What the World Needs Now Is DDT

The New York Times Magazine ^ | 04/11/04 | TINA ROSENBERG

[lelio]

Walter Vergara, the World Bank official who headed the unit that dismissed DDT in Ecuador, defended the decision to me: ''DDT has an awful impact on the biosystem and is being eliminated by the world community. There are alternatives. We're not the only species on the planet.''

Walter's probably never had to see a relative die from malaria just so that a bird egg shell could be protected -- and even that's questionable.

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[FoxPro]

Rachel Carson and her book "Silent Spring" killed more people than Hitler.

[sam_paine]

This was printed in the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE!??!?!?! Oh. My. God. I'm feeling faint!

[coloradan]

More people than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Amin combined. Which is why she's the darling of the left. Population control is not only about lowering birth rates, it's about increasing death rates, especially in undersirable populations, like Africans.

"No, don't give them DDT because it's bad for the environment, and don't give them GMOs because they cause unknown harm, even though with them they might be able to feed themselves despite poor soil, droughts and insects."

Yep, that's the liberal concern for the downtrodden, all right.

[Tom D.]

You are right. If the NYT Mag is for any tolerance of DDT, then the environment wackos are in trouble.

[genefromjersey]

Astonishing to see this in the NY Times !!

Guess they decided African Africans just might be people too.

[stboz]

Today, westerners with no memory of malaria often assume it has always been only a tropical disease. But malaria was once found as far north as Boston and Montreal.

There have recently been cases showing up in southeast FLORIDA!

Thanks, eco-freaks.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Ruckelshaus made the right decision -- for the United States. At the time, DDT was mainly sprayed on crops, mostly cotton, a use far riskier than indoor house spraying."

No, Ruckelshaus was WRONG. Certainly DDT should have been de-certified for use on crops, but a complete ban was idiocy. DDT was THE best means of controlling TERMITES as well, and with the arrival in the United States of the Formosa termite, I suspect that lots of folks are going to lose their homes to termite damage because DDT won't be available to control them.

[Mean Daddy]

From Dr. Thomas Sowell:

OVER the years, the phrase "unintended consequences" has come up with increasing frequency, as more and more wonderful-sounding ideas have led to disastrous results. By now, you might think that people with wonderful-sounding ideas would start to question what the consequences would turn out to be -- and would devote as much time to discovering those consequences as to getting their ideas accepted and turned into laws and policies. But that seldom, if ever, happens.


Why doesn't it? Because a lot depends on what it is you are trying to accomplish. If your purpose is to achieve the heady feeling of being one of the moral elite, then that can be accomplished without the long and tedious work of following up on results.


The worldwide crusade to ban the pesticide DDT is a classic example. This crusade was begun by the much revered Rachel Carson, whose best-selling book "Silent Spring" was based on the premise that DDT's adverse effects on the eggs of song birds would end up wiping out these species. After that, springtime would no longer be marked by birds singing; hence the silent spring.


Rachel Carson and the environmentalists she inspired have succeeded in getting DDT banned in country after country, for which they have received the accolades of many, not least their own accolades. But, in terms of the actual consequences of that crusade, there has not been a mass murderer executed in the past half-century who has been responsible for as many deaths of human beings as the sainted Rachel Carson. The banning of DDT has led to a huge resurgence of malaria in the Third World, with deaths rising into the millions.


This pioneer of the environmental movement has not been judged by such consequences, but by the inspiring goals and political success of the movement she spawned. Still less are the environmentalists held responsible for the blackouts plaguing California in the past year or the more frequent blackouts and more disastrous economic consequences that can be expected in the years ahead, despite the key role of environmental extremists in preventing power plants from being built.


The greens have likewise obstructed access to the fuels needed to generate electricity, run automobiles and trucks, and perform innumerable other tasks in the economy. Nationwide, the greens have been so successful in preventing oil refineries from being built that the last one constructed anywhere in the United States was built during the Ford administration. But environmentalists are seldom mentioned among the reasons for today's short supplies of oil and the resulting skyrocketing prices of gasoline.


Advocates of rent control are not judged by the housing shortages that invariably follow, but by their professed desire to promote "affordable housing" for all. Nor are those who have promoted price controls on food in various countries being judged by the hunger, malnutrition or even starvation that have followed. They are judged by their laudable goal of seeking to make food affordable by the poor -- even if the poor end up with less food than before.


Some try to argue against the evidence for these and other counterproductive consequences of high-sounding policies. But what is crucial is that those who advocated such policies usually never bothered to seek evidence on their own -- and have resented the evidence presented by others. In short, what they advocated had the intended consequences for themselves -- making them feel good -- and there was far less interest in the unintended consequences for others.


Even before the rise of today's many social activist movements, T.S. Eliot understood such people and their priorities. Writing in 1950, he said: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."


There is little hope of changing such people. But what the rest of us can do is stop gullibly accepting their ego trips as idealistic efforts for others. Above all, we need to stop letting them morally intimidate us into silence about the actual consequences of their crusades. The time is long overdue for us to insist that they put up or shut up, in terms of hard evidence about results, rather than the pious hopes that make them feel so good.

[yankeedame]

Rachel Carson and her book "Silent Spring" killed more people than Hitler.

But remember she was a liberal, and with liberals it's the intention, not the result, that matters.

[packrat35]

Rachel Carson has 100 million deaths on her hands from that damned book.

[kcvl]

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on
the wonders and realities of the universe about us,
the less taste we shall have for destruction."
-- Rachel Carson © 1954

http://www.rachelcarson.org

[kcvl]

With an introduction by Vice-President Al Gore

[fire_eye]

"There are alternatives. We're not the only species on the planet."

Which is Liberalspeak for, "If push comes to shove, we'll sacrifice humans to save an endangered Iranian tree-rat".

Yeah, right.

What *are* these "Alternatives", Walter? Are there really any, or are you just pulling the usual Lieberal stunt of making an unsubstantiated claim that supports your position and then "Moving On"? Why is a 50-year-old insecticide that wipes out birds still so attractive, if there are "Alternatives"? Could it be because you and your covens of eco-Nazis have stifled *all* development of insecticides, so that now we're stuck with DDT? Hmmm, Walter? Is that it?

[neverdem]

Thanks for posting this article. BTTT

[neverdem]

This is a good, but long, article. That it was in "the paper of record", well watch out for the flying pigs!

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
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