Are environmentalists thinking about people?

The Deseret News ^ | 6/29/2003 | Betsy Hart

[Utah Girl]

About the same time I was slapping at mosquitoes in my back yard while reading news reports about how record rainfalls would spawn unprecedented populations of the bug this summer, a birthday gift arrived for my daughter.

She just turned 7, and a well-meaning family member sent her a most interesting book. The title? "Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson" by Amy Erhlich, published by Harcourt Books.

The book is devoted to further advancing with children the iconography surrounding Rachel Carson, the woman who helped launch the modern environmental movement with her 1962 enviro-manifesto, "Silent Spring."

But what Erhlich doesn't tell you in "Rachel" is that as a direct result of Carson's largely successful push in that best-selling book to rid the earth of the pesticide DDT, hundreds of millions of people have contracted the mosquito-borne disease malaria, and tens of millions, mostly pregnant women and children in sub-Saharan Africa, have died of it. Worse, the disease continues to spread into new areas, and the Malaria Foundation International says it could even make a resurgence in the United States within a few years.

I guess that information just wouldn't sit well on the halo that surrounds Carson. But here are the facts: "There has never been even one peer-reviewed, independently replicated study linking DDT exposure to any health problems in humans," explains Roger Bate, director of the Africa Fighting Malaria organization in Washington, D.C. "And given that since the 1940s easily more than a billion people the world over have been exposed to DDT, it should be pretty easy to come up with solid evidence of human harm if it existed," he said.

Still, most Western governments, including the U.S., banned DDT in the 1970s because of Carson's hysteria. And because DDT has become so politically radioactive, most Third World countries don't or can't us it anymore. Nowhere in the world today is DDT legally used for farming, or illegally used in a way known to authorities.

DDT probably did cause some environmental harm when it was extensively used in agriculture in the 1950s and 1960s. Though that harm was shown to be reversible, it may have included things like thinner egg shells in certain birds of prey.

But, wow, what DDT did to help the human race. Spraying minuscule amounts of the pesticide in houses, hospitals, and on mosquito breeding grounds was the primary reason that rates of malaria declined so substantially when DDT was widely used to combat the disease after World War II.

In fact, in many places, including Europe and the United States, malaria was eradicated. In others, it declined dramatically. There were 2.8 million cases of malaria in Sri Lanka alone in 1948, but because of DDT, there were 29 in 1963.

Yet today, thanks to the work of Rachel Carson and her ilk, there are 300 to 500 million malaria cases worldwide. Thousands of people die of the disease EVERY DAY, and millions more experience the physical and economically debilitating aspects of it. And for what, so Western environmentalists can sleep better at night? These people may love humanity — but do they even like people?

As Bate explains, DDT is the cheapest and most effective way to fight mosquitoes that carry malaria. Chemicals work by repelling, irritating or killing the pests. When mosquitoes eventually build up a resistance to the poison aspect of DDT, they still remain repelled by it, which is why it is so effective. (Even more effective is rotating DDT use with other chemicals.) Nonetheless, DDT is just one huge weapon in fighting the spread of malaria — but a weapon that, thanks to Carson, has been largely removed from the world's arsenal.

In any event, some African governments aren't putting up with the nonsense anymore. In 2000, South Africa started spraying tiny amounts of DDT in homes in its province with the most malaria cases, and rates of the disease dropped there by almost 90 percent, from a high of 60,000 a year. Sadly, other African countries would like to follow suit but can't do so on their own. They need funds from the World Health Organization or the U.S. Agency for International Development — and neither organization, though they know better, has the political guts to buck the international environmental lobby and allow funding for the spraying of DDT.

So, what about that well-meaning friend and the "Rachel" book? Far from banning it from my daughter's reading list, we devoured every word together. It gave me a chance to explain one more environmentalist myth to my children.

We'll mention that in the thank you note.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Is Amy Ehrlich related in any way to the hysterical environmentalist Dr. Paul Erhlich, of 'The Population Bomb' fame?

[liberalnot]

good post.

it reminds me of the nuclear-meltdown movie of jane fonda.

it was a lie. and a cheap lie at that.

[prisoner6]

Bumpers for later reference.

Thanks! EXCELLENT article.

prisoner6

[HairOfTheDog]

I think it is reasonable to look into judicious and very careful use of DDT, but I also think that DDT is to some degree over-romanticized by the anti-environut crowd. I don't think we are lacking in chemicals that kill mosquitos, they aren't that hard to kill.

[CyberAnt]

"are environmentalists thinking about people"

NO, NO, NO!! If it weren't for people, all the animals would have a beautiful life.

[Freedom4US]

I wonder who still makes DDT? I seem to remember reading its here in the US, sold to south american countries. What's disturbing to me, as I like to read and know my history, is a sort of nonchalance about all these disease vectors these days. Years ago, there was a definite "these critters are bad and we're gonna kill 'em" attitude. Diseases of any type, from any source were something to be avoided, isolated, killed, and eradicated. From malaria to polio, nobody put up with this crap. Now, we witness horrible diseases like GRID and AIDS run rampant, because of "civil rights", which is nonsense. Our local town won't even spray for skeeters, even though West Nile is here. Everyone of course asks "why not?!!!" and the so-called experts just mumble more nonsense and hope nobody asks the right questions. It seems our society has been successfully de-balled.

[Post Toasties]

Do, environmentalists, by and large, care about people?

Hahahahahaha!

No.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Of course not. They aren't people.

[freekitty]

Any hopes in bringing DDT back?

[Utah Girl]

I don't think so. A former co-worker of mine is a rabid environmentalist, and she thinks the US government sprayed DDT on us to control us. There's too much unfounded hysteria about DDT.

[Post Toasties]

'sprayed DDT on us to control us'?

Did you catch any of her 'reasoning' about this? Idly inquiring minds want to know.

[Utah Girl]

No, I didn't. I just kind of sat there open-mouthed. I couldn't believe my ears.

[HairOfTheDog]

Unfortunately, you are wrong.

You tell me I am wrong, but you then go on to counter arguments that I did not make.... I did not say DDT wasn't cheap, I did not say DDT harmed humans. I did not say DDT was not good at killing mosquitos, I said mosquitos are not that hard to kill.

I don't like lethal chemicals that last a long in the environment. In the United States, I don't see any compelling need to bring it back in any kind of widespread use that is worth the price of losing our Bald Eagles and other birds of prey unless and until there is pressing need and no other chemicals are available and effective. I don't think we are there. I think Africa can and will make its own decisions based on its own interests.

[HairOfTheDog]

And I also said this. I didn't say it absolutely couldn't be used.

I think it is reasonable to look into judicious and very careful use of DDT, but I also think that DDT is to some degree over-romanticized by the anti-environut crowd.

[backhoe]

West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?

100 things you should know about DDT

[goldstategop]

The enviro wackos like trees and bugs but human beings rate low on the totem pole of their view of the world. No wonder they're opposed to the use of DDT pesticide even if it would save millions of lives in the Third World. Its akin to the Lord of the Manor telling their peasants their hardships are due to an act of God and they should just live with it. The ultimate liberal elitists are the enviro wackos who think man should serve nature not the other way around.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Yer basic environmentalist is just another flavor of the 'useful idiot.'

Yer political activists, authors and grassroots workers are ideologues often driven by a range of things. Some are philosophical and buy into the 'Deep Green' philosophy that sees humans on the same level as paramecium, thus the clear feature in environmentalism that is anti-human. It may go so far as to promote the erradication of humans and their works as 'anti-nature' since that is the logical outgrowth of their thinking. The theory of de-populating the humans from earth is pretty common.

Yer policy makers and movement controllers are hard-core commies. The entire environmental movement was the vehicle into which the Left poured itself when the ending of the draft failed to retain the needed middle classes in the Left's primary political vehicle. David Horowitz talks about this in 'Radical Son.'

The current state of affairs across the spectrum of issues finds that environmentalism seeks to:

Undermine the right to private property.
Depopulate rural areas.
Eliminate national sovereignty.
Destroy the American use of the automobile.
Nationalize industry.
Strip citizens of the ability to own pets and livestock.
Overturn our agricultural system which is the envy of the world.
Outlaw private home building.
Ban rural development.
Put and end to hunting , fishing and trapping.
Change DNR practices from resource conservation and citizens use to the stance of policing government property and eliminating public access.
Eliminate free access to remote areas for purposes of recreation.
Promote dangerous practices such as the 'naturalism' theory in forest management which is costing millions of acres in forest, millions of dollars in lost homes and infrastructure and human lives on an increasing level each year.
Eliminate or curtail most heavy industrial extraction processes such as mining and oil drilling.
End agricultural irrigation.
Rewrite educational curricula.
Control degree programs to artifically control job applicants and thus, industry.
Promote abortion and decrease human birth rates - most heavily in the West where total fertility rates are dropping dangerously.
End free choice in living arrangements, property ownership, diet, transportation and nearly all things Americans take for granted.