Free Republic

A senator has delayed submitting a resolution to honor pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson on the 100th anniversary of her birth after a colleague signaled he would block it because of her aggressive fight against pesticides. Carson's 1962 book "Silent Spring" revealed the harmful effects of DDT and other pesticides and helped launch the environmental movement. The longtime resident of Silver Spring, Md., died in 1964. She would have turned 100 this Sunday. Sen. Benjamin Cardin (news, bio, voting record)'s resolution had intended to honor Carson for her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility." But Susan Sullam, a spokeswoman...

<p>Thirty years ago today, the Environmental Protection Agency drastically restricted the production and use of DDT, an inexpensive pesticide once widely used to repel mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects.</p> <p>Count us out of any celebration. Instead, we should mourn for the 30 million to 60 million people the World Health Organization reckons have died from malaria, lives that might have been saved by DDT. The American Council on Science and Health points out that in the two decades before it was restricted this "miracle pesticide" saved as many as 100 million lives in Africa, Asia and South America.</p>