--- Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: OK, Yahoo is truncating messages again, so I can't quote Debbi. Damn. We appear to agree that the charges against the Bush Administration about mercury have been vastly exaggerated. What does it say, btw, that with absolutely no knowledge of the issue it was still easy to predict that this would be the case? I think I'm being fair in paraphrasing her concluding thought by saying that she suggests that in the conclusion to my last message I was lumping together extremists and the mainstream environmental movement in talking about the banning of DDT.
My rebuttal to that argument is simple - no one uses DDT anymore. Basically no one in the world. If it's only the extremsists, how come they won so completely? Everyone knew - without any doubt whatsoever, _everyone knew_ - that banning DDT would cause a massive spike in malaria worldwide. It was nonetheless banned, and malaria did spike. 90+% of the people in the world who have died of malaria since DDT was banned _died because DDT was banned_. They died because the environmental movement has been captured by extremists. They didn't die because environmental activists wanted them to die. They died because environmental activists _didn't care_, and they won the argument, against all reason and evidence. There are any number of other examples. Golden rice. Genetically engineered food crops in Africa. That was a really stunning example, actually. The Western Europeans decided - openly and consciously - that it was better for Africans to die in a famine than use genetically engineered American crops. I can't imagine being so callous - but for them it was about "protecting the environment." I'd put it this way. I defy you to name a single person whose life has been saved by the environmental movement. I don't deny that there are such people - but no one can name them. But I can think of quite a few people who are alive _despite_ the best efforts of the environmental movement - starting with my parents. As long as that is true, how do you think I'm going to feel about Greenpeace? ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
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