Silent Spring at 40: Rachel Carson s classic is not aging well.

Reason Online ^ | June 12, 2002 | Ronald Bailey

[Senator Pardek]

Nice post - I saw it at Reason's site yesterday. I was forced to read this pap in 1980 (at a Catholic school!)

[Straight Vermonter]

See more good stuff here.

[Straight Vermonter]

Also here.

[RightWhale]

Silent Spring had DDT and not much more. Since then environmentalists have been trying to top Silent Spring or even equal it, but have failed uttterly. But they keep trying. Some nuke activists are camped out right now at Fort Greely trying to alarm everyone of the dangers of the NMD, and throwing everything they can think of into the pot. It's a weak stew.

[Vince Ferrer]

100 things you should know about DDT

[colorado tanker]

This post is an illusion. According to Carson, we're all dead now.

[WIMom]

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[backhoe]

Scams, Scalawags, and an all-too-gullible Public...famous frauds sold to America

[exnavy]

If the muslims don't get us, the environ-whackoos will!

[Senator Pardek]

Well, it scared the hell out of this (previously) 13 year old!

[Fish out of Water]

*Index Bump and fyi

[mc5cents]

DDT was soon widely deployed by public health officials, who banished malaria from the southern United States with its help. The World Health Organization credits DDT with saving 50 million to 100 million lives by preventing malaria. In 1943 Venezuela had 8,171,115 cases of malaria; by 1958, after the use of DDT, the number was down to 800. India, which had over 10 million cases of malaria in 1935, had 285,962 in 1969. In Italy the number of malaria cases dropped from 411,602 in 1945 to only 37 in 1968.

And the envirowackos are more concerned with the snail darter!

SURGEON GENERAL WARNING

ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMESTS ARE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH

[chipengineer]

The point could be made that Rachel Carson is (somewhat)responsible for the deaths (by Malaria) of more people than any of the other big 20th century killers like Hitler and Stalin.

[Carry_Okie]

The scientific controversy over the effects of DDT on wildlife, especially birds, still vexes researchers.

Only because it's garbage and they're still trying to justify the ban.

In the late 1960s, some researchers concluded that exposure to DDT caused eggshell thinning in some bird species, especially raptors such as eagles and peregrine falcons. Thinner shells meant fewer hatchlings and declining numbers. But researchers also found that other bird species, such as quail, pheasants, and chickens, were unaffected even by large doses DDT.

Audubon Society bird count data show that nearly every single bird species INCREASED in population during the production of DDT, some radically so. The pesticide killed mites that infected the birds. Egg shell thinning can be caused by dehydration, stress, or a low calcium diet. The thinning of pelicans eggs on Annacappa were because of seeping crude oil (which can be reduced by drilling it BTW).

Banning DDT left us with organo-phosphates as the only alternative, a FAR more toxic pesticide than DDT. The licensing procedures that developed prevented development of less toxic alternatives because it is too expensive to prove that they cause no harm.

I could go on at length, but I already did.

[parsifal]

Good post. But Silent Spring was aging too well 20 something years ago. Did any Freeper ever read a book called "The Disaster Lobby". (I think that was the name. I got it somewhere in a box.)

[parsifal]

Darn keyboard!!! Should have been "was NOT aging too well 20 years ago" ---doggone it. parsy.

[madfly]

Silent Spring ping

[F.J. Mitchell]

If only her attack on DDT had come sooner, the chinch could still be competing with the Roach as the number one pest of the land.

What has the ilk of Rachel Carson ever done for their own species-that is the question? Or is the question: What the h*ll is their species??????

[mafree]

bump