No Skeeters, No Problem? Not So Fast [Death Cult Addy]

NY Times ^ | June 22, 2004 | JAMES GORMAN

[Avoiding_Sulla]

Elizabeth Willott is the kind of professor who gives the ivory tower a good name. [this portentiously reveals the Left's approval of the deathists' views I am highlighting -- Av]

She is an entomologist and environmental ethicist the University of Arizona [IIRC, Peter Singer at Princeton, is a bioethicist], and I called her to ask a simple question: What good are mosquitoes?

Dr. Willott seemed like a good person to call because she has spent some time thinking about these issues. She has an article in the current issue of Restoration Ecology titled "Restoring Nature, Without Mosquitoes?"

In it she notes that in planning wetland restoration, people sometimes fail to give enough thought to one inevitable consequence - more mosquitoes. In the bad old days, not all wetlands were drained to build hotels. Another motivation was the real fear of death and disease, as spread by mosquitoes.

So, I asked, what about mosquitoes? Would everything really collapse if we got rid of them? Well, she said, no. The web of life is not that fragile. "If you take a snip, it won't unravel."

In fact, she said, there is "quite a bit of ecological research now showing that removal of a species doesn't make a huge difference." If the species of mosquitoes that are intimately connected with human beings were made to disappear, there might be some ecological disturbance, but "you probably could remove them without catastrophe."

Do they do anything of value, then? That depends on your point of view, she said. The philosophical arguments about intrinsic value versus instrumental value can get quite complicated. In essence they ask whether a mosquito, or a tree, or anything, has a value in and of itself, apart from what human beings think.

This is the sort of discussion that may be intriguing in an air-conditioned classroom, but seems absolutely incomprehensible at dusk near a marsh. If there's a chance that our children might get encephalitis, then we're ready to wipe mosquitoes off the face of the earth.

One small step beyond this "me, me, me" [traditional human morality equated to egocentricism] approach is to think about the value of any given organism to environmental balance. This is still not intrinsic value, since environmental balance is useful to people, but it is a bit less self-centered. Step outside the anthropocentric view of life and one possible value of mosquitoes is population control. Mosquitoes have historically kept human populations down worldwide, and still do in much of the third world. [Thanks, not unintentionally, to the U.N. ban of DDT] The problem [Liberalism's hypocritical inconsistency: be sad over the means but worship the outcome] is that they do this by facilitating pestilence and death, so this is not going to enhance their status, among human beings at least.

Another value of mosquitoes, perverse to some, obvious to others, is that they "keep out the riffraff," meaning human beings. [Why is this obvious, but the actual planning to murder human beings not admitted to being obvious, hmmm?] Concentrations of pests offer protection to wilderness areas. The tsetse fly, which causes livestock disease as well as human sleeping sickness, has kept humans away from some wildlife refuges and has been called "Africa's best conservationist." Of course, this view has been described by others as ecological imperialism.

In any case, the reality, said Dr. Willott, is that "we're not going to get rid of the mosquitoes." It's just impossible, particularly if we want to use methods that don't kill off everything else. DDT is very effective at mosquito control, but it can be disastrous for birds of prey.

When I asked Dr. Willott if she thought it was immoral to try to make a species go extinct, assuming you could do it without hurting other organisms, she thought the question was significant enough to require a formal statement. "Striving for the unachievable is not an appropriate use of resources," she said. "If one acknowledges that eradication is highly unlikely to work or might have serious side effects, the moral thing to do would be to find another way." In other words, don't be stupid [...as to suggest removing a wonderfully indirect means of controlling all those fecund 3rd world subhumans.]

What she suggests is that we take the middle ground and try to kill some of the mosquitoes some of the time.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

The frequency at which the establishment media admits, even delights in, this consistently misanthropic theme underlying much of their ideology is increasing.

Why? Perhaps so they can find a clear conscience in that we were adequately warned? If that is so, perhaps there is still hope. What more can any one of us do?

[Avoiding_Sulla]

Death Cultivation: Evidence of Efforts Aimed at Leveling Humanity

If you want on or off this low volume (God willing) list, please freepmail me.

Outright admission by bioethicist that using mosquitoes to control human population is a needed tool. All the other BS about why DDT was banned is precisely that.

[EggsAckley]

"A Day Without A Mexican Mosquito"

[EggsAckley]

the reality, said Dr. Willott, is that "we're not going to get rid of the mosquitoes." It's just impossible, particularly if we want to use methods that don't kill off everything else. DDT is very effective at mosquito control, but it can be disastrous for birds of prey.

Hmmmmm....I guess the good doctor has not seen this>>>>>>>>>>

[Carry_Okie]

DDT is very effective at mosquito control, but it can be disastrous for birds of prey.

Let's deal first with the lie in the founding premise:

Audubon Society
Christmas Bird Count Data
1941 (2,331 Observers)
vs. 1960 (8,928 Observers)
Species	Count			Count/Observer		Ratio/Observer
	1941	1960		1941	1960		1960/1941
Eagle	197	891		0.08	0.10		1.18
Gull	124,470	635,642		53.40	71.20		1.33
Raven	667	2,669		0.29	0.30		1.04
Crow	185,519	250,307		79.59	28.04		0.35
Quail	2,060	10,276		0.88	1.15		1.30
Pheasant	6,839	19,731		2.93	2.21		0.75
Mounring Dove	7,411	72,958		3.18	8.17		2.57
Swallow	14,347	242,303		6.15	27.14		4.41
Grebe	2,501	27,826		1.07	3.12		2.90
Pelican	4,450	10,562		1.91	1.18		0.62
Cormorant	3,246	27,162		1.39	3.04		2.18
Heron	2,254	16,253		0.97	1.82		1.88
Egret	1,469	16,800		0.63	1.88		2.99
Swan	18,554	33,994		7.96	3.81		0.48
Goose	182,820	696,777		78.43	78.04		1.00
Ducks	2,137,093	2,739,517		916.81	306.85		0.33
Balckbird	137,502	20,552,375		58.99	2,302.01		39.02
Grackle	24,937	12,570,458		10.70	1,407.98		131.61
Cowbird	40,019	3,286,314		17.17	368.09		21.44
Chickadee	21,330	55,906		9.15	6.26		0.68
Titmouse	5,038	18,268		2.16	2.05		0.95
Nuthatch	4,214	13,439		1.81	1.51		0.83
Robin	19,616	928,639		8.42	104.01		12.36
English Sparrow	53,335	358,769		22.88	40.18		1.76
Bluebird	3,742	6,903		1.61	0.77		0.48
Starling	211,836	8,673,095		90.88	971.45		10.69
Sources:	42nd Christmas Bird Count			Audubon Magazine, 1942
	61st Christmas Bird Count			Audubon Field Notes, 15, 1961

Thanks to Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, Professor Emeritus of Entomology at San Jose State University,
for providing this information.

Bill Ruckleshaus and Rachel Carson are the most profficient mass murders in the twentieth century.

[backhoe]

Where'd I put that !#$%^! file?
( I've been having PC problems for 3 weeks, both main & fallback machines )

West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?

[Carry_Okie]

The suspected reason that DDT benefitted virtually all bird species is that it kills mites that induce the birds to lose plumage and die of pneumonia.

[Texans]

I have been battling the city and county regarding these pest. Basically our Public Health and Services will only spray insecticide when West Nile Virus has been confirmed.

Here is some more information I have found...

Go here --> http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0503/0503westnile.htm to read an interesting article on why the county waits and sprays for the adult mosquitoes instead of going after them in the larva stage...

Quote from the article…

“From May 5 to May 7, more than a hundred AMCA mosquito control experts met in Washington, DC, to urge members of Congress to let them do their job by easing restrictions on larvicide spraying. The problem is the Clean Water Act whose intent is to reduce pollutants. …

According to Joseph M. Conlon, a spokesman for AMCA, instead of helping mosquito control authorities to protect human life, the restrictions would have "the perverse effect of increasing reliance upon adulticides to address mosquito populations historically controlled more effectively and safely using proven public health larvicides." …

Simply stated, it's better to kill mosquitoes in their larva stage of development than to have trucks spraying pesticides to knock down the adult population. The object is to kill mosquitoes before they become a threat to the health of humans and other species.

Here again we see how the environmentally inspired Clean Water Act is having the opposite affect of "protecting" people. The EPA has stripped Americans of many of the pesticides that formerly protected them against a vast range of insect pests that spread disease or inflict millions of dollars of property damage. “

[Cobra Scott]

The role of mosquitos is well known in ecology; they act as a pollenation vector where other insects may not thrive.

That is why the Arctic tundra fares so well; not in spite of, but because of, the massive number of mosquitos.

Destroying the mosquitos there would be disatsrous; but destroying them elsewhere might not have much impact, and that impact may be short-lived if punk-eek is anywhere close to being right.

[headsonpikes]

When I reflect upon my summer experiences in the Canadian North, I distinctly recall many situations when it really was 'them or us'. I can't imagine wiping them out - we were worried they were going to do us in!

IMHO, there is a mosquito in the NWT for every star in the universe.

;^)

[bondjamesbond]

If they could develop a mosquito who's bite induced spontaneous abortion, they would start a breeding program...

The problem with academic bioethics programs in this country is that is impossible to get a job without supporting abortion. Therefore the field sorts out anybody with a conscience at the outset...

[Cold Heart]

We could wipe out all the mosquitos except for a few that would be saved in two high security labs for study. Maybe one lab in the U.S. & one in Russia.

[sauropod]

"So, I asked, what about mosquitoes? Would everything really collapse if we got rid of them? Well, she said, no. The web of life is not that fragile. "If you take a snip, it won't unravel."

Never thought I'd see an eco-fascist admit that.

[sauropod]

And there goes another urban legend spluttering into nothingness like a jellyfish fired from a howitzer...

[backhoe]

[skeeter]

Just when you think the NYT couldn't stoop any lower.

[philetus]

How many deaths ca they positivly pi o DDT?

How may deaths ca they positivly pin on mosquitoes?

[calenel]

Simply stated, it's better to kill mosquitoes in their larva stage of development than to have trucks spraying pesticides to knock down the adult population. The object is to kill mosquitoes before they become a threat to the health of humans and other species.

A clear argument in favor of preemption.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

Hey,CO: I somehow neglected to highlight the last part of the following statement:

The problem [Liberalism's hypocritical inconsistency: be sad over the means but worship the outcome] is that they do this by facilitating pestilence and death, so this is not going to enhance their status, among human beings at least.

I hope you see how, again, C.S.Lewis spotted these ubermenschen in the 1940s. Here we have an article, published by the NY Times, that tells us we should like this alleged ethicist who likes what human beings dislike. Ergo,

this professor, the writer of the article, and the publisher all consider themselves better than humans.

Clearly The Abolition of Man was accurate where Lewis saw that there are people who think their control of humanity is for the good of humanity even if, or especially because, the rest of us can't see, are too traditionally moral and stupid to see, the wisdom in their actions.

Is it now clear that 3 part essay also contains in its title a double-entendre that I am not at all sure that Lewis intended? Or was the misanthropic intent of the antifascists of WW II even clear then? If so, then the problem they had with Hitler's program of snuffing all but Aryans was that it was only a nationalistic form of what today's mass murderers are intending.

Now that you've read The Abolition of Man, what do you think?
Is it too late for those who have not read that book to gain any useful insight from it?
Is there nothing to gain from realizing that this behavior was already obvious over 60 years ago, yet somehow enough of us haven't been caring and forceful enough to stop the program?
And have too many people been convinced through the indoctrination programs that, indeed, the world will be better off with 6-7 billion less people on the planet?

Do you think perhaps that this additional insight is worth pinging the list again?

[Carry_Okie]

The Abolition of Man is too obscure a link to this work to make by reference without building it yourself. Such an effort could do more to obscure the relationship than enrich it.

British authors of Lewis' clabire were well known to share mutual associations at that time. Obviously Lewis knew of the Fabian ambition, no less than he knew of the Jacobin mendacity founded upon the same precepts. As an author of a utopian book with both negative and positive elements he would clearly know Aldous Huxley (whose seminal Brave New World was published some twenty years before the Abolition of Man) and therefore would have been well aware of Julian Huxley's machinations through the UN. Orwell knew the Fabian players personally which obviously included HG Wells.

There was thus a strong discussion among the British intelligencia on the self destrcutive elements of the human beast as one would expect after such a war facing still the dual enemies of communism and fascism. Democratic socialism must have looked good by comparison.

I don't think the Europeans have ever had the disdain for democracy that was so inculcated in this country by our founders. This nation's emphasis upon the individual saved from much of that collectivist impulse. Hence the multi-decadal effort to destroy it here.

Now to your questions:

Is it too late for those who have not read that book to gain any useful insight from it?

Only for those who don't need to read it.

Is there nothing to gain from realizing that this behavior was already obvious over 60 years ago, yet somehow enough of us haven't been caring and forceful enough to stop the program?

It's principal value is that it was written that long ago, but then, so was Brave New World, or 1984 for that matter. Frankly, the combination of 1984 and BNW is by far more provocative to those who need to be reached than AoM.

And have too many people been convinced through the indoctrination programs that, indeed, the world will be better off with 6-7 billion less people on the planet?

Everybody seems to think that means "somebody else," a product of the subjectification of reality by our Sicko-Logical industry's effluence on pubelik ejacation, I think.

Do you think perhaps that this additional insight is worth pinging the list again?

Maybe once you've pondered more on the solution set.