How did the corn blight of the 1970s affect agriculture? Was that ...

[Frost2351]

How did the corn blight of the 1970s affect agriculture? Was that outcome useful in the long term.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

The utilities always follow the practice of retiring fossil fuel electric generating plants at the end of their original lifetimes.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[karlss]

Answer to Question 1

The corn blight exposed the dangers of reliance on just a single hybrid variety,
and planting that same variety year after year. As mentioned above, the development of seed
banks to help preserve genetic resources of precursor or related species and genetic
variation was much accelerated by that experience.

Answer to Question 2

Not so. In many cases, new technology can be installed that allows more years of
service for those plants. This has led to attempts to keep these generators in service without
installing new pollution control equipment, as described on page 239.