Take the blinkers off.

Causation is a complex issue, and can easily be taken to silly extremes. You know the sort of thing - if Hitler's parents had not met, he would not have been born, so they (the parents) caused the Second World War and all the nasties that went with it. But sometimes it's just as silly to look at the effect and ignore the causes. There have been one or two articles recently deploring the fact that people are tarmacing or slabbing over their front gardens so as to be able to park their cars there, and this has been held responsible for things as varied as creating an increased risk of flooding, and a decrease in various types of flora and fauna. But what nobody seems to ask is why do people do that? It's because they haven't got anywhere to park - bloody obvious isn't it? So perhaps rather than bemoaning the fact that this is happening, we ought to be looking at, and seeking to remedy the cause???