sustainability, which political system is most effective really depends on the functionality of the system. Initially, it appears that socialism would be better because because everyone shares resources and have to think about the well being of the collective because there is no private ownership. Capitalism always appears as selfish with people being motivated by economic success rather than regard to sustainability. However, the tragedy of the commons helps shed light on why socialism does not work. Without private ownership people are less self-sustainable and have no need to feel accountable for the resources around them. When people own resources they are much more likely to conserve them and use them properly. Socialism and communism only work in theory. Perfect example of this theory was the pilgrims.

 When they first came to America they practiced communal living where everyone had chores or land to work but this almost led to their extinction because men became angry that no matter how hard they worked they only received a certain portion of the profit. The pilgrims quickly changed to capitalism to survive and each settler was given their own land in order to empower them to be self-sufficient.  <https://www.askheritage.org/how-did-the-pilgrims-beat-communism-with-the-free-market/ >

Polio Incidence Today

Polio used to be a huge health problem around the world but as of January 7th, there are only 372 cases in the world coming mostly from the three left endemic countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Eradication of a disease became an attainable goal with the eradication of small pox and now we are so close to eradicating Polio as well. "Polio incidence has dropped more than 99 percent since the launch of global polio eradication efforts in 1988," mainly because of efforts from the CDC and UNICEF. The goal is for Polio to be eradicated by this December but recent events in Pakistan may have put a halt on progress. About a month ago, eight health workers in Pakistan were murdered while trying to administer Polio vaccinations, causing UNICEF to halt its work in the country. With the battle on Polio being so close to ending, hopefully issues like this will not ruin progress. To read more about the attack visit http://www.intrahealth.org/page/intrahealth-international-condemns-murders-of-health-workers-in-pakistan-calls-for-action. 

  (Current endemic regions)

http://www.cdc.gov/polio/updates/

http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring.aspx