Despite such ongoing disputes and despite dire warnings of worsening global water shortages in the future by scientists, for most nations it is business as usual. Aquifers are relentlessly pumped, ecosystems degraded, grazing areas are overgrazed, trees are chopped for the slimmest of reasons, agricultural lands are plowed into bits. In other words, most countries fail to pay attention to how they protect future sources of water and how to use water presently. Most experts on the subject believe that in so many facets of water conservation and development, the situation is so desperate that all inaction, or just business as usual can only compound the problems. On the other hand, even local actions, taken by communities without having to wait endlessly for sophisticated solution to come from outside, can prove a viable solution.
Family planning is another area suffering from business as usual.
No draconian action need be taken in population control. But even the supposedly custom-made, family planning, counseling is moving at the speed of a wounded tortoise. There could be millions of people in this country, for example, that may not have yet heard about the existence of such a concept even. In one Woreda in central Ethiopia, for example, the quota for one year shown under the title Family Planning Extension is only 28 families. For the population in the area which is in the hundreds of thousands, it is some quota.