Posted on 05/26/2007 8:27:50 PM PDT by GMMAC
Carson's toxic legacy
Her book Silent Spring is a case study in the tragedy of good intentions
Margaret Wente
Toronto Globe and Mail
Thursday, May 24, 2007
I was 12 when I read Rachel Carson's newly published book, Silent Spring, in 1962. Although I'd never heard the term "environmentalist," she turned me into one. I didn't understand the complicated science in it. But I was horrified by her evocation of a natural world whose creatures were being wiped out by man-made poisons - the silent spring, where no birds sang. In school, I wrote an essay praising Silent Spring, and another one explaining why a bomb shelter wouldn't help you survive a nuclear attack. (That was an apocalyptic time, not unlike our own.)
Born 100 years ago this week, Ms. Carson is still revered as the patron saint of the environmental movement. Schools, conferences and special days are named after her. Among her foremost admirers is Al Gore. "Silent Spring came as a cry in the wilderness, a deeply felt, thoroughly researched and brilliantly written argument that changed the course of history," he wrote.
Indeed it did - and not necessarily for the better. In fact, it led to one of the greatest tragedies of modern times. Thanks to Ms. Carson's all-out attack on pesticides, DDT was banned in the West. But DDT was also the most effective anti-malarial agent ever invented; before it fell into disrepute, it was credited with saving 100 million lives. When the Western nations cut off their support for DDT spraying programs in the Third World, the death toll shot back up.
Today, malaria cripples local economies and kills 2.7 million people every year - mostly children under 5. In a devastating investigative piece, New York Times journalist Tina Rosenberg wrote, "Silent Spring is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind."
"Poor woman. She never actually said 'Ban DDT,' " says Amir Attaran, an expert on public-health and development policy at the University of Ottawa.
"Her point was that we should use chemicals less." But for environmental fundamentalists, Silent Spring was the ideal propaganda tool to drive home their message. And even though the World Health Organization has now reversed itself on DDT, countless environmental and cancer activists continue to cite the DDT ban as one of environmentalism's greatest "victories."
DDT's persistence in the environment did, indeed, affect certain bird species, such as eagles. But after decades of testing, there's not a shred of evidence that it causes cancer in humans, as Ms. Carson claimed. Although she was an eloquent, impassioned writer, science wasn't her strong suit. "She focused on the one environmental subject [chemicals] where you have to have the greatest scientific knowledge," says Prof. Attaran.
Silent Spring is riddled with anecdotal evidence and misleading assertions that flunk the most basic science test. "Today more American school children die of cancer than from any other cause," she wrote, implying that pesticides were to blame. But the real reason for this alarming trend was the dramatic decline in other causes of child mortality, especially infectious diseases. At the time she wrote, the mortality rate from childhood cancer hadn't changed for decades. Curiously, she also overlooked the greatest man-made cancer agent of them all: cigarettes.
Today the legacy of Silent Spring is all around us. As cities and towns rush to ban lawn sprays, you can thank Ms. Carson for the dandelions in the park. The belief that man-made agents are unnatural, and thus inherently bad - even in the most minute amounts - is now widespread. Millions of people are convinced that toxic chemicals in our food, our water, and our air are responsible for the cancer epidemic, even though no such epidemic exists. Her apocalyptic prophecies about how mankind is destroying the Earth are faithfully reproduced by extremists in the global warming crowd.
Most seriously, groups like the Sierra Club continue to lobby against DDT because of the potential for "widespread misuse" - yet another example of the distressing tendency among environmentalists to sacrifice the interests of the Third World because they think they know better.
Ms. Carson wasn't really the mother of environmentalism either, as her admirers like to claim. By the time she came along, the environmental movement had been going strong for decades, and the public had already embraced the importance of species conservation and the preservation of open spaces.
The movement was already poised for its next - and far more problematic - wave, the assault on Big Chem. "She didn't launch that movement," says Prof. Attaran. "She was used by it."
And she was not used well. She may have turned the sixties generation on to environmentalism. But ultimately, Silent Spring is a case study in the tragedy of good intentions.
mwente@globeandmail.com
Carson is a bigger mass murderer than Hitler!
I hope that's just your idea of a bad joke. There seem to be lots of bad jokes on FR these days, and many of them are not jokes.
Well, her lies have caused the deaths of many many people.
We think of malaria as a problem of Third World countries, but I know one “developed” nation where malaria has been in the past, and could be again, a major killer. That nation is the United States of America.
I would put it much differently.
It is the [Luddite-like] enviromental zealots that worshiped her erroneous postulations and used them to further their cause that have caused the deaths.
But speaking as one who came of age in the 60s, the ball was already rolling and the results we see now would have come about without her book. A lot of my contemporaries had nothing to believe in and the environmental causes filled that need.
IMO, when the Vietnam war ended, these people needed a guiding belief to fill that need which also furthered their anti-capitalistic goals.
Just like Hitler did at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, right?
It is worthwhile to discuss methods to increase indoor spraying of DDT in Africa.
It is not worth worthwhile to listen to comparisons of Rachel Carson and Hitler.
Hitler intended to kill as many Jews as possible. Rachel Carson did not intend to kill a single African. Can you see any difference between them now?
Why the hell am I wasting my time here? Good night.
Aside from the 40 million or so who have died of malaria and other tropical diseases in the last 45 years, you're right.
If we dismiss and ignore that little inconvenient fact; not that big a deal, really...
NOT!
liberal alert
intentions are more important than results.
Hitler intended...
Rachel Carson did not intend...
Yes, but what actually happened???
Well, no I don't.
I'm sorry you left.
Are you suggesting that Rachel was so monumentally stupid, ignorant and incompetent as to not know how many people died of malaria before she published her book?
If you believe that, the statement still holds, prefaced by the phrase, "Rachel Carson was so monumentally stupid that..."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
She sure has a lot of deaths to account for and she didn’t spare any birds.. West Nile got them.
-Snip-'Ol Rachel kinda reminds one of good 'ol AlGore, huh?
Today, malaria cripples local economies and kills 2.7 million people every year - mostly children under 5. In a devastating investigative piece, New York Times journalist Tina Rosenberg wrote, "Silent Spring is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind."
-Snip-
Silent Spring is riddled with anecdotal evidence and misleading assertions that flunk the most basic science test...........
‘Carson is a bigger mass murderer than Hitler!
—
I hope that’s just your idea of a bad joke. There seem to be lots of bad jokes on FR these days, and many of them are not jokes.’
==
It’s not my idea of a bad joke, it’s my idea of an apt comment; you are my idea of a bad joke, Hanging Chad.
“Why the hell am I wasting my time here? Good night.”
—
On this, Hanging Chad, I agree wholeheartedly. Good night and good riddance.
See yaaaah
She decided that she knew better than everyone else, SHE was right - no one else could possibly be correct - and so her ends justified her means - unfortunately, she was wrong and millions died for her elitist certainty.
I agree, I don't see much difference. Those who reacted to her book and flawed research undertook actions that killed untold tens of millions of innocent humans. That is evil. The very simple fact that few in the MSM, would bluntly repudiate her says a lot. She is still looked on as good because of her intentions.
It would be proper and just for leaders of the world to bluntly state, "Carson's book and research resulted in tens of millions of humans being killed for NO reason. She has been repudiated by facts and deserves no respect." Instead, we have PC leaders and evil leftists worshiping her still; disgusting. Imagine the 10's of millions of innocents in the third world in Africa if the likes of non-scientist Gore has his way with the biggest fraud in world history, AGW. Real science is being totally corrupted by the anti-capitalist and anti-human left. Environmental extremists, if they had their way, would make Hitler look like an amateur. Without strong leadership to fight them, the likes of Gore will continue to be hell bent of destroying our way of life, and purposely kill millions of innocents in the third world. That is evil.
Well stated. I hope she and Hitler will be in a hot place for eternity. She was evil in her actions.
I for one do not think your time here tonight was wasted. Not one bit.
TChad’s point is correct.
And intentions do matter.
Would you not agree there’s a difference if you drive over someone on the road by accident verses driving over them on purpose? If you’re honest you will admit the point. And that the consequences should be significantly different.
While Carson’s beliefs proved deadly it was clearly not her intention to kill people. Hitler was a mass murderer with every intention of killing people.
There’s been numerous large scale disasters from lead poisoning and phalidimide to dam failures where ignorance was deadly. That doesn’t make them Hitler or anything remotely similar. Get a grip.
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