Death by Environmentalism
by Robert James Bidinotto
What does it mean in practice to hold a philosophy that declares that pristine nature has intrinsic value in itself, and that regards Man and his activities as intrusive threats to the so-called ecological balance?
In the same way that so many intellectuals once turned a blind eye to the massacres perpetrated by communists, most intellectuals now evade the three decades of mass destruction and misery perpetrated by environmentalists. Sharing the movement's underlying philosophic precepts and focusing their gaze upon its proclaimed goals, they remain blissfully ignorant of its wretched consequences, or—when brought to their attention— excuse them as unfortunate "excesses" wrought by a few overly zealous "idealists," whose hearts are nonetheless in the right place.
It is this self-imposed blindness that we must penetrate, by casting a spotlight on the human costs of this misanthropic movement.
And let's be clear about our real adversaries. The environmental movement's deadliest threats to human lives do not come from its violent fringe characters, that relative handful of "eco-terrorists" who set fire to SUV dealerships and research labs. As I aim to show, the environmental movement's worst assaults on human lives are plotted and implemented every day by genteel, well-dressed lawyers, activists, and bureaucrats, working inside the posh offices of mainstream environmental groups and government agencies. While the theatrics of tree-sitters and terrorists grab headlines and provoke public anger, the policies and programs of the mainstream greens command little public concern or opposition. But theirs are the activities that are destroying the lives of millions.
For the most part, these leading environmentalists have remained insulated from scrutiny and inoculated against criticism, chiefly because their philosophic premises are so widely shared by intellectuals, the media, and the public. But another factor also conspires to buffer environmentalists from serious opposition. It's what the nineteenth-century French economist Frederic Bastiat described as the problem of "what is seen, and what is not seen."
Environmentalists always tout nice-sounding objectives: a new protected species, cleaner air, more fuel-efficient automobiles. But these efforts invariably have destructive side effects that are often difficult to trace back to their sources.
For instance, whenever environmentalists prevent the building of hydroelectric power dams in the Third World, they boast of having prevented the flooding of land and the destruction of wildlife and habitat. What is seen are romanticized TV shows depicting herds of elephants, giraffes, and antelope roaming the vast plains of Africa, narrated with manic enthusiasm by the Animal Planet cable network's Crocodile Hunter, to whom every snake and slug is "a real beauty!" And what is also seen are the press conferences where green groups crow about having spared these critters from a man-made ecological holocaust.
What is not seen are the countless human lives they have taken. By depriving Third World people access to the electricity that Western environmentalists take for granted, those people remain mired in poverty, darkness, wretched sanitation, and the resulting diseases and malnutrition that take millions of lives each year. Thanks to the environmental movement, these hapless people's Hobbesian existence will remain nasty, brutish, and short.
Yet few will ever attribute their enduring miseries to environmentalism. Few will link the next plague, famine, or disaster back to green culprits living in New York or Washington. The chain of causes and effects seems too difficult to trace.
Difficult, but not impossible. Let's take a recent horrible example: the deaths of some 15,000 people in France during this past summer's European heat wave.
The French Heat Wave Deaths
According to an Associated Press report (September 9, 2003): "The heat baked many parts of Europe, killing livestock and fanning forest fires, but experts said the heat was more severe in France because temperatures did not drop at night, meaning those exhausted from the daytime heat enjoyed no respite when the sun went down."
However, the high temperatures alone do not explain mass deaths in a modern nation. After all, summer temperatures in the American West soar frequently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit—as they did again this year—without corresponding heat-related deaths. Indeed, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels pointed out on Fox News (August 20, 2003) that "the mean summer temperature in Paris is the same as in Detroit, Chicago, and Denver, and when these American cities heat up to record levels…there's no proportional number of excess deaths." What, then, was so different about France?
The Associated Press story gives the following clue: "The bulk of the victims—many of them elderly—died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare."
This prompts an obvious question: Why is air conditioning so rare in a technologically sophisticated country like France?
In an interview, Michaels told me that a major reason is the impact of environmentalism on government energy policy. To address the alleged threat of global warming, France, along with the rest of the European Union, has imposed steep energy taxes in order to reduce energy consumption. As a result, Michaels explained, energy costs to consumers in France are about 25 percent higher than to consumers in the United States. At the same time, average incomes in France are considerably lower than those in America, which, in relative terms, makes electricity there all the more expensive.
Sure enough, the high energy taxes have worked exactly as the environmentalists planned: they have reduced energy consumption. Seeking ways to cut their electric bills, French citizens realized that air conditioners consume more energy than almost any other household appliance. For the poor and the elderly, especially, air conditioning simply became unaffordable. So, by the millions, they decided to forgo the amenity that environmental taxes made so expensive. Air conditioning, so universal in America, became in France an indulgence of the well-to-do. As Chantal de Singly, director of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, put it in Le Monde (August 19, 2003), the heat wave revealed two classes of French citizens: "the France of the air conditioned versus the France of the overheated."
So, to address the purely hypothetical risks of possible future global temperature increases that might average a few piddling degrees, the greens imposed energy taxes that made it impossible for many of its most vulnerable citizens to protect themselves against the foreseeable and preventable impact of a summer heat wave.
However, in the green campaign against energy consumption, the fatalities caused by French environmentalists do not begin to rival those caused by their American blood brothers.
The CAFE Carnage
By now, everyone has heard of the environmentalist war on sport utility vehicles, or SUVs. Columnist Arianna Huffington made SUV-bashing a central theme of her malignantly strident and mercifully abortive campaign for California governor. The environmentalist argument against these large, spacious, comfortable vehicles so popular with consumers is that they are gas-guzzlers that increase our use of fossil fuels and thus allegedly contribute to global warming.
The attack on SUVs is only the latest skirmish in the greens' war against cars, especially big cars. In 1975, Congress enacted a law requiring the Department of Transportation to impose fuel-efficiency rules on the automobile industry. These so-called corporate average fuel economy ratings, or CAFE standards, currently mandate that new cars meet a 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) minimum, while light trucks and SUVs get at least 20.7 mpg. The fuel ratings, posted on the windows of all new cars in automobile lots, are "what is seen." What is not seen, though, are the grisly by-products of these standards, because they lie quietly out of public view—in local morgues, from coast to coast.
You see, it is a simple matter of the laws of physics. Bigger, heavier vehicles are much safer to drive than similarly equipped smaller vehicles. Owing to their greater mass, big cars better absorb the impact of collisions. Owing to their greater interior space, they also better protect occupants from injury. But larger, heavier cars also burn more gasoline. In short, there is an inescapable tradeoff between greater fuel efficiency and greater safety. That is why environmentally correct minicars have almost three times the rate of fatalities as the biggest SUVs.
And that is also why the CAFE standards have been so lethal. To meet the high-mileage fuel efficiency standards, automakers have been forced to downsize vehicles, making them smaller and lighter, using plastics instead of steel, and reducing interior space. In the tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving lives, the government rules willingly sacrifice lives.
I say "willingly" because this tradeoff is well understood and has even been mathematically calculated, repeatedly. In 1989, a study by scholars at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution estimated that the CAFE standards had resulted in a 14-27 percent increase in highway fatalities—which translated to between 2,200 and 3,900 additional deaths per year. Similarly, a study by the National Academy of Sciences, released in August 2001, estimated that the CAFE requirements had contributed to between 1,200 and 2,600 deaths in a single year, and ten times that many serious injuries.
That is roughly comparable to the loss of life in the destruction of the World Trade Center . . . except that it's repeated every year. According to an analysis by USA Today (July 2, 1999), since their imposition in 1975, the CAFE requirements have been responsible cumulatively for a whopping 46,000 highway deaths. If, like the National Academy of Sciences, one multiplies that number by ten to estimate serious injuries, one arrives at total casualties approaching half a million people.
And who is directly responsible for imposing these deadly rules? Ironically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To be generous, one might suppose that the NHTSA does not know what it is doing, but that is not so. On October 14, 2003, the agency released its own study and admitted that the impact of automobile downsizing on highway safety is "substantially larger" than previously thought.
Since the carnage caused by the CAFE standards is so well known, one might think that environmentalists and their allied "consumer advocates" would be leading the charge for their repeal. After all, theirs is a movement that rages indignantly over even minute, hypothetical health risks, such as those stemming from minuscule trace residues of pesticides on apples. But where are they in the face of this bloodbath on our streets?
Where, for example, is U.S. Green Party candidate and automobile critic Ralph Nader? Here is a man who made his reputation denouncing American autos on safety grounds. Well, in 1989 Nader was helping fellow environmentalists plot their infamous national scare campaign over trace amounts of alar on apples when he paused for an interview. Asked what kind of car was least safe, he replied: "The tiny ones." Asked what car he would buy, he answered: "Well, larger cars are safer—there's more bulk to protect the occupant. But they are less fuel efficient" (Woman's Day, October 1989).
So even then Ralph Nader clearly understood the inescapable tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving human lives. Yet that has not stopped him from pushing the very regulations he knows to be lethal. On October 25, 2000, during his presidential campaign, Nader wrote a letter to the Sierra Club that declared: "I support raising the CAFE standard to at least 45 miles per gallon for cars."
Picture the additional bloodshed on the highways if everyone were forced, by Nader and his Sierra Club pals, to squeeze themselves into the frail little econo-box death traps that could possibly meet such a preposterous fuel standard.
This is not an instance of simple ignorance of consequences, an example of "what is not seen." The CAFE standards' grisly cost in human lives is understood by environmentalists such as Nader and the Sierra Club. But to such true believers, human lives are far less important than advancing their green crusade.
So far, we have seen that environmentalist campaigns and regulations are responsible for the deaths of many thousands around the world. But all these examples combined do not begin to rival the deadly results from a single environmentalist effort: their war against DDT.
The DDT Disaster
Before the 1930s, insect-borne diseases were responsible for taking millions of lives each year. In 1935, India alone endured an estimated 100 million cases of malaria and up to a million deaths. Elsewhere, as late as World War I, typhus epidemics killed at least three million Russians and untold millions more across Europe.
But in the late 1930s, Paul Hermann Müller discovered that tiny amounts of the chemical that came to be known as DDT killed just about every insect he used it on. Soon, other remarkable qualities of the pesticide were discovered. Even when some mosquitoes eventually developed resistance to its toxicity, DDT still acted as a repellent and irritant, driving them out of homes before they could bite.
Better still, there were few apparent toxic side effects on people. The U.S. military began using DDT in 1942 to fight malaria and typhus, which had been decimating combat units in Italy and the Pacific theater. They sprayed soldiers, dusted beaches, even deloused concentration-camp survivors with DDT, without any apparent ill effects. This saved millions of Allied troops from succumbing to malaria, typhus, and the plague, and spared the camp survivors by killing off typhus-carrying lice. As A.G. Smith of the British medical journal Lancet put it: "If the huge amounts of DDT used are taken into account, the safety record for human beings is extremely good."
DDT also proved to be far more economical than any alternative pesticides, which can be as much as two to four times more expensive. This is an especially important consideration for poor people in the Third World.
After the war, the United States launched a global malaria eradication project that by the early 1960s had almost eliminated the disease from southern Europe, the Caribbean, and much of eastern and southern Asia. In India, for example, malaria's horrific annual toll in lives plunged dramatically, from a million deaths per year to fewer than 50,000 total cases of malaria infection in 1961.
For his discovery of an affordable way to fight mosquitoes, lice, and other disease-carrying pests, Müller was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in medicine. "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT," the National Academy of Sciences later reported. "In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria."
But all that changed in 1962, with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Her thesis was that DDT and other pesticides entered the food chain, accumulating in the bodies of animals and especially birds, thinning their eggshells and eventually wiping out species. Carson also used colorful anecdotes to suggest a cancer danger to humans.
Silent Spring was the book that sparked the modern environmental movement. The Environmental Defense Fund launched itself with lawsuits against DDT use and was soon joined by the Sierra Club. They pressured the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold hearings on the chemical. Even though the presiding administrative judge concluded that DDT was not a hazard to man, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus—a member of the Environmental Defense Fund—banned it anyway in 1972.
The U.S. ban became the spearhead of a worldwide assault on DDT. Under pressure by green groups, other wealthy countries joined in the ban and began to restrict funding for DDT projects.
In 1962, Rachel Carson had declared the common robin "on the verge of extinction" and forty other bird species imperiled. All are still here, and most are thriving, a few perhaps owing to the ban on DDT. But millions of people whom Carson deprived of pesticides are not here, for, predictably, the international ban on DDT soon caused a staggering resurgence of malaria. According to the World Health Organization, "There are at least 300 million acute cases of malaria each year globally, resulting in more than a million deaths." (Some estimates go as high as 500 to 900 million annual infections and 2.7 million deaths.)
In his important new book, Eco-Imperialism, Paul Driessen notes that "over half the victims [of malaria] are children, who die at the rate of two per minute or 3,000 per day—the equivalent of 80 fully loaded school buses plunging over a cliff every day of the year. Since 1972 , over 50 million people have died from this dreaded disease."
Once again, the spectacle of mass death and its cause are well known to scientists, doctors, political leaders, and environmentalists worldwide. Yet though the health and environmental scares about DDT have long been refuted, and even in the face of a body count that makes the slaughter by Hitler and Pol Pot seem comparatively benign, the environmentalist movement is still fighting to maintain the DDT ban—and to extend it to those nations not yet on board.
In 2000, while malaria was killing two million people, environmental activists led by the World Wildlife Fund were promoting the Stockholm Convention, a U.N. treaty on so-called persistent organic pollutants that would have banned DDT worldwide for all uses. Meanwhile, Roll Back Malaria—a consortium of environmentalist groups, aid agencies, and international institutions funded by the World Health Organization—has issued a 40-page action plan for reducing countries' reliance on DDT, with the goal of eventually eliminating its use for public-health purposes.
Taking their cues from such influential members of Gang Green, governments and international agencies have added their money and power to maintain the death count. For example, during negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the Clinton administration made Mexico's phasing out of domestic DDT production a side deal in the treaty.
Richard Tren, head of the group Africa Fighting Malaria, says that UNICEF, as well as the international aid agencies of Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, and Germany, have told him that they refuse to fund DDT projects. The World Bank currently finances a malaria-control project in Eritrea—on condition that the nation does not use DDT. The U.S. Agency for International Development stated that its "activities are focused to reduce reliance on the pesticide DDT," instead "emphasizing prevention, medical intervention, and mosquito nets dipped in pyrethroid"—all measures that have failed dismally to stop the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, lacking funds to combat malaria on their own, most African nations are forced to accept the restrictions imposed by these international funders.
Thanks to environmentalists, the once nearly vanquished disease of malaria has become the mother of all massacres. But the scale of slaughter will only increase if they are allowed to implement their other pet schemes.
The War on Food
But perhaps nowhere are the anti-human motives of the environmentalist movement clearer than in their war on our most basic necessity: our food.
Environmentalists and "animal rights" activists have assaulted virtually every aspect of food production, distribution, and consumption. They assail pesticides and agricultural chemicals that have boosted yields and ended global famines. They attack safety measures such as food irradiation, which destroys microorganisms that kill 5,000 to 10,000 Americans annually. They block farmers and ranchers from expanding their use of land and water, and raising chickens, cattle, hogs, and sheep. Now they are targeting our diets, even declaring—as a New York Times writer did recently—that we produce "too much food" (Michael Pollan, October 12, 2003).
These are integral aspects of their broader agenda to restrict the presence of people on the planet. For if they cannot mandate population control, they seek to accomplish the same objective by allowing deadly diseases to run rampant and by depriving people of basic necessities, such as food.
Am I exaggerating? The October 2003 issue of The Atlantic Monthly carried an eye-opening article by Jonathan Rauch: "Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?"
"Frankenfood" is the pejorative environmentalists use to describe genetically modified or engineered crops. It is meant to conjure images of mad scientists (to greens, there are no other kind) who maniacally manipulate nature, with apocalyptic results. Rauch's investigation of genetically engineered food, however, presents a very different picture.
The problem the world faces, he explains, is this. Within the next half century, global population is expected to soar about 40 percent, to around 9 billion, before leveling off. During those coming decades we have to find ways of feeding all those new mouths. However, 38 percent of the earth's land area is already used for crops or pasture. We have exploited existing technology to the point of diminishing returns in squeezing greater yields out of that land. The global need for more food and jobs has driven desperate people to expand into previously untouched areas, cutting down more forests. It's also led to increased use, sometimes overuse, of pesticides and other agrichemicals—which is every environmentalist's worst nightmare.
Biotechnology, however, promises a way out of this grim future scenario. Crops can be genetically engineered to resist harsher climates, insects, diseases, and fungi. At test sites, yields have demonstrably and dramatically increased, without the use of more chemicals. This means we may well be able to feed those coming billions on existing farmland, rather than having to expand further into forests and wilderness areas. And we can do it safely, while reducing our reliance on chemicals.
So biotechnology could solve a pending hunger crisis, spare millions of lives and millions of acres of wilderness, and free us from dependency on chemical "poisons." Every environmentalist's dream, right?
Well, that conclusion rests on an assumption: the assumption that environmentalists are motivated primarily by a love of nature, rather than by hostility to Man's presence in it. Rauch went to the Web site of Greenpeace, where he found this: "The introduction of genetically engineered (GE) organisms into the complex ecosystems of our environment is a dangerous global experiment with nature and evolution. . . . GE organisms must not be released into the environment. They pose unacceptable risks to ecosystems, and have the potential to threaten biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable forms of agriculture."
Note that Greenpeace is worried primarily about the hypothetical "risks" of genetically engineered crops. And the risks they are worried about are not to humans, but to "biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable [organic] forms of agriculture." Those risks—and not the risks of mass starvation—are "unacceptable."
And at the Web site of the Sierra Club, Rauch found an echo of the Greenpeace position in Sierra's endorsement of the so-called Precautionary Principle.
The Precautionary Principle is the greens' ultimate weapon. It is the principle that no new technology should be permitted unless it is first proven to have no downside risks or negative consequences. Of course, no new machine, mode of transportation, medical treatment, means of communication, energy source—no invention of any kind—would have ever passed such a test. Every new technology throughout history has had some negative aspect. Every vaccine, for example, harms at least a handful of people who are allergic to it, even though it may save millions of lives. So we weigh risks against benefits constantly. We adopt innovations not because they are perfect or pose no risks, but because they are a demonstrable improvement over what we have had before.
But the Precautionary Principle demands a platonic perfection of every new technology, in effect treating them as "guilty until proved innocent." And it proposes that the force of law prevent the introduction of anything new unless it somehow can be proved to be without risk to anyone. The Precautionary Principle amounts to the enshrinement of fear over progress. Its consequence would be the idealization of stagnation.
Yet that's the premise mainstream environmentalists uniformly endorse. Says the Sierra Club: "In accordance with this Precautionary Principle, we call for a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops and the release of all GEOs [genetically engineered organisms] into the environment, including those now approved" [emphasis added].
In other words, the Sierra Club would retroactively ban the use of biotechnology in agriculture, even in those cases already scientifically demonstrated to be safe and effective.
Consider the stakes for human lives and well-being. Then consider where the environmentalist movement has cast its lot.
This is "idealism"?
Here is Rauch's own explanation for the greens' otherwise unfathomable opposition to an "earth-friendly" technology:
"For reasons having more to do with politics than with logic, the modern environmental movement was to a large extent founded on suspicion of markets and artificial substances. Markets exploit the earth; chemicals poison it. Biotechnology touches both hot buttons. It is being pushed forward by greedy corporations, and it seems to be the very epitome of the unnatural."
So, because of their fundamental hostility to self-interested human activity, environmentalists would much rather that we face the prospect of mass starvation than allow anyone to profit by preventing it, or use "unnatural" means to do so.
But this should not come as a shock. Starting, as they do, from the premise of nature's intrinsic value—a value independent of any valuer or purpose—environmentalists are driven by that premise's inescapable logic to consistently oppose every human effort to use the planet. To use the planet means to change it; and if untouched wilderness and undisturbed "ecosystems" are ends in themselves, then Man can have no moral right to feed, clothe, or house himself.
So far, only the most outspoken fanatics of the movement are willing to state this view so explicitly, though every day their numbers increase and their voices get louder. But the inner logic of environmentalist premises drives even the most naïve and benign among them to oppose, ever more consistently, every activity that sustains human life on the planet.
Some visitors to my ecoNOT.com Web site have expressed reservations at the harshness of my criticisms of the environmental movement. But in this article I have surveyed the actual toll in human lives from this movement's activities. And my brief survey does not begin to measure the full magnitude of destruction and misery caused by people who should know better—and who often do.
Many people are willing to give environmentalists the benefit of the doubt and help them maintain their public façade as well-meaning idealists. But whenever the naked consequences of their actions are made clear—when they are confronted with the reality of diseased babies and starving children, of crushed automobiles and disintegrating spacecraft, of sweltering apartments and blazing forests—and when even then they fail to recoil in horror and repudiate their agenda, such people may be called many things. But "idealist" is not one of them.
And I, for one, mean for the world to know that.
Award-winning investigative journalist Robert Bidinotto is an adjunct fellow of The Objectivist Center, a contributing editor to Navigator.
Death by Environmentalism
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Snidely Whiplash
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Death by Environmentalism
Snidely Whiplash;876557 wrote: Death by Environmentalism
by Robert James Bidinotto
What does it mean in practice to hold a philosophy that declares that pristine nature has intrinsic value in itself, and that regards Man and his activities as intrusive threats to the so-called ecological balance?
In the same way that so many intellectuals once turned a blind eye to the massacres perpetrated by communists, most intellectuals now evade the three decades of mass destruction and misery perpetrated by environmentalists. Sharing the movement's underlying philosophic precepts and focusing their gaze upon its proclaimed goals, they remain blissfully ignorant of its wretched consequences, or—when brought to their attention— excuse them as unfortunate "excesses" wrought by a few overly zealous "idealists," whose hearts are nonetheless in the right place.
It is this self-imposed blindness that we must penetrate, by casting a spotlight on the human costs of this misanthropic movement.
And let's be clear about our real adversaries. The environmental movement's deadliest threats to human lives do not come from its violent fringe characters, that relative handful of "eco-terrorists" who set fire to SUV dealerships and research labs. As I aim to show, the environmental movement's worst assaults on human lives are plotted and implemented every day by genteel, well-dressed lawyers, activists, and bureaucrats, working inside the posh offices of mainstream environmental groups and government agencies. While the theatrics of tree-sitters and terrorists grab headlines and provoke public anger, the policies and programs of the mainstream greens command little public concern or opposition. But theirs are the activities that are destroying the lives of millions.
For the most part, these leading environmentalists have remained insulated from scrutiny and inoculated against criticism, chiefly because their philosophic premises are so widely shared by intellectuals, the media, and the public. But another factor also conspires to buffer environmentalists from serious opposition. It's what the nineteenth-century French economist Frederic Bastiat described as the problem of "what is seen, and what is not seen."
Environmentalists always tout nice-sounding objectives: a new protected species, cleaner air, more fuel-efficient automobiles. But these efforts invariably have destructive side effects that are often difficult to trace back to their sources.
For instance, whenever environmentalists prevent the building of hydroelectric power dams in the Third World, they boast of having prevented the flooding of land and the destruction of wildlife and habitat. What is seen are romanticized TV shows depicting herds of elephants, giraffes, and antelope roaming the vast plains of Africa, narrated with manic enthusiasm by the Animal Planet cable network's Crocodile Hunter, to whom every snake and slug is "a real beauty!" And what is also seen are the press conferences where green groups crow about having spared these critters from a man-made ecological holocaust.
What is not seen are the countless human lives they have taken. By depriving Third World people access to the electricity that Western environmentalists take for granted, those people remain mired in poverty, darkness, wretched sanitation, and the resulting diseases and malnutrition that take millions of lives each year. Thanks to the environmental movement, these hapless people's Hobbesian existence will remain nasty, brutish, and short.
Yet few will ever attribute their enduring miseries to environmentalism. Few will link the next plague, famine, or disaster back to green culprits living in New York or Washington. The chain of causes and effects seems too difficult to trace.
Difficult, but not impossible. Let's take a recent horrible example: the deaths of some 15,000 people in France during this past summer's European heat wave.
The French Heat Wave Deaths
According to an Associated Press report (September 9, 2003): "The heat baked many parts of Europe, killing livestock and fanning forest fires, but experts said the heat was more severe in France because temperatures did not drop at night, meaning those exhausted from the daytime heat enjoyed no respite when the sun went down."
However, the high temperatures alone do not explain mass deaths in a modern nation. After all, summer temperatures in the American West soar frequently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit—as they did again this year—without corresponding heat-related deaths. Indeed, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels pointed out on Fox News (August 20, 2003) that "the mean summer temperature in Paris is the same as in Detroit, Chicago, and Denver, and when these American cities heat up to record levels¦there's no proportional number of excess deaths." What, then, was so different about France?
The Associated Press story gives the following clue: "The bulk of the victims—many of them elderly—died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare."
This prompts an obvious question: Why is air conditioning so rare in a technologically sophisticated country like France?
In an interview, Michaels told me that a major reason is the impact of environmentalism on government energy policy. To address the alleged threat of global warming, France, along with the rest of the European Union, has imposed steep energy taxes in order to reduce energy consumption. As a result, Michaels explained, energy costs to consumers in France are about 25 percent higher than to consumers in the United States. At the same time, average incomes in France are considerably lower than those in America, which, in relative terms, makes electricity there all the more expensive.
Sure enough, the high energy taxes have worked exactly as the environmentalists planned: they have reduced energy consumption. Seeking ways to cut their electric bills, French citizens realized that air conditioners consume more energy than almost any other household appliance. For the poor and the elderly, especially, air conditioning simply became unaffordable. So, by the millions, they decided to forgo the amenity that environmental taxes made so expensive. Air conditioning, so universal in America, became in France an indulgence of the well-to-do. As Chantal de Singly, director of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, put it in Le Monde (August 19, 2003), the heat wave revealed two classes of French citizens: "the France of the air conditioned versus the France of the overheated."
So, to address the purely hypothetical risks of possible future global temperature increases that might average a few piddling degrees, the greens imposed energy taxes that made it impossible for many of its most vulnerable citizens to protect themselves against the foreseeable and preventable impact of a summer heat wave.
However, in the green campaign against energy consumption, the fatalities caused by French environmentalists do not begin to rival those caused by their American blood brothers.
The CAFE Carnage
By now, everyone has heard of the environmentalist war on sport utility vehicles, or SUVs. Columnist Arianna Huffington made SUV-bashing a central theme of her malignantly strident and mercifully abortive campaign for California governor. The environmentalist argument against these large, spacious, comfortable vehicles so popular with consumers is that they are gas-guzzlers that increase our use of fossil fuels and thus allegedly contribute to global warming.
The attack on SUVs is only the latest skirmish in the greens' war against cars, especially big cars. In 1975, Congress enacted a law requiring the Department of Transportation to impose fuel-efficiency rules on the automobile industry. These so-called corporate average fuel economy ratings, or CAFE standards, currently mandate that new cars meet a 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) minimum, while light trucks and SUVs get at least 20.7 mpg. The fuel ratings, posted on the windows of all new cars in automobile lots, are "what is seen." What is not seen, though, are the grisly by-products of these standards, because they lie quietly out of public view—in local morgues, from coast to coast.
You see, it is a simple matter of the laws of physics. Bigger, heavier vehicles are much safer to drive than similarly equipped smaller vehicles. Owing to their greater mass, big cars better absorb the impact of collisions. Owing to their greater interior space, they also better protect occupants from injury. But larger, heavier cars also burn more gasoline. In short, there is an inescapable tradeoff between greater fuel efficiency and greater safety. That is why environmentally correct minicars have almost three times the rate of fatalities as the biggest SUVs.
And that is also why the CAFE standards have been so lethal. To meet the high-mileage fuel efficiency standards, automakers have been forced to downsize vehicles, making them smaller and lighter, using plastics instead of steel, and reducing interior space. In the tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving lives, the government rules willingly sacrifice lives.
I say "willingly" because this tradeoff is well understood and has even been mathematically calculated, repeatedly. In 1989, a study by scholars at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution estimated that the CAFE standards had resulted in a 14-27 percent increase in highway fatalities—which translated to between 2,200 and 3,900 additional deaths per year. Similarly, a study by the National Academy of Sciences, released in August 2001, estimated that the CAFE requirements had contributed to between 1,200 and 2,600 deaths in a single year, and ten times that many serious injuries.
That is roughly comparable to the loss of life in the destruction of the World Trade Center . . . except that it's repeated every year. According to an analysis by USA Today (July 2, 1999), since their imposition in 1975, the CAFE requirements have been responsible cumulatively for a whopping 46,000 highway deaths. If, like the National Academy of Sciences, one multiplies that number by ten to estimate serious injuries, one arrives at total casualties approaching half a million people.
And who is directly responsible for imposing these deadly rules? Ironically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To be generous, one might suppose that the NHTSA does not know what it is doing, but that is not so. On October 14, 2003, the agency released its own study and admitted that the impact of automobile downsizing on highway safety is "substantially larger" than previously thought.
Since the carnage caused by the CAFE standards is so well known, one might think that environmentalists and their allied "consumer advocates" would be leading the charge for their repeal. After all, theirs is a movement that rages indignantly over even minute, hypothetical health risks, such as those stemming from minuscule trace residues of pesticides on apples. But where are they in the face of this bloodbath on our streets?
Where, for example, is U.S. Green Party candidate and automobile critic Ralph Nader? Here is a man who made his reputation denouncing American autos on safety grounds. Well, in 1989 Nader was helping fellow environmentalists plot their infamous national scare campaign over trace amounts of alar on apples when he paused for an interview. Asked what kind of car was least safe, he replied: "The tiny ones." Asked what car he would buy, he answered: "Well, larger cars are safer—there's more bulk to protect the occupant. But they are less fuel efficient" (Woman's Day, October 1989).
So even then Ralph Nader clearly understood the inescapable tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving human lives. Yet that has not stopped him from pushing the very regulations he knows to be lethal. On October 25, 2000, during his presidential campaign, Nader wrote a letter to the Sierra Club that declared: "I support raising the CAFE standard to at least 45 miles per gallon for cars."
Picture the additional bloodshed on the highways if everyone were forced, by Nader and his Sierra Club pals, to squeeze themselves into the frail little econo-box death traps that could possibly meet such a preposterous fuel standard.
This is not an instance of simple ignorance of consequences, an example of "what is not seen." The CAFE standards' grisly cost in human lives is understood by environmentalists such as Nader and the Sierra Club. But to such true believers, human lives are far less important than advancing their green crusade.
So far, we have seen that environmentalist campaigns and regulations are responsible for the deaths of many thousands around the world. But all these examples combined do not begin to rival the deadly results from a single environmentalist effort: their war against DDT.
The DDT Disaster
Before the 1930s, insect-borne diseases were responsible for taking millions of lives each year. In 1935, India alone endured an estimated 100 million cases of malaria and up to a million deaths. Elsewhere, as late as World War I, typhus epidemics killed at least three million Russians and untold millions more across Europe.
But in the late 1930s, Paul Hermann Müller discovered that tiny amounts of the chemical that came to be known as DDT killed just about every insect he used it on. Soon, other remarkable qualities of the pesticide were discovered. Even when some mosquitoes eventually developed resistance to its toxicity, DDT still acted as a repellent and irritant, driving them out of homes before they could bite.
Better still, there were few apparent toxic side effects on people. The U.S. military began using DDT in 1942 to fight malaria and typhus, which had been decimating combat units in Italy and the Pacific theater. They sprayed soldiers, dusted beaches, even deloused concentration-camp survivors with DDT, without any apparent ill effects. This saved millions of Allied troops from succumbing to malaria, typhus, and the plague, and spared the camp survivors by killing off typhus-carrying lice. As A.G. Smith of the British medical journal Lancet put it: "If the huge amounts of DDT used are taken into account, the safety record for human beings is extremely good."
DDT also proved to be far more economical than any alternative pesticides, which can be as much as two to four times more expensive. This is an especially important consideration for poor people in the Third World.
After the war, the United States launched a global malaria eradication project that by the early 1960s had almost eliminated the disease from southern Europe, the Caribbean, and much of eastern and southern Asia. In India, for example, malaria's horrific annual toll in lives plunged dramatically, from a million deaths per year to fewer than 50,000 total cases of malaria infection in 1961.
For his discovery of an affordable way to fight mosquitoes, lice, and other disease-carrying pests, Müller was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in medicine. "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT," the National Academy of Sciences later reported. "In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria."
But all that changed in 1962, with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Her thesis was that DDT and other pesticides entered the food chain, accumulating in the bodies of animals and especially birds, thinning their eggshells and eventually wiping out species. Carson also used colorful anecdotes to suggest a cancer danger to humans.
Silent Spring was the book that sparked the modern environmental movement. The Environmental Defense Fund launched itself with lawsuits against DDT use and was soon joined by the Sierra Club. They pressured the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold hearings on the chemical. Even though the presiding administrative judge concluded that DDT was not a hazard to man, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus—a member of the Environmental Defense Fund—banned it anyway in 1972.
The U.S. ban became the spearhead of a worldwide assault on DDT. Under pressure by green groups, other wealthy countries joined in the ban and began to restrict funding for DDT projects.
In 1962, Rachel Carson had declared the common robin "on the verge of extinction" and forty other bird species imperiled. All are still here, and most are thriving, a few perhaps owing to the ban on DDT. But millions of people whom Carson deprived of pesticides are not here, for, predictably, the international ban on DDT soon caused a staggering resurgence of malaria. According to the World Health Organization, "There are at least 300 million acute cases of malaria each year globally, resulting in more than a million deaths." (Some estimates go as high as 500 to 900 million annual infections and 2.7 million deaths.)
In his important new book, Eco-Imperialism, Paul Driessen notes that "over half the victims [of malaria] are children, who die at the rate of two per minute or 3,000 per day—the equivalent of 80 fully loaded school buses plunging over a cliff every day of the year. Since 1972 , over 50 million people have died from this dreaded disease."
Once again, the spectacle of mass death and its cause are well known to scientists, doctors, political leaders, and environmentalists worldwide. Yet though the health and environmental scares about DDT have long been refuted, and even in the face of a body count that makes the slaughter by Hitler and Pol Pot seem comparatively benign, the environmentalist movement is still fighting to maintain the DDT ban—and to extend it to those nations not yet on board.
In 2000, while malaria was killing two million people, environmental activists led by the World Wildlife Fund were promoting the Stockholm Convention, a U.N. treaty on so-called persistent organic pollutants that would have banned DDT worldwide for all uses. Meanwhile, Roll Back Malaria—a consortium of environmentalist groups, aid agencies, and international institutions funded by the World Health Organization—has issued a 40-page action plan for reducing countries' reliance on DDT, with the goal of eventually eliminating its use for public-health purposes.
Taking their cues from such influential members of Gang Green, governments and international agencies have added their money and power to maintain the death count. For example, during negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the Clinton administration made Mexico's phasing out of domestic DDT production a side deal in the treaty.
Richard Tren, head of the group Africa Fighting Malaria, says that UNICEF, as well as the international aid agencies of Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, and Germany, have told him that they refuse to fund DDT projects. The World Bank currently finances a malaria-control project in Eritrea—on condition that the nation does not use DDT. The U.S. Agency for International Development stated that its "activities are focused to reduce reliance on the pesticide DDT," instead "emphasizing prevention, medical intervention, and mosquito nets dipped in pyrethroid"—all measures that have failed dismally to stop the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, lacking funds to combat malaria on their own, most African nations are forced to accept the restrictions imposed by these international funders.
Thanks to environmentalists, the once nearly vanquished disease of malaria has become the mother of all massacres. But the scale of slaughter will only increase if they are allowed to implement their other pet schemes.
The War on Food
But perhaps nowhere are the anti-human motives of the environmentalist movement clearer than in their war on our most basic necessity: our food.
Environmentalists and "animal rights" activists have assaulted virtually every aspect of food production, distribution, and consumption. They assail pesticides and agricultural chemicals that have boosted yields and ended global famines. They attack safety measures such as food irradiation, which destroys microorganisms that kill 5,000 to 10,000 Americans annually. They block farmers and ranchers from expanding their use of land and water, and raising chickens, cattle, hogs, and sheep. Now they are targeting our diets, even declaring—as a New York Times writer did recently—that we produce "too much food" (Michael Pollan, October 12, 2003).
These are integral aspects of their broader agenda to restrict the presence of people on the planet. For if they cannot mandate population control, they seek to accomplish the same objective by allowing deadly diseases to run rampant and by depriving people of basic necessities, such as food.
Am I exaggerating? The October 2003 issue of The Atlantic Monthly carried an eye-opening article by Jonathan Rauch: "Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?"
"Frankenfood" is the pejorative environmentalists use to describe genetically modified or engineered crops. It is meant to conjure images of mad scientists (to greens, there are no other kind) who maniacally manipulate nature, with apocalyptic results. Rauch's investigation of genetically engineered food, however, presents a very different picture.
The problem the world faces, he explains, is this. Within the next half century, global population is expected to soar about 40 percent, to around 9 billion, before leveling off. During those coming decades we have to find ways of feeding all those new mouths. However, 38 percent of the earth's land area is already used for crops or pasture. We have exploited existing technology to the point of diminishing returns in squeezing greater yields out of that land. The global need for more food and jobs has driven desperate people to expand into previously untouched areas, cutting down more forests. It's also led to increased use, sometimes overuse, of pesticides and other agrichemicals—which is every environmentalist's worst nightmare.
Biotechnology, however, promises a way out of this grim future scenario. Crops can be genetically engineered to resist harsher climates, insects, diseases, and fungi. At test sites, yields have demonstrably and dramatically increased, without the use of more chemicals. This means we may well be able to feed those coming billions on existing farmland, rather than having to expand further into forests and wilderness areas. And we can do it safely, while reducing our reliance on chemicals.
So biotechnology could solve a pending hunger crisis, spare millions of lives and millions of acres of wilderness, and free us from dependency on chemical "poisons." Every environmentalist's dream, right?
Well, that conclusion rests on an assumption: the assumption that environmentalists are motivated primarily by a love of nature, rather than by hostility to Man's presence in it. Rauch went to the Web site of Greenpeace, where he found this: "The introduction of genetically engineered (GE) organisms into the complex ecosystems of our environment is a dangerous global experiment with nature and evolution. . . . GE organisms must not be released into the environment. They pose unacceptable risks to ecosystems, and have the potential to threaten biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable forms of agriculture."
Note that Greenpeace is worried primarily about the hypothetical "risks" of genetically engineered crops. And the risks they are worried about are not to humans, but to "biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable [organic] forms of agriculture." Those risks—and not the risks of mass starvation—are "unacceptable."
And at the Web site of the Sierra Club, Rauch found an echo of the Greenpeace position in Sierra's endorsement of the so-called Precautionary Principle.
The Precautionary Principle is the greens' ultimate weapon. It is the principle that no new technology should be permitted unless it is first proven to have no downside risks or negative consequences. Of course, no new machine, mode of transportation, medical treatment, means of communication, energy source—no invention of any kind—would have ever passed such a test. Every new technology throughout history has had some negative aspect. Every vaccine, for example, harms at least a handful of people who are allergic to it, even though it may save millions of lives. So we weigh risks against benefits constantly. We adopt innovations not because they are perfect or pose no risks, but because they are a demonstrable improvement over what we have had before.
But the Precautionary Principle demands a platonic perfection of every new technology, in effect treating them as "guilty until proved innocent." And it proposes that the force of law prevent the introduction of anything new unless it somehow can be proved to be without risk to anyone. The Precautionary Principle amounts to the enshrinement of fear over progress. Its consequence would be the idealization of stagnation.
Yet that's the premise mainstream environmentalists uniformly endorse. Says the Sierra Club: "In accordance with this Precautionary Principle, we call for a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops and the release of all GEOs [genetically engineered organisms] into the environment, including those now approved" [emphasis added].
In other words, the Sierra Club would retroactively ban the use of biotechnology in agriculture, even in those cases already scientifically demonstrated to be safe and effective.
Consider the stakes for human lives and well-being. Then consider where the environmentalist movement has cast its lot.
This is "idealism"?
Here is Rauch's own explanation for the greens' otherwise unfathomable opposition to an "earth-friendly" technology:
"For reasons having more to do with politics than with logic, the modern environmental movement was to a large extent founded on suspicion of markets and artificial substances. Markets exploit the earth; chemicals poison it. Biotechnology touches both hot buttons. It is being pushed forward by greedy corporations, and it seems to be the very epitome of the unnatural."
So, because of their fundamental hostility to self-interested human activity, environmentalists would much rather that we face the prospect of mass starvation than allow anyone to profit by preventing it, or use "unnatural" means to do so.
But this should not come as a shock. Starting, as they do, from the premise of nature's intrinsic value—a value independent of any valuer or purpose—environmentalists are driven by that premise's inescapable logic to consistently oppose every human effort to use the planet. To use the planet means to change it; and if untouched wilderness and undisturbed "ecosystems" are ends in themselves, then Man can have no moral right to feed, clothe, or house himself.
So far, only the most outspoken fanatics of the movement are willing to state this view so explicitly, though every day their numbers increase and their voices get louder. But the inner logic of environmentalist premises drives even the most naïve and benign among them to oppose, ever more consistently, every activity that sustains human life on the planet.
Some visitors to my ecoNOT.com Web site have expressed reservations at the harshness of my criticisms of the environmental movement. But in this article I have surveyed the actual toll in human lives from this movement's activities. And my brief survey does not begin to measure the full magnitude of destruction and misery caused by people who should know better—and who often do.
Many people are willing to give environmentalists the benefit of the doubt and help them maintain their public façade as well-meaning idealists. But whenever the naked consequences of their actions are made clear—when they are confronted with the reality of diseased babies and starving children, of crushed automobiles and disintegrating spacecraft, of sweltering apartments and blazing forests—and when even then they fail to recoil in horror and repudiate their agenda, such people may be called many things. But "idealist" is not one of them.
And I, for one, mean for the world to know that.
Award-winning investigative journalist Robert Bidinotto is an adjunct fellow of The Objectivist Center, a contributing editor to Navigator.
What a load of bollocks. What is it about Americans that they can't discuss things issues like the environment rationally without having to categorise it as either a conspiracy or some new form of religion? There's surely been enough environmental damage done in the states for you to take it a bit more seriously on a case by case basis rather than dismiss environmental concerns out of hand.
by Robert James Bidinotto
What does it mean in practice to hold a philosophy that declares that pristine nature has intrinsic value in itself, and that regards Man and his activities as intrusive threats to the so-called ecological balance?
In the same way that so many intellectuals once turned a blind eye to the massacres perpetrated by communists, most intellectuals now evade the three decades of mass destruction and misery perpetrated by environmentalists. Sharing the movement's underlying philosophic precepts and focusing their gaze upon its proclaimed goals, they remain blissfully ignorant of its wretched consequences, or—when brought to their attention— excuse them as unfortunate "excesses" wrought by a few overly zealous "idealists," whose hearts are nonetheless in the right place.
It is this self-imposed blindness that we must penetrate, by casting a spotlight on the human costs of this misanthropic movement.
And let's be clear about our real adversaries. The environmental movement's deadliest threats to human lives do not come from its violent fringe characters, that relative handful of "eco-terrorists" who set fire to SUV dealerships and research labs. As I aim to show, the environmental movement's worst assaults on human lives are plotted and implemented every day by genteel, well-dressed lawyers, activists, and bureaucrats, working inside the posh offices of mainstream environmental groups and government agencies. While the theatrics of tree-sitters and terrorists grab headlines and provoke public anger, the policies and programs of the mainstream greens command little public concern or opposition. But theirs are the activities that are destroying the lives of millions.
For the most part, these leading environmentalists have remained insulated from scrutiny and inoculated against criticism, chiefly because their philosophic premises are so widely shared by intellectuals, the media, and the public. But another factor also conspires to buffer environmentalists from serious opposition. It's what the nineteenth-century French economist Frederic Bastiat described as the problem of "what is seen, and what is not seen."
Environmentalists always tout nice-sounding objectives: a new protected species, cleaner air, more fuel-efficient automobiles. But these efforts invariably have destructive side effects that are often difficult to trace back to their sources.
For instance, whenever environmentalists prevent the building of hydroelectric power dams in the Third World, they boast of having prevented the flooding of land and the destruction of wildlife and habitat. What is seen are romanticized TV shows depicting herds of elephants, giraffes, and antelope roaming the vast plains of Africa, narrated with manic enthusiasm by the Animal Planet cable network's Crocodile Hunter, to whom every snake and slug is "a real beauty!" And what is also seen are the press conferences where green groups crow about having spared these critters from a man-made ecological holocaust.
What is not seen are the countless human lives they have taken. By depriving Third World people access to the electricity that Western environmentalists take for granted, those people remain mired in poverty, darkness, wretched sanitation, and the resulting diseases and malnutrition that take millions of lives each year. Thanks to the environmental movement, these hapless people's Hobbesian existence will remain nasty, brutish, and short.
Yet few will ever attribute their enduring miseries to environmentalism. Few will link the next plague, famine, or disaster back to green culprits living in New York or Washington. The chain of causes and effects seems too difficult to trace.
Difficult, but not impossible. Let's take a recent horrible example: the deaths of some 15,000 people in France during this past summer's European heat wave.
The French Heat Wave Deaths
According to an Associated Press report (September 9, 2003): "The heat baked many parts of Europe, killing livestock and fanning forest fires, but experts said the heat was more severe in France because temperatures did not drop at night, meaning those exhausted from the daytime heat enjoyed no respite when the sun went down."
However, the high temperatures alone do not explain mass deaths in a modern nation. After all, summer temperatures in the American West soar frequently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit—as they did again this year—without corresponding heat-related deaths. Indeed, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels pointed out on Fox News (August 20, 2003) that "the mean summer temperature in Paris is the same as in Detroit, Chicago, and Denver, and when these American cities heat up to record levels¦there's no proportional number of excess deaths." What, then, was so different about France?
The Associated Press story gives the following clue: "The bulk of the victims—many of them elderly—died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare."
This prompts an obvious question: Why is air conditioning so rare in a technologically sophisticated country like France?
In an interview, Michaels told me that a major reason is the impact of environmentalism on government energy policy. To address the alleged threat of global warming, France, along with the rest of the European Union, has imposed steep energy taxes in order to reduce energy consumption. As a result, Michaels explained, energy costs to consumers in France are about 25 percent higher than to consumers in the United States. At the same time, average incomes in France are considerably lower than those in America, which, in relative terms, makes electricity there all the more expensive.
Sure enough, the high energy taxes have worked exactly as the environmentalists planned: they have reduced energy consumption. Seeking ways to cut their electric bills, French citizens realized that air conditioners consume more energy than almost any other household appliance. For the poor and the elderly, especially, air conditioning simply became unaffordable. So, by the millions, they decided to forgo the amenity that environmental taxes made so expensive. Air conditioning, so universal in America, became in France an indulgence of the well-to-do. As Chantal de Singly, director of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, put it in Le Monde (August 19, 2003), the heat wave revealed two classes of French citizens: "the France of the air conditioned versus the France of the overheated."
So, to address the purely hypothetical risks of possible future global temperature increases that might average a few piddling degrees, the greens imposed energy taxes that made it impossible for many of its most vulnerable citizens to protect themselves against the foreseeable and preventable impact of a summer heat wave.
However, in the green campaign against energy consumption, the fatalities caused by French environmentalists do not begin to rival those caused by their American blood brothers.
The CAFE Carnage
By now, everyone has heard of the environmentalist war on sport utility vehicles, or SUVs. Columnist Arianna Huffington made SUV-bashing a central theme of her malignantly strident and mercifully abortive campaign for California governor. The environmentalist argument against these large, spacious, comfortable vehicles so popular with consumers is that they are gas-guzzlers that increase our use of fossil fuels and thus allegedly contribute to global warming.
The attack on SUVs is only the latest skirmish in the greens' war against cars, especially big cars. In 1975, Congress enacted a law requiring the Department of Transportation to impose fuel-efficiency rules on the automobile industry. These so-called corporate average fuel economy ratings, or CAFE standards, currently mandate that new cars meet a 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) minimum, while light trucks and SUVs get at least 20.7 mpg. The fuel ratings, posted on the windows of all new cars in automobile lots, are "what is seen." What is not seen, though, are the grisly by-products of these standards, because they lie quietly out of public view—in local morgues, from coast to coast.
You see, it is a simple matter of the laws of physics. Bigger, heavier vehicles are much safer to drive than similarly equipped smaller vehicles. Owing to their greater mass, big cars better absorb the impact of collisions. Owing to their greater interior space, they also better protect occupants from injury. But larger, heavier cars also burn more gasoline. In short, there is an inescapable tradeoff between greater fuel efficiency and greater safety. That is why environmentally correct minicars have almost three times the rate of fatalities as the biggest SUVs.
And that is also why the CAFE standards have been so lethal. To meet the high-mileage fuel efficiency standards, automakers have been forced to downsize vehicles, making them smaller and lighter, using plastics instead of steel, and reducing interior space. In the tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving lives, the government rules willingly sacrifice lives.
I say "willingly" because this tradeoff is well understood and has even been mathematically calculated, repeatedly. In 1989, a study by scholars at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution estimated that the CAFE standards had resulted in a 14-27 percent increase in highway fatalities—which translated to between 2,200 and 3,900 additional deaths per year. Similarly, a study by the National Academy of Sciences, released in August 2001, estimated that the CAFE requirements had contributed to between 1,200 and 2,600 deaths in a single year, and ten times that many serious injuries.
That is roughly comparable to the loss of life in the destruction of the World Trade Center . . . except that it's repeated every year. According to an analysis by USA Today (July 2, 1999), since their imposition in 1975, the CAFE requirements have been responsible cumulatively for a whopping 46,000 highway deaths. If, like the National Academy of Sciences, one multiplies that number by ten to estimate serious injuries, one arrives at total casualties approaching half a million people.
And who is directly responsible for imposing these deadly rules? Ironically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To be generous, one might suppose that the NHTSA does not know what it is doing, but that is not so. On October 14, 2003, the agency released its own study and admitted that the impact of automobile downsizing on highway safety is "substantially larger" than previously thought.
Since the carnage caused by the CAFE standards is so well known, one might think that environmentalists and their allied "consumer advocates" would be leading the charge for their repeal. After all, theirs is a movement that rages indignantly over even minute, hypothetical health risks, such as those stemming from minuscule trace residues of pesticides on apples. But where are they in the face of this bloodbath on our streets?
Where, for example, is U.S. Green Party candidate and automobile critic Ralph Nader? Here is a man who made his reputation denouncing American autos on safety grounds. Well, in 1989 Nader was helping fellow environmentalists plot their infamous national scare campaign over trace amounts of alar on apples when he paused for an interview. Asked what kind of car was least safe, he replied: "The tiny ones." Asked what car he would buy, he answered: "Well, larger cars are safer—there's more bulk to protect the occupant. But they are less fuel efficient" (Woman's Day, October 1989).
So even then Ralph Nader clearly understood the inescapable tradeoff between saving gasoline and saving human lives. Yet that has not stopped him from pushing the very regulations he knows to be lethal. On October 25, 2000, during his presidential campaign, Nader wrote a letter to the Sierra Club that declared: "I support raising the CAFE standard to at least 45 miles per gallon for cars."
Picture the additional bloodshed on the highways if everyone were forced, by Nader and his Sierra Club pals, to squeeze themselves into the frail little econo-box death traps that could possibly meet such a preposterous fuel standard.
This is not an instance of simple ignorance of consequences, an example of "what is not seen." The CAFE standards' grisly cost in human lives is understood by environmentalists such as Nader and the Sierra Club. But to such true believers, human lives are far less important than advancing their green crusade.
So far, we have seen that environmentalist campaigns and regulations are responsible for the deaths of many thousands around the world. But all these examples combined do not begin to rival the deadly results from a single environmentalist effort: their war against DDT.
The DDT Disaster
Before the 1930s, insect-borne diseases were responsible for taking millions of lives each year. In 1935, India alone endured an estimated 100 million cases of malaria and up to a million deaths. Elsewhere, as late as World War I, typhus epidemics killed at least three million Russians and untold millions more across Europe.
But in the late 1930s, Paul Hermann Müller discovered that tiny amounts of the chemical that came to be known as DDT killed just about every insect he used it on. Soon, other remarkable qualities of the pesticide were discovered. Even when some mosquitoes eventually developed resistance to its toxicity, DDT still acted as a repellent and irritant, driving them out of homes before they could bite.
Better still, there were few apparent toxic side effects on people. The U.S. military began using DDT in 1942 to fight malaria and typhus, which had been decimating combat units in Italy and the Pacific theater. They sprayed soldiers, dusted beaches, even deloused concentration-camp survivors with DDT, without any apparent ill effects. This saved millions of Allied troops from succumbing to malaria, typhus, and the plague, and spared the camp survivors by killing off typhus-carrying lice. As A.G. Smith of the British medical journal Lancet put it: "If the huge amounts of DDT used are taken into account, the safety record for human beings is extremely good."
DDT also proved to be far more economical than any alternative pesticides, which can be as much as two to four times more expensive. This is an especially important consideration for poor people in the Third World.
After the war, the United States launched a global malaria eradication project that by the early 1960s had almost eliminated the disease from southern Europe, the Caribbean, and much of eastern and southern Asia. In India, for example, malaria's horrific annual toll in lives plunged dramatically, from a million deaths per year to fewer than 50,000 total cases of malaria infection in 1961.
For his discovery of an affordable way to fight mosquitoes, lice, and other disease-carrying pests, Müller was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in medicine. "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT," the National Academy of Sciences later reported. "In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria."
But all that changed in 1962, with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Her thesis was that DDT and other pesticides entered the food chain, accumulating in the bodies of animals and especially birds, thinning their eggshells and eventually wiping out species. Carson also used colorful anecdotes to suggest a cancer danger to humans.
Silent Spring was the book that sparked the modern environmental movement. The Environmental Defense Fund launched itself with lawsuits against DDT use and was soon joined by the Sierra Club. They pressured the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold hearings on the chemical. Even though the presiding administrative judge concluded that DDT was not a hazard to man, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus—a member of the Environmental Defense Fund—banned it anyway in 1972.
The U.S. ban became the spearhead of a worldwide assault on DDT. Under pressure by green groups, other wealthy countries joined in the ban and began to restrict funding for DDT projects.
In 1962, Rachel Carson had declared the common robin "on the verge of extinction" and forty other bird species imperiled. All are still here, and most are thriving, a few perhaps owing to the ban on DDT. But millions of people whom Carson deprived of pesticides are not here, for, predictably, the international ban on DDT soon caused a staggering resurgence of malaria. According to the World Health Organization, "There are at least 300 million acute cases of malaria each year globally, resulting in more than a million deaths." (Some estimates go as high as 500 to 900 million annual infections and 2.7 million deaths.)
In his important new book, Eco-Imperialism, Paul Driessen notes that "over half the victims [of malaria] are children, who die at the rate of two per minute or 3,000 per day—the equivalent of 80 fully loaded school buses plunging over a cliff every day of the year. Since 1972 , over 50 million people have died from this dreaded disease."
Once again, the spectacle of mass death and its cause are well known to scientists, doctors, political leaders, and environmentalists worldwide. Yet though the health and environmental scares about DDT have long been refuted, and even in the face of a body count that makes the slaughter by Hitler and Pol Pot seem comparatively benign, the environmentalist movement is still fighting to maintain the DDT ban—and to extend it to those nations not yet on board.
In 2000, while malaria was killing two million people, environmental activists led by the World Wildlife Fund were promoting the Stockholm Convention, a U.N. treaty on so-called persistent organic pollutants that would have banned DDT worldwide for all uses. Meanwhile, Roll Back Malaria—a consortium of environmentalist groups, aid agencies, and international institutions funded by the World Health Organization—has issued a 40-page action plan for reducing countries' reliance on DDT, with the goal of eventually eliminating its use for public-health purposes.
Taking their cues from such influential members of Gang Green, governments and international agencies have added their money and power to maintain the death count. For example, during negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the Clinton administration made Mexico's phasing out of domestic DDT production a side deal in the treaty.
Richard Tren, head of the group Africa Fighting Malaria, says that UNICEF, as well as the international aid agencies of Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, and Germany, have told him that they refuse to fund DDT projects. The World Bank currently finances a malaria-control project in Eritrea—on condition that the nation does not use DDT. The U.S. Agency for International Development stated that its "activities are focused to reduce reliance on the pesticide DDT," instead "emphasizing prevention, medical intervention, and mosquito nets dipped in pyrethroid"—all measures that have failed dismally to stop the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, lacking funds to combat malaria on their own, most African nations are forced to accept the restrictions imposed by these international funders.
Thanks to environmentalists, the once nearly vanquished disease of malaria has become the mother of all massacres. But the scale of slaughter will only increase if they are allowed to implement their other pet schemes.
The War on Food
But perhaps nowhere are the anti-human motives of the environmentalist movement clearer than in their war on our most basic necessity: our food.
Environmentalists and "animal rights" activists have assaulted virtually every aspect of food production, distribution, and consumption. They assail pesticides and agricultural chemicals that have boosted yields and ended global famines. They attack safety measures such as food irradiation, which destroys microorganisms that kill 5,000 to 10,000 Americans annually. They block farmers and ranchers from expanding their use of land and water, and raising chickens, cattle, hogs, and sheep. Now they are targeting our diets, even declaring—as a New York Times writer did recently—that we produce "too much food" (Michael Pollan, October 12, 2003).
These are integral aspects of their broader agenda to restrict the presence of people on the planet. For if they cannot mandate population control, they seek to accomplish the same objective by allowing deadly diseases to run rampant and by depriving people of basic necessities, such as food.
Am I exaggerating? The October 2003 issue of The Atlantic Monthly carried an eye-opening article by Jonathan Rauch: "Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?"
"Frankenfood" is the pejorative environmentalists use to describe genetically modified or engineered crops. It is meant to conjure images of mad scientists (to greens, there are no other kind) who maniacally manipulate nature, with apocalyptic results. Rauch's investigation of genetically engineered food, however, presents a very different picture.
The problem the world faces, he explains, is this. Within the next half century, global population is expected to soar about 40 percent, to around 9 billion, before leveling off. During those coming decades we have to find ways of feeding all those new mouths. However, 38 percent of the earth's land area is already used for crops or pasture. We have exploited existing technology to the point of diminishing returns in squeezing greater yields out of that land. The global need for more food and jobs has driven desperate people to expand into previously untouched areas, cutting down more forests. It's also led to increased use, sometimes overuse, of pesticides and other agrichemicals—which is every environmentalist's worst nightmare.
Biotechnology, however, promises a way out of this grim future scenario. Crops can be genetically engineered to resist harsher climates, insects, diseases, and fungi. At test sites, yields have demonstrably and dramatically increased, without the use of more chemicals. This means we may well be able to feed those coming billions on existing farmland, rather than having to expand further into forests and wilderness areas. And we can do it safely, while reducing our reliance on chemicals.
So biotechnology could solve a pending hunger crisis, spare millions of lives and millions of acres of wilderness, and free us from dependency on chemical "poisons." Every environmentalist's dream, right?
Well, that conclusion rests on an assumption: the assumption that environmentalists are motivated primarily by a love of nature, rather than by hostility to Man's presence in it. Rauch went to the Web site of Greenpeace, where he found this: "The introduction of genetically engineered (GE) organisms into the complex ecosystems of our environment is a dangerous global experiment with nature and evolution. . . . GE organisms must not be released into the environment. They pose unacceptable risks to ecosystems, and have the potential to threaten biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable forms of agriculture."
Note that Greenpeace is worried primarily about the hypothetical "risks" of genetically engineered crops. And the risks they are worried about are not to humans, but to "biodiversity, wildlife and sustainable [organic] forms of agriculture." Those risks—and not the risks of mass starvation—are "unacceptable."
And at the Web site of the Sierra Club, Rauch found an echo of the Greenpeace position in Sierra's endorsement of the so-called Precautionary Principle.
The Precautionary Principle is the greens' ultimate weapon. It is the principle that no new technology should be permitted unless it is first proven to have no downside risks or negative consequences. Of course, no new machine, mode of transportation, medical treatment, means of communication, energy source—no invention of any kind—would have ever passed such a test. Every new technology throughout history has had some negative aspect. Every vaccine, for example, harms at least a handful of people who are allergic to it, even though it may save millions of lives. So we weigh risks against benefits constantly. We adopt innovations not because they are perfect or pose no risks, but because they are a demonstrable improvement over what we have had before.
But the Precautionary Principle demands a platonic perfection of every new technology, in effect treating them as "guilty until proved innocent." And it proposes that the force of law prevent the introduction of anything new unless it somehow can be proved to be without risk to anyone. The Precautionary Principle amounts to the enshrinement of fear over progress. Its consequence would be the idealization of stagnation.
Yet that's the premise mainstream environmentalists uniformly endorse. Says the Sierra Club: "In accordance with this Precautionary Principle, we call for a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops and the release of all GEOs [genetically engineered organisms] into the environment, including those now approved" [emphasis added].
In other words, the Sierra Club would retroactively ban the use of biotechnology in agriculture, even in those cases already scientifically demonstrated to be safe and effective.
Consider the stakes for human lives and well-being. Then consider where the environmentalist movement has cast its lot.
This is "idealism"?
Here is Rauch's own explanation for the greens' otherwise unfathomable opposition to an "earth-friendly" technology:
"For reasons having more to do with politics than with logic, the modern environmental movement was to a large extent founded on suspicion of markets and artificial substances. Markets exploit the earth; chemicals poison it. Biotechnology touches both hot buttons. It is being pushed forward by greedy corporations, and it seems to be the very epitome of the unnatural."
So, because of their fundamental hostility to self-interested human activity, environmentalists would much rather that we face the prospect of mass starvation than allow anyone to profit by preventing it, or use "unnatural" means to do so.
But this should not come as a shock. Starting, as they do, from the premise of nature's intrinsic value—a value independent of any valuer or purpose—environmentalists are driven by that premise's inescapable logic to consistently oppose every human effort to use the planet. To use the planet means to change it; and if untouched wilderness and undisturbed "ecosystems" are ends in themselves, then Man can have no moral right to feed, clothe, or house himself.
So far, only the most outspoken fanatics of the movement are willing to state this view so explicitly, though every day their numbers increase and their voices get louder. But the inner logic of environmentalist premises drives even the most naïve and benign among them to oppose, ever more consistently, every activity that sustains human life on the planet.
Some visitors to my ecoNOT.com Web site have expressed reservations at the harshness of my criticisms of the environmental movement. But in this article I have surveyed the actual toll in human lives from this movement's activities. And my brief survey does not begin to measure the full magnitude of destruction and misery caused by people who should know better—and who often do.
Many people are willing to give environmentalists the benefit of the doubt and help them maintain their public façade as well-meaning idealists. But whenever the naked consequences of their actions are made clear—when they are confronted with the reality of diseased babies and starving children, of crushed automobiles and disintegrating spacecraft, of sweltering apartments and blazing forests—and when even then they fail to recoil in horror and repudiate their agenda, such people may be called many things. But "idealist" is not one of them.
And I, for one, mean for the world to know that.
Award-winning investigative journalist Robert Bidinotto is an adjunct fellow of The Objectivist Center, a contributing editor to Navigator.
What a load of bollocks. What is it about Americans that they can't discuss things issues like the environment rationally without having to categorise it as either a conspiracy or some new form of religion? There's surely been enough environmental damage done in the states for you to take it a bit more seriously on a case by case basis rather than dismiss environmental concerns out of hand.
Death by Environmentalism
Seriously, is that was passes for informed debate in the US? Do you not think that the issues raised by industrialization, sustainability, and the impact of human activity on our environment (and ultimately our ability to survive long term) is a bit more complicated that this horseshite?
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
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RedGlitter
- Posts: 15777
- Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:51 am
Death by Environmentalism
gmc;876586 wrote: What a load of bollocks. What is it about Americans that they can't discuss things issues like the environment rationally without having to categorise it as either a conspiracy or some new form of religion? There's surely been enough environmental damage done in the states for you to take it a bit more seriously on a case by case basis rather than dismiss environmental concerns out of hand.
Well that could be because there is a tendency over here to dismiss environmentalism as a feel-good pansyass movement. I think it's very sad. People don't seem to understand what we do to The Web we do to ourselves. We can't touch one part of the spider web without affecting another part.
Well that could be because there is a tendency over here to dismiss environmentalism as a feel-good pansyass movement. I think it's very sad. People don't seem to understand what we do to The Web we do to ourselves. We can't touch one part of the spider web without affecting another part.
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Snidely Whiplash
- Posts: 176
- Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:33 pm
Death by Environmentalism
:wah:Lol....
To those of you who posted that this topic is rubbish, then to you facts and reality must also be rubbish...?? I can't understand you..? The topic has just stated facts from the past efforts of the environmental movement, thats all, no computer models, no forecasts of more or less hurricanes or nasty weathers, no nothing... Just what the history of the environmental movement has always been all about, nothing more, nothing less... If you have facts that show how wonderful this group is to humanity, PLEASE post your info.. If the article I posted is some mass conspirecy then prove the facts wrong, but don't bad mouth the article writer or me, thats just a leftist tactic for dismissing the truth....
C'mon you enviro guru's..... Tell us how your movement has any benifit to humanity at all....? And spare the Gw hysteria and how we're all going to burn up, and you're going to save us by banning our light bulbs and causing oil prices to go through the roof, or is that the real "rubbish" here.... Tell me how the enviromentalists are making anyones lives better anywhere in the world, and not sentencing millions to death with their misguided ideals and feel good at the moment actions and intentions, that don't affect them in they're cushy "middle to upper class white eleteist" lives, and how this all IS A GOOD THING......????
To those of you who posted that this topic is rubbish, then to you facts and reality must also be rubbish...?? I can't understand you..? The topic has just stated facts from the past efforts of the environmental movement, thats all, no computer models, no forecasts of more or less hurricanes or nasty weathers, no nothing... Just what the history of the environmental movement has always been all about, nothing more, nothing less... If you have facts that show how wonderful this group is to humanity, PLEASE post your info.. If the article I posted is some mass conspirecy then prove the facts wrong, but don't bad mouth the article writer or me, thats just a leftist tactic for dismissing the truth....
C'mon you enviro guru's..... Tell us how your movement has any benifit to humanity at all....? And spare the Gw hysteria and how we're all going to burn up, and you're going to save us by banning our light bulbs and causing oil prices to go through the roof, or is that the real "rubbish" here.... Tell me how the enviromentalists are making anyones lives better anywhere in the world, and not sentencing millions to death with their misguided ideals and feel good at the moment actions and intentions, that don't affect them in they're cushy "middle to upper class white eleteist" lives, and how this all IS A GOOD THING......????
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RedGlitter
- Posts: 15777
- Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:51 am
Death by Environmentalism
The topic has just stated facts from the past efforts of the environmental movement, thats all, no computer models, no forecasts of more or less hurricanes or nasty weathers, no nothing... Just what the history of the environmental movement has always been all about, nothing more, nothing less...
Actually it wasn't as factual as it was opinionated and already biased against environmentalists. Had it presented itself in a neutral light, I would possibly have taken it seriously but as it is I don't.
You've never told us why you have such a low disregard for people who care about nature and all that's a part of it? Did you have a bad experience?
I'm no "environmental guru" but I do care. I see no reason why you would invite us to prove anything to you, as you seem to have your mind pretty much made up.
Actually it wasn't as factual as it was opinionated and already biased against environmentalists. Had it presented itself in a neutral light, I would possibly have taken it seriously but as it is I don't.
You've never told us why you have such a low disregard for people who care about nature and all that's a part of it? Did you have a bad experience?
I'm no "environmental guru" but I do care. I see no reason why you would invite us to prove anything to you, as you seem to have your mind pretty much made up.
Death by Environmentalism
I got opinionated too. Snidely whiplash that article was biased against environmentalists, laughably. Who would be swayed one way or the other? Gobbldeegook if you ask me.
I could hit the arguments with ridiculous statements. Okay, why would hydroelectric damns be banned in countries? Maybe because of unequal distribution of water and flooding through whole communities. Isn't this a local issue? I say let the technology available find another solution. There are always plenty of ways of doing things. Why is damning certain parts of a river the best soultion.
In France people suffered because it was unexpectedly hot! Maybe it's not that the people can't afford electricity to run air conditioners, maybe they don't like artificial cold!
The article mentioned that people like to drive large cars so they won't be hurt in crashes. Why don't they mention the possibility of everyone driving the smallest car possible? Why the big car versus the little car? The only people in my opinion who desrve larger vehicles are large families and people who need to haul large loads. Those large families and loads require slower speeds anyway(have you ever tried to drive fast in a minivan full of screaming children?) which makes crashes less likely. People are so stupid.
Welp don't know much about ddt. However I've seen the result of ddt on the unborn child, no limbs and so forth. I'd bet there's a more natural way to prevent malaria if someone would allow scientists to make it work. Pharmaceutical companies seem to have the last say in lots of things like that. I'm most positively definitely sure there's a better way to fight malaria and whatever ddt has been used for. Who needs chemicals anyway?
The last thing is it doesn't matter what environmental groups do or say. One can see the thoughtless, wasteful extravgance of most industrial societies at an individual level. It astounds me how much garbage people produce. Actually I hate watching what comes out of my own butt (it's a necessary evil). People need to be more responsible daily and forever.
Erin
I could hit the arguments with ridiculous statements. Okay, why would hydroelectric damns be banned in countries? Maybe because of unequal distribution of water and flooding through whole communities. Isn't this a local issue? I say let the technology available find another solution. There are always plenty of ways of doing things. Why is damning certain parts of a river the best soultion.
In France people suffered because it was unexpectedly hot! Maybe it's not that the people can't afford electricity to run air conditioners, maybe they don't like artificial cold!
The article mentioned that people like to drive large cars so they won't be hurt in crashes. Why don't they mention the possibility of everyone driving the smallest car possible? Why the big car versus the little car? The only people in my opinion who desrve larger vehicles are large families and people who need to haul large loads. Those large families and loads require slower speeds anyway(have you ever tried to drive fast in a minivan full of screaming children?) which makes crashes less likely. People are so stupid.
Welp don't know much about ddt. However I've seen the result of ddt on the unborn child, no limbs and so forth. I'd bet there's a more natural way to prevent malaria if someone would allow scientists to make it work. Pharmaceutical companies seem to have the last say in lots of things like that. I'm most positively definitely sure there's a better way to fight malaria and whatever ddt has been used for. Who needs chemicals anyway?
The last thing is it doesn't matter what environmental groups do or say. One can see the thoughtless, wasteful extravgance of most industrial societies at an individual level. It astounds me how much garbage people produce. Actually I hate watching what comes out of my own butt (it's a necessary evil). People need to be more responsible daily and forever.
Erin
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;876792 wrote: Gal is that gonna be your response to this? I think this article rasies some serious questions that should be discussed, rather than dismissed outright.
Im going to take the DDT issue first, having been exposed to malaria on a number of occasions and seeing the suffering and death that occurs because of it then to find out that possibly it could have been prevented and nearly was eradicated but because of false science and this wave of folks who know better than the facts had DDT banned and Malaria has made a dramatic ressurgeance to kill so many makes me ill.
If you asked me to trade the lives of a few ospray for all those lives who were eradicated by malaria I'll take the poeple back. (not that the birds were really in danger anyway)
No, not entirely, it just makes me sad and angry that selective arguments some of which have some merit (I'm a chemist so I understand issues like DDT, and none of these things are simple, I know that all too well), get turned into the thrust of this argument that in fact its the environmental movement that killing the human race, not that fact that we are choking the planet on our own industrial vomit. Thats just about the most cynical and false argument I can imagine. I am not much of a tree hugger, but I am a scientist and I have some idea of what is happening to our environment, and I can tell you that it is being devastated by human activity, and its not some makey-up US liberal conspiracy, thats just a big fat lie.
An awful lot of this is to do with people's expectation of their lifestyle, and their greed to want more and more things, whether thats good for them or not, we are not talking about life-or-death things, so being more energy efficient, using more sustainable farming practices, not using up every fossil fuel resource, fish stocks, potatble water supply, precious metal resource, every bit of virgin rainforest, is not so much to feed the starving masses, but rather to keep the already well fed, well clothed, and well housed people in the developed world in the rather glutinous style of conspicuous consumption they have become used to.
The truth is that we recognized many years ago (long before "Silent Spring", which may be a big deal in the US, but not in the rest of the world) that there was a major problem with the issues surrounding industrialization in that it was creating serious amounts of pollution, causing problems down the line for everyone. We could have started years ago to make industry and our transport and power technologies much more efficient and sustainable, but it wasn't done, because of human greed and incompetence.
It wasn't that it wasn't possible, or even profitable, it was just because it wasn't quite as profitable in the short-term to do these some entirely sensible and pratical things to reduce the damge of our industries, (as opposed to doing nothing), while feeding the peasants (or citizens) any old rubbish to keep them confused. Now we need to make massive changes very quickly, and that may prove to be beyond us. That's what makes me angry, we are terribly foolish and short-sighted sometimes, and I am afraid we are certainly gong to pay the consequences of that, and a lot sooner than you may realize. Its sad.
Im going to take the DDT issue first, having been exposed to malaria on a number of occasions and seeing the suffering and death that occurs because of it then to find out that possibly it could have been prevented and nearly was eradicated but because of false science and this wave of folks who know better than the facts had DDT banned and Malaria has made a dramatic ressurgeance to kill so many makes me ill.
If you asked me to trade the lives of a few ospray for all those lives who were eradicated by malaria I'll take the poeple back. (not that the birds were really in danger anyway)
No, not entirely, it just makes me sad and angry that selective arguments some of which have some merit (I'm a chemist so I understand issues like DDT, and none of these things are simple, I know that all too well), get turned into the thrust of this argument that in fact its the environmental movement that killing the human race, not that fact that we are choking the planet on our own industrial vomit. Thats just about the most cynical and false argument I can imagine. I am not much of a tree hugger, but I am a scientist and I have some idea of what is happening to our environment, and I can tell you that it is being devastated by human activity, and its not some makey-up US liberal conspiracy, thats just a big fat lie.
An awful lot of this is to do with people's expectation of their lifestyle, and their greed to want more and more things, whether thats good for them or not, we are not talking about life-or-death things, so being more energy efficient, using more sustainable farming practices, not using up every fossil fuel resource, fish stocks, potatble water supply, precious metal resource, every bit of virgin rainforest, is not so much to feed the starving masses, but rather to keep the already well fed, well clothed, and well housed people in the developed world in the rather glutinous style of conspicuous consumption they have become used to.
The truth is that we recognized many years ago (long before "Silent Spring", which may be a big deal in the US, but not in the rest of the world) that there was a major problem with the issues surrounding industrialization in that it was creating serious amounts of pollution, causing problems down the line for everyone. We could have started years ago to make industry and our transport and power technologies much more efficient and sustainable, but it wasn't done, because of human greed and incompetence.
It wasn't that it wasn't possible, or even profitable, it was just because it wasn't quite as profitable in the short-term to do these some entirely sensible and pratical things to reduce the damge of our industries, (as opposed to doing nothing), while feeding the peasants (or citizens) any old rubbish to keep them confused. Now we need to make massive changes very quickly, and that may prove to be beyond us. That's what makes me angry, we are terribly foolish and short-sighted sometimes, and I am afraid we are certainly gong to pay the consequences of that, and a lot sooner than you may realize. Its sad.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Death by Environmentalism
I read somewhere that americans drove big cars because all the growth hormones persisting in their beefburgers mean they have to find ways to compensate. 
Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.
Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.-
Wild Cobra
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:42 pm
Death by Environmentalism
gmc;876586 wrote:
What a load of bollocks. What is it about Americans that they can't discuss things issues like the environment rationally without having to categorise it as either a conspiracy or some new form of religion? There's surely been enough environmental damage done in the states for you to take it a bit more seriously on a case by case basis rather than dismiss environmental concerns out of hand.
The problem is that the enviro-mental groups often become just that. Mental... They form an agenda that grows beyond the bounds of reason. This doesn't apply to all who are environmentally conscience, not by any means. Like any class of citizens, some are extreme on their views.
Assessments and judgments are made before the entire truth is known. In an effort to be politically correct, our government often regulates to extreme rather than by true science.
RedGlitter;876777 wrote:
Well that could be because there is a tendency over here to dismiss environmentalism as a feel-good pansyass movement. I think it's very sad. People don't seem to understand what we do to The Web we do to ourselves. We can't touch one part of the spider web without affecting another part.
I think this happens because we have too many things they say we should do that are clearly idiotic in most peoples eyes. Only one square of toilet paper per usage anyone? When such stupid things are said, we tend to dismiss what the other messages are. Sometime the environmental groups are right. When they do utterly stupid things, they harm themselves by the giving the public reason to dismiss them.
Jester;876792 wrote:
Im going to take the DDT issue first, having been exposed to malaria on a number of occasions and seeing the suffering and death that occurs because of it then to find out that possibly it could have been prevented and nearly was eradicated but because of false science and this wave of folks who know better than the facts had DDT banned and Malaria has made a dramatic ressurgeance to kill so many makes me ill.
I completely agree here. Regulated usage here rather than banning it would be a far better solution. The ban we have has aided in how many people contracting it? What if we had a ban on something that treated AIDS because of some byproduct or suspected health problems. What outrage would there be to keep such a cure unavailable?
Jester;876792 wrote:
If you asked me to trade the lives of a few ospray for all those lives who were eradicated by malaria I'll take the poeple back. (not that the birds were really in danger anyway)
Same here.
What a load of bollocks. What is it about Americans that they can't discuss things issues like the environment rationally without having to categorise it as either a conspiracy or some new form of religion? There's surely been enough environmental damage done in the states for you to take it a bit more seriously on a case by case basis rather than dismiss environmental concerns out of hand.
The problem is that the enviro-mental groups often become just that. Mental... They form an agenda that grows beyond the bounds of reason. This doesn't apply to all who are environmentally conscience, not by any means. Like any class of citizens, some are extreme on their views.
Assessments and judgments are made before the entire truth is known. In an effort to be politically correct, our government often regulates to extreme rather than by true science.
RedGlitter;876777 wrote:
Well that could be because there is a tendency over here to dismiss environmentalism as a feel-good pansyass movement. I think it's very sad. People don't seem to understand what we do to The Web we do to ourselves. We can't touch one part of the spider web without affecting another part.
I think this happens because we have too many things they say we should do that are clearly idiotic in most peoples eyes. Only one square of toilet paper per usage anyone? When such stupid things are said, we tend to dismiss what the other messages are. Sometime the environmental groups are right. When they do utterly stupid things, they harm themselves by the giving the public reason to dismiss them.
Jester;876792 wrote:
Im going to take the DDT issue first, having been exposed to malaria on a number of occasions and seeing the suffering and death that occurs because of it then to find out that possibly it could have been prevented and nearly was eradicated but because of false science and this wave of folks who know better than the facts had DDT banned and Malaria has made a dramatic ressurgeance to kill so many makes me ill.
I completely agree here. Regulated usage here rather than banning it would be a far better solution. The ban we have has aided in how many people contracting it? What if we had a ban on something that treated AIDS because of some byproduct or suspected health problems. What outrage would there be to keep such a cure unavailable?
Jester;876792 wrote:
If you asked me to trade the lives of a few ospray for all those lives who were eradicated by malaria I'll take the poeple back. (not that the birds were really in danger anyway)
Same here.
Death by Environmentalism
I suppose I was wrong about ddt and birth defects. Must have had a different chemical in mind.
Thing about talking these types of issues is the amount of reading is too huge for me. I can't get through all of it. That's why I'm glad there are environmental groups to make sure someone is keeping up with stuff.
Pesticides are not flushed out of our bodies. They stay there. Whatever pesticides/herbicides I was exposed to from the time I was in my mama are still in me today. So this is one reason I have aversion to spraying this all over the place.
Erin
Thing about talking these types of issues is the amount of reading is too huge for me. I can't get through all of it. That's why I'm glad there are environmental groups to make sure someone is keeping up with stuff.
Pesticides are not flushed out of our bodies. They stay there. Whatever pesticides/herbicides I was exposed to from the time I was in my mama are still in me today. So this is one reason I have aversion to spraying this all over the place.
Erin
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;877695 wrote: But can you trust these environmental groups?
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Where are you getting the figure that 500 million people died because of the DDT ban Jester? And tell me what power exactly environmentalists have across the world, compared to say Exxon or Royal Dutch Shell, very little I would surmise. I am going to write a little more specifically on DDT and these arguments that are being made, but I don't have time now as its the morning and I am working here.
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Where are you getting the figure that 500 million people died because of the DDT ban Jester? And tell me what power exactly environmentalists have across the world, compared to say Exxon or Royal Dutch Shell, very little I would surmise. I am going to write a little more specifically on DDT and these arguments that are being made, but I don't have time now as its the morning and I am working here.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;877695 wrote: But can you trust these environmental groups?
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Can you trust the bio technical companies like monsanto? I would always err on the side of caution and there had been enough environmental damage caused by industry in the past-sometimes unknowingly-to make anyone think twice before just charging ahead. You even make films about the heroic people that take on big corporations-erin brockovich was based on a true story for instance.
There's plenty in the states that even a cursory trawl will bring up. All round the world actually but I asuume the states is more immediately relevant to you. Move next to a pesticide factory and then tell me you don't want to know what they are up to and want their activities carefully monitored. When you turn on a tap for a drink of water where does it come from, what's being leached in to the water course? If there's no fish in a river what killed them? If you think it won't affect you then fine.
You might be happy to trust chemical companies but when they spend time and money trying to discredit those concerned about environmental issues as a bunch of irrational tree huggers that should be ignored it just makes suspect they have something to hide and they just want freedom to do what they like without interference.
In the UK monsanto made the mistake of telling us that concerns over GM crops were silly and that is we didn't allow their introduction the UK economy would suffer. (cardinal rule of business, don't patronise or threaten your consumer base) The result was a massive boycott that forced supermarkets to take GM foods off supermarket shelves, not just here but throughout europe. Organic foods are the fastest growing food sector, farmers love it cos it's helping them fight back against the buying power of the supermarkets.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Something is killing off the bee population. If that becomes serious than that could kill us all.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 113425.htm
The thing is with pesticides and herbicides the effects of long term build up in the ecology is still not known. The UK is a densely populated place, the effects of leaching in to our rivers is obvious very quickly. Tends to be fishermen that notice first if anything is wrong. I live near a river that twenty years ago had no fish in it. The difference is the curbing of pesticide use and greater control of what factories could discharge.
posted by snidely whiplash
C'mon you enviro guru's..... Tell us how your movement has any benifit to humanity at all....? And spare the Gw hysteria and how we're all going to burn up, and you're going to save us by banning our light bulbs and causing oil prices to go through the roof, or is that the real "rubbish" here.... Tell me how the enviromentalists are making anyones lives better anywhere in the world, and not sentencing millions to death with their misguided ideals and feel good at the moment actions and intentions, that don't affect them in they're cushy "middle to upper class white eleteist" lives, and how this all IS A GOOD THING......????
I'm not a guru but-Well when I go in to the city I don't feel myself choking and my eyes watering because of the exhaust fumes. It's surprising actually places like edinbugh and glasgow aren't universally black but all colours of stone and brick. I never saw it before cos everything was black because of all the coal fires, and we don't get the kind of pea soupers fogs we used to. Auld reekie is quite pleasant. I'd imagine New York and places like that are much cleaner and healthier than they used to be. What about that los angeles fog, do you still get that?
How about sewage systems? Or do you feel **** lying and flowing in open sewers in the street was perfectly OK and all the stories about open sewers being a threat to health exaggerated nonsense.
By the way how do you come to the conclusion that it is due to environmentalists that oil prices are rising.
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Can you trust the bio technical companies like monsanto? I would always err on the side of caution and there had been enough environmental damage caused by industry in the past-sometimes unknowingly-to make anyone think twice before just charging ahead. You even make films about the heroic people that take on big corporations-erin brockovich was based on a true story for instance.
There's plenty in the states that even a cursory trawl will bring up. All round the world actually but I asuume the states is more immediately relevant to you. Move next to a pesticide factory and then tell me you don't want to know what they are up to and want their activities carefully monitored. When you turn on a tap for a drink of water where does it come from, what's being leached in to the water course? If there's no fish in a river what killed them? If you think it won't affect you then fine.
You might be happy to trust chemical companies but when they spend time and money trying to discredit those concerned about environmental issues as a bunch of irrational tree huggers that should be ignored it just makes suspect they have something to hide and they just want freedom to do what they like without interference.
In the UK monsanto made the mistake of telling us that concerns over GM crops were silly and that is we didn't allow their introduction the UK economy would suffer. (cardinal rule of business, don't patronise or threaten your consumer base) The result was a massive boycott that forced supermarkets to take GM foods off supermarket shelves, not just here but throughout europe. Organic foods are the fastest growing food sector, farmers love it cos it's helping them fight back against the buying power of the supermarkets.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
Something is killing off the bee population. If that becomes serious than that could kill us all.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 113425.htm
The thing is with pesticides and herbicides the effects of long term build up in the ecology is still not known. The UK is a densely populated place, the effects of leaching in to our rivers is obvious very quickly. Tends to be fishermen that notice first if anything is wrong. I live near a river that twenty years ago had no fish in it. The difference is the curbing of pesticide use and greater control of what factories could discharge.
posted by snidely whiplash
C'mon you enviro guru's..... Tell us how your movement has any benifit to humanity at all....? And spare the Gw hysteria and how we're all going to burn up, and you're going to save us by banning our light bulbs and causing oil prices to go through the roof, or is that the real "rubbish" here.... Tell me how the enviromentalists are making anyones lives better anywhere in the world, and not sentencing millions to death with their misguided ideals and feel good at the moment actions and intentions, that don't affect them in they're cushy "middle to upper class white eleteist" lives, and how this all IS A GOOD THING......????
I'm not a guru but-Well when I go in to the city I don't feel myself choking and my eyes watering because of the exhaust fumes. It's surprising actually places like edinbugh and glasgow aren't universally black but all colours of stone and brick. I never saw it before cos everything was black because of all the coal fires, and we don't get the kind of pea soupers fogs we used to. Auld reekie is quite pleasant. I'd imagine New York and places like that are much cleaner and healthier than they used to be. What about that los angeles fog, do you still get that?
How about sewage systems? Or do you feel **** lying and flowing in open sewers in the street was perfectly OK and all the stories about open sewers being a threat to health exaggerated nonsense.
By the way how do you come to the conclusion that it is due to environmentalists that oil prices are rising.
Death by Environmentalism
I am not sure I get your post? What is your point about environmentalists? You make it sound as if they are a plotting and scheming sub-culture of society. 
Let me just make this point:
Governments the world over falsely believe they can deal with global warming and at the same time maintain an economical status-quo where no-one have to cut back and we carry on as before.
Ethanol together with many other half-hearted solutions are hailed as 'green' alternatives. But these so called 'green' solutions are together with rising oil prices the exact factors that will jeopardise the economic stability so desperately sought by our politicians! (Look at food and fuel protests the world over!)
So, Governments needs to get serious. And as individuals we need to take urgent responsibility for our own emissions. I suggest you check out this CFC, which allows you to calculate, monitor and manage personal emissions over a period of time.
See... http://www.carbon-info.org/green_softwa ... re_003.htm
We need to urgently reduce our reliance on big cars, long haul flights, wine from remote places etc. etc. True - we need to more towards a low carbon economy true, but far more important is it that we urgently move towards a low energy society.
You may be having a go at the green movement because they support green taxes and wants to curb growing energy consumption, but they are simply stating the obvious - while waiting for everyone else to wake up and realise that our world is changing fast and that we are all to blame for it.
Let me just make this point:
Governments the world over falsely believe they can deal with global warming and at the same time maintain an economical status-quo where no-one have to cut back and we carry on as before.
Ethanol together with many other half-hearted solutions are hailed as 'green' alternatives. But these so called 'green' solutions are together with rising oil prices the exact factors that will jeopardise the economic stability so desperately sought by our politicians! (Look at food and fuel protests the world over!)
So, Governments needs to get serious. And as individuals we need to take urgent responsibility for our own emissions. I suggest you check out this CFC, which allows you to calculate, monitor and manage personal emissions over a period of time.
See... http://www.carbon-info.org/green_softwa ... re_003.htm
We need to urgently reduce our reliance on big cars, long haul flights, wine from remote places etc. etc. True - we need to more towards a low carbon economy true, but far more important is it that we urgently move towards a low energy society.
You may be having a go at the green movement because they support green taxes and wants to curb growing energy consumption, but they are simply stating the obvious - while waiting for everyone else to wake up and realise that our world is changing fast and that we are all to blame for it.
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;877695 wrote: But can you trust these environmental groups?
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
You appear to be suggesting that the banning of DDT was a deliberate action as part of a "power grab" by the "environmentalists".
It was more a well intentioned mistake and is recognised as such - we all learn with experience and hindsight is an invaluable tool.
If I might quote from one of the leading environmentalists - James Lovelock ;-
Rachel Carson argued convincingly that the unregulated use of agricultural pesticides was leading to the widespread death of birds.........It is important to remember the history of DDT; it was originally used against insect-borne desease, notably curbing the epidemic of Typhus that ravaged Naples in the aftermath of the Second World War. Later it was used against mosquetos, vectors of malaria, yellow feaver oan other tropical deseases. In this role it was, until it was banned, saving millions of lives yearly and vastly improving the quality of life of those hundreds of millions living in malarial regions; and in this use it was comparatively little threat to wildlife. DDT and other pesticides only became an environmental threat when agribusiness started using them on a large scale to improve crop yeilds. These insecticides badly needed controlling, but the indiscriminate banning of DDT and other chlorinated insectisides was a selfish, ill informed act driven by affluent radicals in the first world. The inhabitents of tropical countries have apid a high price in death and illness as a result of their inability to use DDT as an effective controller of malaria.
It would appear in the case of DDT, that the environmentalist decision to delete DDT from the world landscape, quite possibly killed 500 million people. And there was NO REAL EVIDENCE THE CHEMICAL WAS HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT.So 500 Million humans died because the 'environmentalists groups decided without scientific evidence to remove DDT as a test case to see if they could gain POWER.
Thats 500 million negligent homicides in exchange for a power grab.
What if they eliminate something that keeps YOU alive?
You appear to be suggesting that the banning of DDT was a deliberate action as part of a "power grab" by the "environmentalists".
It was more a well intentioned mistake and is recognised as such - we all learn with experience and hindsight is an invaluable tool.
If I might quote from one of the leading environmentalists - James Lovelock ;-
Rachel Carson argued convincingly that the unregulated use of agricultural pesticides was leading to the widespread death of birds.........It is important to remember the history of DDT; it was originally used against insect-borne desease, notably curbing the epidemic of Typhus that ravaged Naples in the aftermath of the Second World War. Later it was used against mosquetos, vectors of malaria, yellow feaver oan other tropical deseases. In this role it was, until it was banned, saving millions of lives yearly and vastly improving the quality of life of those hundreds of millions living in malarial regions; and in this use it was comparatively little threat to wildlife. DDT and other pesticides only became an environmental threat when agribusiness started using them on a large scale to improve crop yeilds. These insecticides badly needed controlling, but the indiscriminate banning of DDT and other chlorinated insectisides was a selfish, ill informed act driven by affluent radicals in the first world. The inhabitents of tropical countries have apid a high price in death and illness as a result of their inability to use DDT as an effective controller of malaria.
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;879526 wrote: Well I am so glad to hear it then. You see I was sure it is still banned. So they fixed thier mistake and took it off the banned list right?
Who has banned it and who has the power to remove that ban?
Who are the "they" you refer to?
Are the two answers the same?
Who has banned it and who has the power to remove that ban?
Who are the "they" you refer to?
Are the two answers the same?
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;879542 wrote: That is an excellent question, but since there is 500 million lives on the line I think if it was just a mistake as you claim then folks wouldnt mind letting the ban up and getting on with eradicating malaria!
Certainly the lives of the folks living in malaria infested areas are valued on at least some level why then is DDT still banned?
It does seem as though someones holding unto some power doesn't it? I mean if they are willing to let 500 million poeple die for power they ought to at least have a reason right?
The 'they' I suspect are the environmental groups that lied to government agencies in order to garner the power to ban DDT.
I suspect that the environmental groups do not have the power you ascribe to them and that it is governmental inertia rather than malice.
I would also suggest that saying that they lied deliberately in order to gain power is an unsupportable allegation that you need to prove before you make. What was done was a mistake certainly but it was done in good faith and not deliberately knowing it to be wrong and knowing that it would cost lives.
Certainly the lives of the folks living in malaria infested areas are valued on at least some level why then is DDT still banned?
It does seem as though someones holding unto some power doesn't it? I mean if they are willing to let 500 million poeple die for power they ought to at least have a reason right?
The 'they' I suspect are the environmental groups that lied to government agencies in order to garner the power to ban DDT.
I suspect that the environmental groups do not have the power you ascribe to them and that it is governmental inertia rather than malice.
I would also suggest that saying that they lied deliberately in order to gain power is an unsupportable allegation that you need to prove before you make. What was done was a mistake certainly but it was done in good faith and not deliberately knowing it to be wrong and knowing that it would cost lives.
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Snidely Whiplash
- Posts: 176
- Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:33 pm
Death by Environmentalism
RedGlitter;876840 wrote: Actually it wasn't as factual as it was opinionated and already biased against environmentalists. Had it presented itself in a neutral light, I would possibly have taken it seriously but as it is I don't.
It's an article by a writer, of course it's opinionated..? It's the writers viewpoint... I don't care if you take it serious or not..? It's not my article, I didn't write it..? You can go back to your environmentally safe green veggie burger and organic papaya juice now......
RedGlitter;876840 wrote: You've never told us why you have such a low disregard for people who care about nature and all that's a part of it? Did you have a bad experience?
Because the enviromental movement has distain for me and my family..!!! :sneaky: And for you and your family...! If you're human, to most of them you're not worth as much as some slimey forest slug or spotted rat crossing the road, and if it were up the most of them, those creatures would be dictating where you lived, not you choosing where you want to raise your families... Look at these radical groups and what they say, that humanity is like the aids virus, we are a disease that needs to be wiped out for the planet to be healthy again... What other species on the planet does this to its self..? It's obscene....
Many of these groups say that the planet would be better off without us in it.... Let me ask you this, try going to your spouse, or parents or family and tell them that the planet would be better off without you in it....? You'll end up in a mental hospital, which is exactly where many in todays environmental movement should be..!!!
watermark;876859 wrote:
The article mentioned that people like to drive large cars so they won't be hurt in crashes. Why don't they mention the possibility of everyone driving the smallest car possible? Why the big car versus the little car? The only people in my opinion who desrve larger vehicles are large families and people who need to haul large loads. Those large families and loads require slower speeds anyway(have you ever tried to drive fast in a minivan full of screaming children?) which makes crashes less likely. People are so stupid.
Erin
Thats idiotic.... What right do you have to tell anyone else what kind of car they "deserve" to drive..? Do you have kids..? Then you pack them all into a Honda civic every time you go out, and see how safe or comfortable that feels driving with semi's, trucks and trailers..? If someone works hard and earns good money, they should be able to spend that money to keep they're family safe when driving, only a liberal socialist puppet of the state would want to take that right away from a parent.... You'll probally vote Obama....? Lol....
gmc;877298 wrote: I read somewhere that americans drove big cars because all the growth hormones persisting in their beefburgers mean they have to find ways to compensate. Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.
That was very funny..!!!!! :wah: Hahahahaha, I liked it..!!
Bryn Mawr;879615 wrote: I suspect that the environmental groups do not have the power you ascribe to them and that it is governmental inertia rather than malice.
I would also suggest that saying that they lied deliberately in order to gain power is an unsupportable allegation that you need to prove before you make. What was done was a mistake certainly but it was done in good faith and not deliberately knowing it to be wrong and knowing that it would cost lives.
Do you also think that Greenpeace wants to stop whaling..? Well if whaling stopped tomorrow, Greenpeace would loose about 75% of it's funding, and would likely cease to exsist... Why do think those poor SOB's in the tiny little rafts bouncing in the waves along side those whaling ships are waving monster banners that only say "Greenpeace" on them..? It's called advertising to make money...... To make money off of whaling.......... For they're more important priorities.... That's why founder Patrick Moore resigned and left Greenpeace and now has his own "Conservation" group..........
It's all a big scam for money and power.... We've all been dupped yet again by what intitially makes us feel good believing in, then when the reality sets in makes us feel dirty and taken advantage of, like most of whats going on in the yippie kiayyy green movement that bombards us with it's lies every where we turn....
Sorry I can't add more..... Thats all I have time for tonight....
Adios amigos.... :guitarist
It's an article by a writer, of course it's opinionated..? It's the writers viewpoint... I don't care if you take it serious or not..? It's not my article, I didn't write it..? You can go back to your environmentally safe green veggie burger and organic papaya juice now......
RedGlitter;876840 wrote: You've never told us why you have such a low disregard for people who care about nature and all that's a part of it? Did you have a bad experience?
Because the enviromental movement has distain for me and my family..!!! :sneaky: And for you and your family...! If you're human, to most of them you're not worth as much as some slimey forest slug or spotted rat crossing the road, and if it were up the most of them, those creatures would be dictating where you lived, not you choosing where you want to raise your families... Look at these radical groups and what they say, that humanity is like the aids virus, we are a disease that needs to be wiped out for the planet to be healthy again... What other species on the planet does this to its self..? It's obscene....
Many of these groups say that the planet would be better off without us in it.... Let me ask you this, try going to your spouse, or parents or family and tell them that the planet would be better off without you in it....? You'll end up in a mental hospital, which is exactly where many in todays environmental movement should be..!!!
watermark;876859 wrote:
The article mentioned that people like to drive large cars so they won't be hurt in crashes. Why don't they mention the possibility of everyone driving the smallest car possible? Why the big car versus the little car? The only people in my opinion who desrve larger vehicles are large families and people who need to haul large loads. Those large families and loads require slower speeds anyway(have you ever tried to drive fast in a minivan full of screaming children?) which makes crashes less likely. People are so stupid.
Erin
Thats idiotic.... What right do you have to tell anyone else what kind of car they "deserve" to drive..? Do you have kids..? Then you pack them all into a Honda civic every time you go out, and see how safe or comfortable that feels driving with semi's, trucks and trailers..? If someone works hard and earns good money, they should be able to spend that money to keep they're family safe when driving, only a liberal socialist puppet of the state would want to take that right away from a parent.... You'll probally vote Obama....? Lol....
gmc;877298 wrote: I read somewhere that americans drove big cars because all the growth hormones persisting in their beefburgers mean they have to find ways to compensate.
Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.That was very funny..!!!!! :wah: Hahahahaha, I liked it..!!
Bryn Mawr;879615 wrote: I suspect that the environmental groups do not have the power you ascribe to them and that it is governmental inertia rather than malice.
I would also suggest that saying that they lied deliberately in order to gain power is an unsupportable allegation that you need to prove before you make. What was done was a mistake certainly but it was done in good faith and not deliberately knowing it to be wrong and knowing that it would cost lives.
Do you also think that Greenpeace wants to stop whaling..?
Well if whaling stopped tomorrow, Greenpeace would loose about 75% of it's funding, and would likely cease to exsist... Why do think those poor SOB's in the tiny little rafts bouncing in the waves along side those whaling ships are waving monster banners that only say "Greenpeace" on them..? It's called advertising to make money...... To make money off of whaling.......... For they're more important priorities.... That's why founder Patrick Moore resigned and left Greenpeace and now has his own "Conservation" group.......... It's all a big scam for money and power.... We've all been dupped yet again by what intitially makes us feel good believing in, then when the reality sets in makes us feel dirty and taken advantage of, like most of whats going on in the yippie kiayyy green movement that bombards us with it's lies every where we turn....
Sorry I can't add more..... Thats all I have time for tonight....
Adios amigos.... :guitarist
Death by Environmentalism
gmc;877298 wrote: I read somewhere that americans drove big cars because all the growth hormones persisting in their beefburgers mean they have to find ways to compensate. Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.
They aren't anti growth hormones they are pro growth so we need the big cars to haul them around in..:wah:
Mind you it was a french environmentalist so maybe it was a malicious rumour.They aren't anti growth hormones they are pro growth so we need the big cars to haul them around in..:wah:
Death by Environmentalism
Nasa climate reports 'swayed by politics'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... matechange
The space agency's internal watchdog, the inspector general, reports that from autumn 2004 until early 2006 Nasa's central public affairs office handled global warming in a way that "reduced, marginalised, or mischaracterised climate change science made available to the general public".
The confirmation of political interference is vindication for James Hansen, Nasa's chief climate scientist and one of the first to sound the alarm over global warming. Claims of political dallying surfaced when Hansen said he had been blocked from taking part in a National Public Radio interview in December 2005.
Act on climate change, top scientists warn US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... atechange1
The White House joined in the chorus of gloom when it issued a long-delayed report bringing together research into global warming. The report was issued after environmental groups won a court order last year enforcing a statute that obliges the government to produce an assessment of global warming every four years. Described as "a litany of bad news in store for the US", the report catalogues threats from drought, natural disaster, insect infestation and energy shortages.
posted by snidely whiplash
It's all a big scam for money and power.... We've all been dupped yet again by what intitially makes us feel good believing in, then when the reality sets in makes us feel dirty and taken advantage of, like most of whats going on in the yippie kiayyy green movement that bombards us with it's lies every where we turn....
Sorry I can't add more..... Thats all I have time for tonight....
Adios amigos....
It's all a big scam for money and power but I think you are finding conspiracies that don't exist (by the way how much money have the environmentalists made?) and ignoring the whopping great big one right under your nose. Unless of course you think the inspector general has been nobbled by vegetarian tree hugging environmentalists and your government doesn't really have to obey statutes unless it wants to and well it must be wrong anyway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... matechange
The space agency's internal watchdog, the inspector general, reports that from autumn 2004 until early 2006 Nasa's central public affairs office handled global warming in a way that "reduced, marginalised, or mischaracterised climate change science made available to the general public".
The confirmation of political interference is vindication for James Hansen, Nasa's chief climate scientist and one of the first to sound the alarm over global warming. Claims of political dallying surfaced when Hansen said he had been blocked from taking part in a National Public Radio interview in December 2005.
Act on climate change, top scientists warn US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... atechange1
The White House joined in the chorus of gloom when it issued a long-delayed report bringing together research into global warming. The report was issued after environmental groups won a court order last year enforcing a statute that obliges the government to produce an assessment of global warming every four years. Described as "a litany of bad news in store for the US", the report catalogues threats from drought, natural disaster, insect infestation and energy shortages.
posted by snidely whiplash
It's all a big scam for money and power.... We've all been dupped yet again by what intitially makes us feel good believing in, then when the reality sets in makes us feel dirty and taken advantage of, like most of whats going on in the yippie kiayyy green movement that bombards us with it's lies every where we turn....
Sorry I can't add more..... Thats all I have time for tonight....
Adios amigos....
It's all a big scam for money and power but I think you are finding conspiracies that don't exist (by the way how much money have the environmentalists made?) and ignoring the whopping great big one right under your nose. Unless of course you think the inspector general has been nobbled by vegetarian tree hugging environmentalists and your government doesn't really have to obey statutes unless it wants to and well it must be wrong anyway.
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Bored_Wombat
- Posts: 377
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:33 am
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;876792 wrote: Im going to take the DDT issue first, having been exposed to malaria on a number of occasions and seeing the suffering and death that occurs because of it then to find out that possibly it could have been prevented and nearly was eradicated but because of false science and this wave of folks who know better than the facts had DDT banned and Malaria has made a dramatic ressurgeance to kill so many makes me ill.
DDT had stopped working before it was banned in the environment. (It is still recommended and used indoors and on mosquito nets.) Notably El Salvador, which was late to the punch showed a positive correlation between DDT use and malaria:
"Correlating the use of DDT in El Salvador with renewed malaria tra nsmission, it can be estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria."
Agricultural production and malaria resurgence in Central America and India, Nature 293, 181 - 185 (17 September 1981); doi:10.1038/293181a0, (via wiki)
This happens because the mosquitoes have more generations over a given time than their predators, such as frogs and fish, so gain resistance faster. This coupled with the nasty aspect of DDT that it accumulates up the food chain, (more in the fish than the mosquitoes, more in the people than the fish, at time of birth just as concentrated in the baby as the mother), this means that eventually DDT spraying increases the population of mosquitoes, and therefore causes malaria cases.
DDT had stopped working before it was banned in the environment. (It is still recommended and used indoors and on mosquito nets.) Notably El Salvador, which was late to the punch showed a positive correlation between DDT use and malaria:
"Correlating the use of DDT in El Salvador with renewed malaria tra nsmission, it can be estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria."
Agricultural production and malaria resurgence in Central America and India, Nature 293, 181 - 185 (17 September 1981); doi:10.1038/293181a0, (via wiki)
This happens because the mosquitoes have more generations over a given time than their predators, such as frogs and fish, so gain resistance faster. This coupled with the nasty aspect of DDT that it accumulates up the food chain, (more in the fish than the mosquitoes, more in the people than the fish, at time of birth just as concentrated in the baby as the mother), this means that eventually DDT spraying increases the population of mosquitoes, and therefore causes malaria cases.
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Bored_Wombat
- Posts: 377
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:33 am
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;904142 wrote: Your link has no evidence of any such statement, the references are from the early to late 70's, completely out of date. You want to find some newer data?
El Salvador hasn't used DDT in the environment more recently.
El Salvador hasn't used DDT in the environment more recently.
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RedGlitter
- Posts: 15777
- Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:51 am
Death by Environmentalism
Snidely Whiplash, I'd respond to your blabber but I find your attitude really obnoxious. Try not to condescend to those you are wanting to have a dialogue with.
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Bored_Wombat
- Posts: 377
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:33 am
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;904432 wrote: BW I don't buy it... a government agency doesnt ban a substance because it becomes ineffective, folks just stop using it over a nother more effective product.
That is essentially what happened.
Various governments stopped purchasing DDT for their malaria control programs, because it's drop in effectiveness (as the example of El Salvidor showed, this included making it worse.)
But there was no government agency that can ban a substance in many countries. It was banned in the USA in 1972. This has no relationship with its banning in other coutries.
Other countries such as Sri Lanka banned DDT in agriculture to protect against resistance developing outside the anti-malaria program, but kept using it for the anti-malaria program.
That is essentially what happened.
Various governments stopped purchasing DDT for their malaria control programs, because it's drop in effectiveness (as the example of El Salvidor showed, this included making it worse.)
But there was no government agency that can ban a substance in many countries. It was banned in the USA in 1972. This has no relationship with its banning in other coutries.
Other countries such as Sri Lanka banned DDT in agriculture to protect against resistance developing outside the anti-malaria program, but kept using it for the anti-malaria program.
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Bored_Wombat
- Posts: 377
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:33 am
Death by Environmentalism
Jester;905343 wrote: Oh I dont think so, DDT stopped being used
DDT didn't stop being used:
WHO Frequently asked questions on DDT use for disease vector control:
3:Can DDT currently be used for malaria vector control?
Yes, DDT may be used for the control of the mosquito vectors of malaria. ...
Jester;905343 wrote: because the WHO and many other agencies in the pocket of the environmentalist from the 70's, who lied about DDT, witheld the correct information, labeled DDT a cancer agent, terrifically horrifed the amounts found in humans and other animals, forced a ban on it in the US on junk science and scare tactics then used it as a point of negotiation for aide... forcing third world governments to use other so called 'environmentally friendy' methods
There was a ban in the US. Do you have an example of the lies and correct information withheld?
And do you have an example of aid that was withheld from an example of at third world government?
Jester;905343 wrote: (like the misquito net which are ineffective)
They are not ineffective, especially if treated with insecticide.
INSECTICIDE-TREATED MOSQUITO NETS: a WHO Position Statement
from page 3:
...
On the basis of five community-randomized trials, a Cochrane review concluded that, when full coverage is achieved, ITNs reduce all-cause child mortality by an average 18% (range 14–29%) in sub-Saharan Africa (5). The general implication of this is that 5.5 lives could be saved per year for every 1000 children under 5 years of age protected. It was also concluded that ITNs reduce clinical episodes of malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax infections by 50% on average (range 39–62%), as well as reducing the prevalence of high-density parasitaemia.
...
Compared with a control situation in which there were no mosquito nets, use of ITNs in Africa increased mean birth weight by 55 g (95% confidence interval [CI] 21–88), reduced low birth weight by 23% (relative risk [RR] 0.77, 95% CI 0.61–0.98), and reduced miscarriages/stillbirths by 33% (RR 0.67, CI 0.47–0.97) in the first few pregnancies (7). Placental parasitaemia was reduced by 23% in all gravidae (RR 0.77, CI 0.66–0.90).
DDT didn't stop being used:
WHO Frequently asked questions on DDT use for disease vector control:
3:Can DDT currently be used for malaria vector control?
Yes, DDT may be used for the control of the mosquito vectors of malaria. ...
Jester;905343 wrote: because the WHO and many other agencies in the pocket of the environmentalist from the 70's, who lied about DDT, witheld the correct information, labeled DDT a cancer agent, terrifically horrifed the amounts found in humans and other animals, forced a ban on it in the US on junk science and scare tactics then used it as a point of negotiation for aide... forcing third world governments to use other so called 'environmentally friendy' methods
There was a ban in the US. Do you have an example of the lies and correct information withheld?
And do you have an example of aid that was withheld from an example of at third world government?
Jester;905343 wrote: (like the misquito net which are ineffective)
They are not ineffective, especially if treated with insecticide.
INSECTICIDE-TREATED MOSQUITO NETS: a WHO Position Statement
from page 3:
...
On the basis of five community-randomized trials, a Cochrane review concluded that, when full coverage is achieved, ITNs reduce all-cause child mortality by an average 18% (range 14–29%) in sub-Saharan Africa (5). The general implication of this is that 5.5 lives could be saved per year for every 1000 children under 5 years of age protected. It was also concluded that ITNs reduce clinical episodes of malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax infections by 50% on average (range 39–62%), as well as reducing the prevalence of high-density parasitaemia.
...
Compared with a control situation in which there were no mosquito nets, use of ITNs in Africa increased mean birth weight by 55 g (95% confidence interval [CI] 21–88), reduced low birth weight by 23% (relative risk [RR] 0.77, 95% CI 0.61–0.98), and reduced miscarriages/stillbirths by 33% (RR 0.67, CI 0.47–0.97) in the first few pregnancies (7). Placental parasitaemia was reduced by 23% in all gravidae (RR 0.77, CI 0.66–0.90).
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nvalleyvee
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Death by Environmentalism
I really have to pipe in here. I was an "environmental scientist" for 15 years. More specifically I was a microbiologist in the field. I could tell you stories of nature taking care of itself despite humans that would make you say "HUH?". So I helped nature a bit. That is being an environmentalist...........not Greenpeace or any of those other left wing zealots with no understanding of what is "really" happening.
The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement..........Karl R. Popper
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freetobeme
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This whole GW alarmist chicken little stuff is becoming a group neurosis, a mass hysteria because of a non verifiable claim, follow the money - somebody is making something out of this one.
as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.
as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.
senior's politics and discussion
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nvalleyvee
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This whole GW alarmist chicken little stuff is becoming a group neurosis, a mass hysteria because of a non verifiable claim, follow the money - somebody is making something out of this one.
Read my post.
Read my post.
The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement..........Karl R. Popper
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Bored_Wombat
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nvalleyvee;905810 wrote: I really have to pipe in here. I was an "environmental scientist" for 15 years. More specifically I was a microbiologist in the field. I could tell you stories of nature taking care of itself despite humans that would make you say "HUH?". So I helped nature a bit. That is being an environmentalist...........not Greenpeace or any of those other left wing zealots with no understanding of what is "really" happening.
What did you do to help nature a bit, nvalleyvee?
What did you do to help nature a bit, nvalleyvee?
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Bored_Wombat
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Death by Environmentalism
Jester;905754 wrote: hmmmm, thats interesting, what if they didnt use the stupid nets at all and just used inexpensive DDT? as Mr says "Where DDT is used, malaria deaths plummet. Where it is not used, they skyrocket."
Right. But his example is South Africa and Mozambique, for which there are many social educational and health discrepancies.
Jester;905754 wrote: Why bother with the nets at all (not to mention applying expensive insecticide, when DDT is safe to use, inexpensive and THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD AVAILABLE for reducing malaria?
It's safety in humans hasn't been established. It certainly ends up in the bodies of the people near where it has been used. There is some evidence that it may disrupt reproductive and endocrine function.
And it's effectiveness is enhanced by it's lack of use. If it were used all the time resistance would be much higher.
Jester;905754 wrote: I will try to find you some examples of what I refer to as information for aide.
I'd be interested. Some of the websites you hit googling this suggest that the whole thing is highly exaggerated in order to spin opinion towards anti-environmentalism. Like this one: The DDT Ban Myth
Jester;905754 wrote: and as for the lies... find any 'weekly reader', 'health cirriculum', or social studies book from the CA public schools circa 1970-1990 and you'll find the great environmental bird shell egg myth of DDT'... purposely developed as a scare tactic that probably every school age kid from that era bought hook line and sinker and conditioned this great socialistic society we now live in to believe more lies from the government sanctioned and fringed junk scientists all the time. Thank God I grew up in the midwest where the leftist whackos wernt that much of an influence.
The bird shell egg thing is real.
There's lots of peer reviewed work on this.
In Mallard Ducks.
Adult mallard ducks were fed a diet containing 50 ppm DDT for 6 months. Eggs laid during this period were collected and eggshell weight, thickness, and calcium were determined. Chronic ingestion of DDT resulted in production of eggshells that were significantly thinner and lighter than those of controls. Total calcium of thinned eggshells was also reduced; however, calcium per gram of eggshell was not altered, indicating that other eggshell constituents were not incorporated as well. Calcium adenosine triphosphatase activity in the microsomal fraction of eggshell gland epithelium was assayed in control and DDT-fed ducks. Enzyme activity in DDT-fed ducks was reduced to 65% of control values. Since Ca-ATPase has been shown to be associated with calcium transport, enzyme inhibition may be responsible for decreased eggshell weight and thickness. Electron microscopic evaluation of microsomal fractions showed elements of the plasma membrane, including cilia and microvilli, as well as rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Inhibition of calcium transport at the plasma membrane of mucosal epithelium is proposed as a possible mechanism of DDT-induced eggshell thinning.
In the American Kestral.
(1) DDE residues in kestrel eggs collected from the Ithaca, New York area averaged 35, 42, 33 and 37 ppm for the years 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972, respectively. (2) Based on Ratcliffe's Index, eggshells of the local population averaged 10% thinner than pre-DDT eggshells. (3) A dose-response relationship is established for dietary DDE and eggshell-thinning in a captive kestrel population. (4) Statistical analysis revealed that the correlative relationship between DDE in the egg and eggshell-thinning is the same for both captive experimental birds and the wild population. (5) A discussion of organochlorines, eggshell-thinning and the decline of several populations of North American raptors concludes that a causal relationship exists between the ingestion of prey highly contaminated with DDE and the consequent eggshell-thinning and eggshell breakage. The breeding failure that follows and subsequent population declines of several raptor populations proceeds in a straightforward, logical and well-documented sequence.
In Japanese quail
The shell-forming glands of Japanese quail fed p,p'-DDT or p,p'-DDE had carbonic anhydrase activity 16 to 19 percent lower than shell glands of quail on a diet free of pesticides.
In peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, and golden eagles
THE incidence of broken eggs in nests of peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus, sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus and golden eagle Aquila chrysaëtos in Britain has increased considerably since 1950. In 109 peregrine eyries examined in 1904-50, there were only three instances of egg breakage, compared with forty-seven in 168 eyries examined in 1951-66. Two of thirty-five golden eagle eyries examined in 1936-50 contained broken eggs, compared with twelve out of forty-eight examined in 1951-63. One breakage was found in twenty-four sparrowhawk nests in 1943-50, but eight in twenty-seven nests in 1951-60. Peregrines have been witnessed eating their own eggs1, and most recent egg breakages in all three species appeared to involve parental destruction.
The Biochemistry of it has been looked at for some steriod hormones:
WIDESPREAD and severe decreases in the population of several species of birds of prey have been noted in both North America and Europe during the past decade1-4. It has been thought that these decreases are caused by pesticides, but concentrations of pesticide residues found are often low compared with a toxic dose5. There is evidence from, laboratory studies that gross blockage of the reproductive system does not occur except at concentrations approaching toxic doses6,7. More subtle effects on the breeding cycle caused by changes in hormonal concentrations and neurotoxic effects may be important. The effects of low doses of DDT (1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-di(4-chlorophenyl)ethane) and dieldrin (1,2,3,4,10,10-hexachloro-6,7-epoxy-1,4,4a,5,6,7,8,8a-octahydro-exo-1,4-endo-5,8-dimethanonaphthalene) on the metabolism of two steroid hormones, testosterone and progesterone, have been examined. It has been shown in several mammalian species that a wide variety of organo-chloride pesticides induce increased concentrations of hepatic enzymes which are capable of hydroxylating the natural steroid hormones8,9. Birds were used in this work and the possibility of additive or synergistic effects of DDT and dieldrin was examined.
And it also feminises male seagulls.
Injection of DDT [1, 1, 1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane] into gull eggs at concentrations comparable to those found in contaminated seabird eggs in 1970 induces abnormal development of ovarian tissue and oviducts in male embryos. Developmental feminization of males is associated with inability to breed as adults and may explain the highly skewed sex ratio and reduced number of male gulls breeding on Santa Barbara Island in southern California.
(Note that these few papers are from my googling, and not any knowledge of the subject, there is no reason to suspect that they are particularly influential papers.)
Nevertheless DDT does have a malignant effect on birds for a variety of biochemical reasons, and the presumption that it is safe in humans is therefore likely to be premature.
Right. But his example is South Africa and Mozambique, for which there are many social educational and health discrepancies.
Jester;905754 wrote: Why bother with the nets at all (not to mention applying expensive insecticide, when DDT is safe to use, inexpensive and THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD AVAILABLE for reducing malaria?
It's safety in humans hasn't been established. It certainly ends up in the bodies of the people near where it has been used. There is some evidence that it may disrupt reproductive and endocrine function.
And it's effectiveness is enhanced by it's lack of use. If it were used all the time resistance would be much higher.
Jester;905754 wrote: I will try to find you some examples of what I refer to as information for aide.
I'd be interested. Some of the websites you hit googling this suggest that the whole thing is highly exaggerated in order to spin opinion towards anti-environmentalism. Like this one: The DDT Ban Myth
Jester;905754 wrote: and as for the lies... find any 'weekly reader', 'health cirriculum', or social studies book from the CA public schools circa 1970-1990 and you'll find the great environmental bird shell egg myth of DDT'... purposely developed as a scare tactic that probably every school age kid from that era bought hook line and sinker and conditioned this great socialistic society we now live in to believe more lies from the government sanctioned and fringed junk scientists all the time. Thank God I grew up in the midwest where the leftist whackos wernt that much of an influence.
The bird shell egg thing is real.
There's lots of peer reviewed work on this.
In Mallard Ducks.
Adult mallard ducks were fed a diet containing 50 ppm DDT for 6 months. Eggs laid during this period were collected and eggshell weight, thickness, and calcium were determined. Chronic ingestion of DDT resulted in production of eggshells that were significantly thinner and lighter than those of controls. Total calcium of thinned eggshells was also reduced; however, calcium per gram of eggshell was not altered, indicating that other eggshell constituents were not incorporated as well. Calcium adenosine triphosphatase activity in the microsomal fraction of eggshell gland epithelium was assayed in control and DDT-fed ducks. Enzyme activity in DDT-fed ducks was reduced to 65% of control values. Since Ca-ATPase has been shown to be associated with calcium transport, enzyme inhibition may be responsible for decreased eggshell weight and thickness. Electron microscopic evaluation of microsomal fractions showed elements of the plasma membrane, including cilia and microvilli, as well as rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Inhibition of calcium transport at the plasma membrane of mucosal epithelium is proposed as a possible mechanism of DDT-induced eggshell thinning.
In the American Kestral.
(1) DDE residues in kestrel eggs collected from the Ithaca, New York area averaged 35, 42, 33 and 37 ppm for the years 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972, respectively. (2) Based on Ratcliffe's Index, eggshells of the local population averaged 10% thinner than pre-DDT eggshells. (3) A dose-response relationship is established for dietary DDE and eggshell-thinning in a captive kestrel population. (4) Statistical analysis revealed that the correlative relationship between DDE in the egg and eggshell-thinning is the same for both captive experimental birds and the wild population. (5) A discussion of organochlorines, eggshell-thinning and the decline of several populations of North American raptors concludes that a causal relationship exists between the ingestion of prey highly contaminated with DDE and the consequent eggshell-thinning and eggshell breakage. The breeding failure that follows and subsequent population declines of several raptor populations proceeds in a straightforward, logical and well-documented sequence.
In Japanese quail
The shell-forming glands of Japanese quail fed p,p'-DDT or p,p'-DDE had carbonic anhydrase activity 16 to 19 percent lower than shell glands of quail on a diet free of pesticides.
In peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, and golden eagles
THE incidence of broken eggs in nests of peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus, sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus and golden eagle Aquila chrysaëtos in Britain has increased considerably since 1950. In 109 peregrine eyries examined in 1904-50, there were only three instances of egg breakage, compared with forty-seven in 168 eyries examined in 1951-66. Two of thirty-five golden eagle eyries examined in 1936-50 contained broken eggs, compared with twelve out of forty-eight examined in 1951-63. One breakage was found in twenty-four sparrowhawk nests in 1943-50, but eight in twenty-seven nests in 1951-60. Peregrines have been witnessed eating their own eggs1, and most recent egg breakages in all three species appeared to involve parental destruction.
The Biochemistry of it has been looked at for some steriod hormones:
WIDESPREAD and severe decreases in the population of several species of birds of prey have been noted in both North America and Europe during the past decade1-4. It has been thought that these decreases are caused by pesticides, but concentrations of pesticide residues found are often low compared with a toxic dose5. There is evidence from, laboratory studies that gross blockage of the reproductive system does not occur except at concentrations approaching toxic doses6,7. More subtle effects on the breeding cycle caused by changes in hormonal concentrations and neurotoxic effects may be important. The effects of low doses of DDT (1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-di(4-chlorophenyl)ethane) and dieldrin (1,2,3,4,10,10-hexachloro-6,7-epoxy-1,4,4a,5,6,7,8,8a-octahydro-exo-1,4-endo-5,8-dimethanonaphthalene) on the metabolism of two steroid hormones, testosterone and progesterone, have been examined. It has been shown in several mammalian species that a wide variety of organo-chloride pesticides induce increased concentrations of hepatic enzymes which are capable of hydroxylating the natural steroid hormones8,9. Birds were used in this work and the possibility of additive or synergistic effects of DDT and dieldrin was examined.
And it also feminises male seagulls.
Injection of DDT [1, 1, 1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane] into gull eggs at concentrations comparable to those found in contaminated seabird eggs in 1970 induces abnormal development of ovarian tissue and oviducts in male embryos. Developmental feminization of males is associated with inability to breed as adults and may explain the highly skewed sex ratio and reduced number of male gulls breeding on Santa Barbara Island in southern California.
(Note that these few papers are from my googling, and not any knowledge of the subject, there is no reason to suspect that they are particularly influential papers.)
Nevertheless DDT does have a malignant effect on birds for a variety of biochemical reasons, and the presumption that it is safe in humans is therefore likely to be premature.
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Bored_Wombat
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Death by Environmentalism
freetobeme;905813 wrote: This whole GW alarmist chicken little stuff is becoming a group neurosis, a mass hysteria because of a non verifiable claim, follow the money - somebody is making something out of this one.
Right.
I like how the neurosis has depleted the northern summer sea ice so much that some experts give a 50-50 for the pole to be ice free this year, 70 years before IPCC predictions.
The neurosis seems to be bleaching the world's coral reefs and moving the range of species up mountains and polewards. Also moving spring events.
It seems to be reducing ice mass on glaciers worldwide, and contributing to human food and water stress in Africa and Asia, and also to the nearly 1/3 drop in biodiversity in the last 35 years.
It also seems to be raising sea levels more than you would normally expect from a hysteria.
... dare I ask what this non-verifiable claim to which you refer is?
Right.
I like how the neurosis has depleted the northern summer sea ice so much that some experts give a 50-50 for the pole to be ice free this year, 70 years before IPCC predictions.
The neurosis seems to be bleaching the world's coral reefs and moving the range of species up mountains and polewards. Also moving spring events.
It seems to be reducing ice mass on glaciers worldwide, and contributing to human food and water stress in Africa and Asia, and also to the nearly 1/3 drop in biodiversity in the last 35 years.
It also seems to be raising sea levels more than you would normally expect from a hysteria.
... dare I ask what this non-verifiable claim to which you refer is?
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RedGlitter
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While I can appreciate that a lot of people don't like extremists (or what they perceive as extremists) it really galls me to have groups like Greepeace, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, etc; smeared as useless fkwits who actually mess up the environment and make things inconvenient for people. They are the ones out there fighting to keep selfish humans from mucking up the environmental chain so we don't lose every damn thing we have. And it IS a chain. You can't pull one strand of the web without affecting the other parts of the web. So be fair when you paint the next environmental group as fkups. Thanks.
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Bored_Wombat
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Death by Environmentalism
Jester;906526 wrote: I'll get back to you after the holiday BW... too much here to digest (no pun intended)
Pffft!
Pffft!
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Bored_Wombat
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Death by Environmentalism
Jester;906640 wrote: ohhhhhkay then I shant bother with a response...:-2
Please don't be insulted, I was merely sniggering at the bad pun.
Please don't be insulted, I was merely sniggering at the bad pun.