Content and Purpose: Which Drives the Other?

Schugel, James. 2012. “Ash Pest Returns Early; Residents Told to Delay Pruning.” WCCO.com. CBS Local Media. April 18. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/04/18/ash-pest-returns-early-residents-told-to-delay-pruning/ 

Sometimes the purpose behind a message produces construed content. Let me explain.

A recent local WCCO news report carried the message that Minneapolis residents should not prune ash trees during the time the emerald ash borer is emerging. The purpose of the suggestion (not law) is to keep the emerald ash borer population from spreading in the Twin Cities metro. However, the content misleads, or doesn’t provide enough reasoning for the suggestion.

For trees such as the Red Oak, pruning times are limited due to the method of infestation. Beatles that spread oak wilt navigate to fresh cuts (the scent of the fresh cut guides them). But the emerald ash borer has not been proven to navigate to the smell of fresh cuts. Instead, studies have found that they favor dying ash trees over healthy ones.

The main reason the department of agriculture is concerned is because they don’t want people moving wood. It actually seems pretty simple. “Don’t move wood.” They’ve established laws to enforce this (no one can move hardwood outside of Hennepin or Ramsey county), and they’ve done media campaigns. But still, the danger resides in a resident pruning an infested tree and bringing the wood camping, thus spreading the borer to the northwoods. That is the real danger. And the Minnesota Department of Agriculture has already sent this message. But they know the stakes are high, so apparently they aren’t stressing why pruning shouldn’t be done. This could take business from tree companies who only chip branches and never move them with trailers. The real danger is not having fresh cuts dripping spring sap on the lawn and attracting the bug. I think that could be lost in the quick presentation given on news channels.

Also in this broadcast, a graphic made me jump. “No more trees should die from this disease” the reporter quotes a woman as saying. Right after, a graphic zooms in on the screen. The graphic showed red and green dots all throughout the state of Minnesota.  The implication here is that eab has been found in all these spots! The spots are everywhere in Minnesota! What are they saying???

I watched the video clip again and paused it when the graphic zoomed in on the screen. This graphic wasn’t of dead or infested trees; it was a map of all the eab traps set throughout the state. Now why would they include this graphic instead of a more reasonable graphic such as a map of infested trees in Minneapolis? Could it be simple video miscue? Or was it an attempt to be sensational? I’m not sure, but I found it misleading.

Carp and Rhetoric

Sepic, Matt. 2012. "Critics of War on Invasive Carp Decry Cost, Environmental Impact." MPRnews. Minnesota Public Radio. May 7. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/05/07/asian-carp/

Today I heard a report on Minnesota Public Radio about the carp problem. Many people in the land of 10,000 lakes are concerned about a particular carp. This fish is a You Tube sensation for its hilarious antics on the rivers of Illinois. When a loud sound disturbs the carp, it jumps out of the water. Because the fish can reach upwards of 100 pounds, they can really knock a fisherman for a loop, especially if her or she is traveling at high speeds on the river.

The MPR report didn’t mention much new information, just that someone at the U of M was “waging war” to prevent the carp from reaching the Upper Mississippi River. One carp has been found in the St. Croix river, another in the Mississippi down by Iowa. They could be moved by swimming upstream or by hitching a ride in boat ballast. Most agree that the carp could devastate the river ecology because they eat so much food, there is little left for the native fish.

However, one of the interviewees pointed to the rhetoric and suggested we reframe it. This is what he said:

And Greg Breining says all this war rhetoric reinforces the myth that humans can control nature. “It's just not very effective. It's like a war on terrorism or a war on drugs. It's just a way to spend a lot of money to no particularly beneficial end,” he said.

Terms like war provide strong reactions, but they end up sustaining “money pits,” where the government recognized the immediate emergency and dumps money into the problem without ample benchmarks to evaluate success—or without doing enough research before hand to ensure success.

Even the term “invasive” was called into question. What is invasive; what is native? This interviewee suggested that more research was called for in order to make better understand how the dynamics are changing underwater for the native species. They might not be suffering as much as first expected.

The language used in the fight against invasive species apparently does matter.