PhD candidates explain the most thought-provoking proposition in their thesis. This time it’s Jozsef Takacs, who received his PhD on 28 February. His thesis was about viral and fungal pathogens in house cricket rearing.
‘The prevailing attitude of modern society is that “the more or the faster, the better”. Through education, we can change this mindset. Sustainability is seen as important for businesses, but often only if it doesn’t hinder their economic growth. We need to teach children from an early age that everything we do has an environmental cost. With education, we can help children to understand the consequences of increased production and that sometimes it’s worth sacrificing comfort for the greater good.
To take an example from my field of study, entomology: it is important for students to understand basic biology, such as the body parts of insects. But it’s also important to step back and look at insects in a wider context, to understand their role in ecosystems and the interactions between different players. We often tell students that pests are harmful because they can damage the crops we grow. But in nature, these so-called pests are just insects playing their part in the ecosystem. The artificial environment we created for our purposes gives them a negative role to play — perceived strictly from an economic point of view. Without insects, no ecosystem could be complete.
I advocate starting early in teaching students that every component of a system has a role to play. They need to understand that any changes we make will have an impact on the whole system, whether significant or minor.’
