The Splendours and Miseries of Eco-propaganda

[Declen 118]

First of all, happy new year everybody!

The meta-idea of the episode "Bats!" is as simple as an orange: if you have any problems with nature, don't use unnatural solutions. Or it will always backfire.
That's unfortunate, but very expectable. Nowadays the totalitarian green ideology seems to dominate our civilization. Funny thing, that MLP:FiM, trying to propagate this ideology, shows how essentially weak and emotionally-based it is.
At the beginning of argument, we are shown, that Fluttershy's view of creatures in question is highly idealized: she depicts them as cute as possible. Her standpoint is simple: live them be, because they are living beings. Which is highly normal for a person like Fluttershy, but has nothing to do with the current problem. And thus she tries to score points for them on emotional level.
After the radical attempt to exterminate this specific population of vampire-bats goes south Fluttershy suggests giving them a part of orchard as a reserve. But when we think about it, her so called "solution" isn't a solution at all, so, it won't work. When you settle a population into an ideal environment with plenty of food and no mutual foes, it will multiply through procreation until there not enough food for everyone. In a normal situation, be it a national park or Petri dish, individuals will compete for the food and losers will starve to death or get too weak to procreate. In our case, however, they will just expand, means, take over the rest of the orchard. Applejack will have the same problem only in a much larger scale. Because then there will be much more of them. Too bad, the little girls, who watch this show won't see it.
And the argument of "more seeds for more productive trees" is just ridiculous. I refuse to believe, that Applejack could buy it. The problem of seeds in the orchard plantation is pretty much non-existent for many reasons. The most important ones are that you need several years to grow a tree and you can plant only as many trees as much acres you have.

Generally, the idea "don't use unnatural solutions, or they will always backfire" is a shameless exaggeration. Which is not unexpected for a totalitarian ideology.
First of all, agriculture is unnatural on itself. But it is that unnatural practice that allows 300 million people to live on the territory, where only 2 million people use to live 500 years ago.
Also, we have to admit, sometimes, those radical solutions backfire. But we must look at both sides of the equation. When we use insecticides, like DDT, they collect in the liver of Antarctic penguins. Which is unfortunate: penguins are cute. But when we ban them, we get 2 million deaths from malaria annually on our hands. But no, green activists don't want to hear it: penguins are cute and those suckers dying from malaria can go to hell.
Another thing is that "sometimes" doesn't mean "always". But it is what green activists believe: it's unnatural, so, it must be bad. We don't know how exactly, but it must. So, they try to ban golden rice that can save lives of more then a half million children dying each year from vitamin A deficiency. Because, you know, it's genetically modified, so, it must be bad somehow. And to hell with all those children. It looks like all that fighters for animal rights just hate humanity. Which reminds me, that Hitler was a veggie, too.

And what we see in "Bats" episode? Fluttershy, the known caretaker of animals, becomes a creature she wanted to protect: an ugly monster. She doesn't act like, sapient being, doesn't recognize her friends anymore and has only one drive in her life: thirst. If that's not a picture that speaks for itself, then I don't know what is.
 

[Nature's Spell 526]

I'm a professional naturalist meaning it's my job to teach people about the natural environment. Every issue has at least three sides left, right and middle. Neither is more correct but one will likely be the best for the greatest number of people.

Now when it comes to humans and how we relate to the natural world the reality is we often fight nature and end up losing over the long term. I'll give three simple examples, but the issues are way more complex.

 

1. Destruction of wetlands- Wetlands have been filled in and developed. As we've seen time and time again storms don't care that we want and reclaim them no matter what we do, so the moral is don't live on a flood plan.

 

2. Invasive species- Almost all the invasive species, in a given area, were likely brought in on purpose, or by accident, but be net result is they screw up the local environment and cost lots of money to control. Solution: plant native when possible and limit the spread of invasives.

 

3. Loss of ground water-In many parts of the world we are using ground water way faster than it can be recharged into an aquifer. Switching to surface water can be an answer, but needs to be coupled with heavy conservation in certain water poor areas.

 

As far as the example in the show, of a pest taking over, it's been proven that the pest will win in the end because nature always finds a way. It's an endless arms race and one without an end game. There's always a cure, but the cure can make you sick too. We make imperfect decisions because we have imperfect information and have emotions. Again, it becomes a question of what's most right for the most beings.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Nature's Spell

[Mand'alor Dash 2,224]

Yeah, just leaving the entire crop to be eaten by bats is going to lead to an awful lot of hungry ponies, without any tangible benefits in the long term.

[Scootalove 10,684]

Sometimes we're not aware of what's right or wrong until we test it out for ourselves, there would always be X happened because Y did this and it could become of how cause & effect works.