On 5/8/05, Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- Gary Denton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I can get a cup of DDT from an environmental > > laboratory near here - wanna > > drink? Want to feed it to the neighborhood birds? > > Noisy critters anyway. > > That whole Mother Nature stuff is just so gay. > > > > -- > > Gary Denton > > And that whole knowing even a tiny thing about what > you're talking about is so overrated. Why on earth > would any pesticide company bother to fund a campaign > in favor of DDT?
Should I use <sarcasm mode on> <sarcasm mode off>? Was not my last statement a clue? To your question - They are not. Going after the DDT ban and blaming environmentalists for the death of millions is a way to smear the environmental movement. This is in the large corporations and conservatives' major agenda list, carried in Norquist's hip pocket for the last twenty years. They wouldn't make money off of DDT. > It's an old chemical. Banning DDT was a small, but > non-trivial, windfall for the pesticide companies. > DDT is currently being manufactured by a single > factory in India and it's _still_ a dirt-cheap > chemical. I wouldn't terribly want to drink DDT. But > I'd probably be safer drinking it than I would the > other chemicals that we use for insect suppression > _instead_ of DDT. > You can follow the link I provided where a major writer confesses to the reasons why he was paid to write corporate swill on the environmental movement. In addition, the environmentalists and public health ministries were not crying out for a ban on DDT. They were urging its use be restricted to fight malaria. In studies at the time the turning away from DDT came about in several countries because the agricultural sector was using it with abandon promoting resistance in mosquitoes. There were problems with the underfunded programs. Even giving all that we were right to ban DDT or restrict it use to life-threatening instances. Incredible as it might seem, while public health officials were cautiously > limiting the usage of DDT, it was being used in increasing amounts in > agriculture, especially on cotton, a cash crop (Chapin & Wasserstrom). This > heavy use led to resistance among malaria carrying mosquitoes throughout the > tropics. In this instance, the unwise use of DDT, rather than improving > life, actually resulted in a resurgence of malaria. According to Chapin & > Wasserstrom (page 183) "Correlating the use of DDT in El Salvador with > renewed malaria transmission, it can be estimated that at current rates each > kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of > malaria." Not surprisingly, anti-environmentalists ignore or downplay the importance > of insect resistance. There is no mention of the problem in *Trashing the > Planet*, *Eco-Sanity *or* Facts not Fear*. *Toxic Terror*, which has a > twenty six page chapter on "The DDT Debate", devotes just one paragraph to > the issue. There is no mention of the impact of DDT resistance on the war > against malaria. > The eradication program ended not because of any environmental concerns, > but because it did not work. The mosquitoes had grown resistant to > insecticides, and the microorganisms that cause malaria had become resistant > to the drugs used against them. In many areas the numbers of cases of > malaria greatly exceeded what it was before the effort was started. If > events had been different, if DDT had not been used heavily in agriculture > and there was no shortage of funds the outcome might have been different. > Malaria might have joined smallpox as a disease that had been eliminated > from the face of the earth. Unfortunately, such was not the case. As early > as 1967 it was clear that the effort had failed, and in 1972 the official > policy shifted from eradication to control of malaria. > DDT was not banned in any developed country till the 1970s (Curtis). It was > not banned in the United States, that hotbed of "environmental hysteria", > until 1972, and even then there were exemptions for health emergencies and > some agricultural uses. The anti-environmental claim that some third world > countries that were fighting malaria banned the pesticide back in 1964 > stretches our credulity, to say the least. Certainly such a ban would > generate a great deal of press coverage, as well as protests from the > affected citizens and the international agencies that were trying to > eradicate malaria. But the anti-environmentalists produce no such evidence. > The only "proof" that is offered that the suspensions were related to > environmental concerns was that they occurred after the publication of > *Silent > Spring*. But this is a post hoc ergo propter > hoc<http://info-pollution.com/evidence.htm#Post>(after this, therefore > because of it) fallacy, no cause and effect was > established. None of the authors who repeated this claim appear to have > considered that there might be an alternative > explanation<http://info-pollution.com/explanations.htm>for the halting of the > spraying program. Rather than causing deaths, the > cautions in Silent Spring about the indiscriminate use of pesticides could > have saved many lives. > Enough? Out of curiousity, Gary, is there _any_ issue where I > couldn't predict your position with flawless accuracy > by moving about three standard deviations to the left > of the American mainstream? Even one? Actually in this case the usually liberal Washington Monthly while not parroting false claims that environmentalists caused the deaths of millions as you do is urging DDT use be restarted in poor countries for malaria control only. I am not sure you would know the American mainstream. Why would you say my position is three standard deviations to the left instead of that shared by 49% of the public?. Actually shared by a majority of the public on many issues? Gary Denton "Fight the fear! Choose Freedom!" Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
