But what has happened is that the original environmental movement was pretty successful. So the mainstream members dropped out since it was successful. Thus leaving the radicals to take over. Kind of like if the KKK and Stormfront and other wacko "right-wing" groups were to hijack the conservative movement (not a chance, they have been chased out and marginalized). We should probably figure out how to distinguish between the wacko "environmentalists" like PETA and the legitmate ones (that got lead based paint and lead based gasoline banned, coal fired power plants to scrub, and catalytic converters put on cars.) [I am sure now that someone will call me an enviro-wacko, and how catalytic converters are harmful and nothing is wrong with lead and they put DDT on their cornflakes. In my observation such people are normally 30 years old or younger, or if older then could have been standins for the banjo scene in Deliverance.]
Conservatives were the original "Conservationists". My definition is that conservationists would like to preserve the Earth for the people. Whereas the enviromentalists worship the earth as an end unto itself. They'd preffer a burned forrest to one that has been thinned so it won't burn.
As for DDT, the absence of it kills millions of people a year from malaria. The original "Silent Spring" author, who has a chain of parks named after her in Maine, should be scorned as a modern day Adolf Hitler, capable of killing far more humans than the old National Socialist could even dream of.
As for the harm of DDT vs. birds, there was apparently only one scientific study on that, which was not designed to test DDTs affect on birds eggs (only on its direct toxicity to the birds). The methodology was fatally flawed (because of the testing technology, they fed the test birds a different feed than the control group), and the bottom line is, DDT doesn't harm either humans, or birds eggs.
DDT just kills bugs. Which in the end, is enough to get the earth worshiping environmentalists to hate it.
Oh, yes. There has been some recent studies that indicate that metals like lead and mercury may actually help humans. The old theory about "what doesn't hurt you makes you stronger", may actually be true.
The original theory was that if a substance in large quantities harmed life, then small quantities must harm to a small degree, even if its affect cannot be measured. That apparently is not true, which putts a whole different picture on things like "carcinogens" etc.