Great moments with unintended consequences – when something that looks like a good idea goes horribly wrong.
Part one: Net Benefits
Year: 2012
The problem: Birds congregate on the Texas Medical Center campus and do…bird stuff.
The solution: tie netting to the large oak trees on campus, forcing the birds to seek their belongings elsewhere.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best intentions. What could go wrong?
It turns out that birds eat insects. With the birds gone, the trees has become a refuge for cute furry creatures who happen to be The most venomous caterpillar in North America. Contact with these toxic miseries triples can cause intense radiating pain, vomiting, fever, convulsions, paralysis and even death. With the nets up and the apex predators gone, the researchers determined that the population of these fine-toothed pain-mongers had increased. by a whopping 7,300 percent. Bad news for everyone, but especially for a vulnerable population seeking healthcare, say, oh, I don’t know, on campus at a medical center.
You know what they say: flock and find out.
Second part: Incidental comedy
Year: 1986
The problem: toxins in California!
The solution: Proposition 65! A ballot initiative that included a arrangement making it illegal for companies “to expose individuals to chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving clear and reasonable warning.”
Sounds like a great idea, with the best intentions. What could go wrong?
When warning requirements were established in 1988, 235 chemicals were phased out. Today, there are over 900 compounds on the Proposition 65 list, including alcoholic beverages, Chinese-style salted fish, and wood dust. Even cocaine is on the list, so if your eight ball doesn’t have a warning tag, your dealer is breaking the law.
With penalties for non-compliance, including fines of up to $2,500 per violation per day and overzealous litigants searching for their cut, business owners came to the rational conclusion that the cost of a label was less than the cost of litigation. The result? Warning labels everywhere, no matter how serious the hazard or degree of exposure. In bars, restaurants, hotels, spas, ski resorts, schools and Disneyland. On golf clubs, lamps, toasters, children’s toys, sunglasses, potato chips, pancakes, pumpkin puree and even trees. These signs have become so common that a study Californians have learned to simply ignore them.
But, we also don’t want to be sued, so…
Disclaimer: This video contains information about the Prop. 65, known to the State of California for causing ambiguity between dangerous things and harmless things. For more information, go to Holycrapthisisreallynotworkingoutthewaywehadplanned.ca.gov
Part Three: Cash
Year: 2005
The problem: greenhouse gases are destroying the planet!
The solution: A system designed by the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rewards companies that eliminate polluting gases with carbon credits, which can then be turned into cash. The more harmful the gas removed, the more credits are awarded.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best intentions. What could go wrong?
Hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), a manufacturing by-product of common coolant hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22), was considered particularly harmful, allowing for a large number of credits when destroyed. Thus, manufacturers – mainly in India and China –production ramp-up coolant, creating more dangerous by-products, which they immediately destroyed. The system was earning manufacturers tens of millions of dollars a year. Some producers have made twice as much from the tax credit as from the sale of the refrigerant itself.
Increased manufacturing of coolant, itself a contributor to global warming, has kept the market price low, discouraging air conditioning and refrigeration companies from switching to less harmful alternatives.
When the UN announcement a plan to stop the program, Chinese producers threat to vent their huge store of gas directly into the atmosphere – which some activists have called environmental extortion.
Nice climate you have there.
Great moments with unintended consequences: good intentions, bad results.
Do you have a great moment with unintended consequences? Email us at comedy@reason.com.
Photo credit: Carterhawk/Wikimedia; Judy Gallagher/Flickr
