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Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:52:32 -0500
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From: Tom Lowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: NEW YORK TRIES TO HALT DEADLY OUTBREAK OF ENCEPHALITIS
At 8:25 -0500 9/17/99, Johnny Holiday/John A. Taube wrote:
>The San Francisco Chronicle, National Report Section, September10, 1999
>
>NEW YORK TRIES TO HALT DEADLY OUTBREAK OF ENCEPHALITIS
>
>NEW YORK - Although murder is down and the quality of life up, the city
>suddenly faces a deadly new menace: mosquitoes.
[snip]
>COMMENTS
>
>After reading an article of this nature, it is difficult not to think of
>Rachael Carson and her book “Silent Spring” and wonder why she went so
>wrong.
>
>Science is responsible for pesticides and also for the benefits this
>gift has been to humanity. An exemplary example is the use of malathion
>as noted above.
The cause of the mosquito infection could be global climate change. St.
Louis encephalitis is well-known in the deep South (my wife nearly died of
it in 1981). It is spread, as I understand it, by birds and other animals
which the mosquitoes bite and then subsequently transmit to humans. The
rise in global temperature is affecting the epidemiology of a number of
diseases, like malaria and dengue fever, so I expect that we will have a
number of nasty surprises over the next 50 or so years as plants and
animals adapt to different climate patterns by migrating northward.
My chief objection to the sole reliance upon technology is based upon the law of
unintended consequences. The same goes for pesticides as well as carbon emissions. It
is prohibitively expensive to test the effect of a pesticide upon every possible
organism to which it will be exposed. We can expect manufacturers of pesticides to
shade the cost/benefit considerations in their favor; so, sooner or later, we get a
rude shock.
And as to Rachael Carson and her book, is she wrong because her book helped
to prevent the very disaster that she predicted? It's the biblical Jonah archetype:
Jonah was commanded to preach to the people of Ninevah that they would be
destroyed if they did not repent. They repented, so God didn't destroy the
city. Jonah, perched outside the city waiting to see the fireworks, was
pissed because God didn't destroy the city. He even stated that he didn't
want to go in the first place because he figured that's what would happen.
In the story, Jonah's prophecy didn't come to pass because people took it seriously.
Likewise, *Silent Spring* was a prophecy that changed the way people looked at the
biosphere and a particular type of technology, and, as a result, it changed
significantly the destructive behavior that was leading to a "silent spring."
Tom Lowe
_____________________________________________________________________
Tom Lowe Judge a moth
Jackson, Mississippi by the beauty of its candle
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Rumi
http://www.jacksonprogressive.com
