Posted on 10/03/2010 3:53:47 PM PDT by Olympiad Fisherman
One of the shows I enjoy watching on the Science Channel is “How It’s Made.” All manner of things we use to enhance our lives start out as raw materials and the process of manufacture is a miracle of transformation.
Virtually all forms of manufacturing require some chemical element, often several. Given the indispensability of chemicals in society and commerce, does it strike anyone as odd that, if you were born after 1960, there’s a high likelihood that you grew up being told that “chemicals” are bad?
In 1962 Rachel Carson kicked off this bizarre notion with her bestselling book ...
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
I enjoyed Hitchcock’s “The Birds” a lot more although it was fiction too.
These EPA bastards need to be shut down for good!
Let’s ban the teaching of chemistry and burn all the chem books.
Oh, that will release CO2, a chemical.
I’m hungry so I’m going to go eat some chemicals and drink some chemicals. I’m using my computer made of chemicals. Later I will brush my teeth with chemicals and take a shower in chemicals. I’m going to put some personally created chemicals into the toilet and flush them into the sewer with chemicals. The sewage plant is going to use chemicals to remove those chemicals and put chemicals into the chemical they will pour into the lake, which is made of chemicals. The water dept. will suck some chemicals in from the lake, purify the chemicals with chemicals and sell them to me to drink and prepare my chemical meals.
Oh, I don’t think I can handle this!! Help us, EPA!
It was Nixon’s EPA chief (Ruckelshaus??) that played a key role in the ban on DDT, and millions have died of malaria as a direct result. This insecticide could be used with great effect in certain specific, limited situations for mosquito control with no adverse effect on the thickness of raptor egg shells.
Now we are reduced to touting as a malaria reduction device the distribution of mosquito netting to keep the bugs from biting sleeping residents of the tropics, which makes mindless liberals feel very good.
I missed being born in the 60’s by 7 years. Yeah, chemicals are nasty, but you need to know what you have and how to use it. Sure, I inhaled or ingested a lot of stuff before I knew what was what. But some things are useful and are on the shelf...
HCl
H2SO4
Glacial Ascetic acid
MEK
Acetone
Stoddard Solvent
Denatured Alcohol
Acetone
Etc.
Better living through chemistry is the way I was brought up.
P.S. I have a lot of cast-off thermostats that have Mercury capsules in them. Fun stuff to play with.
Yes, I hear you, and agree. I love the outdoors myself, live on a farm, and used to being an avid hiker, with an occasional mountain peak under my belt. The problem is, however, that environmentalism is rooted in holism, and holism invariably leads to a totalitarianism precisely because it deprives man of his humanness. Holism denies the fundamental distinction between nature and history/culture, and forces people to live according to the dictates of nature, even though nature does not think, etc.
Whenever I see a product asserting that it “contains no chemicals” I am given to asking, “What’s it made of, neutron-star material?”
Of course I also found an “all natural” insect repellent that asserted it contained “no toxins”, somewhat amusing, as one of the ingredients was oil of eucalyptus, which is, of course, toxic.
My environmentalism was rooted in 31 hours of college chemistry and a career in industrial chemicals.
I sometimes see food products with the words “No Chemicals!” printed on the packaging.
I’m tempted to ask, “Then, does this package contain absolute vacuum?” but I don’t, knowing that the people selling the “chemical-free” food probably don’t have enough scientific background to even understand that *everything* is made of chemicals.
“MEK”
I had a band in the Seventies called Methyl Ethyl And The Ketones.
Whoever banned DDT is responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
You make a good point, but there’s really not a nickel’s difference between them, from a conservative’s perspective. See the Hayek quote on my FR profile page for more on that.
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