Global Warming, Ethanol, DDT and Environmentalism's Dark Side

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I wonder if any members of the Eco-Elite have considered that, if we had exercised the political will to spray DDT heavily in the first New York state counties that were initially infected by West Nile Virus 10 years ago we may have been able to eradicate the disease in North America - prevent the deaths of hundreds of people and millions of birds and mammals that have since died - as well as the countless deaths to come.
Distortions, misrepresentations, facile thinking and junk science are, more often than not, the hallmark of dogmatic, intolerant environmentalism. The human race has moved from exploitation of the environment to veneration. We must now struggle to regain the middle ground before we are dragged backward to the dark ages by Neo-Pantheism.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 12:21PM September 09, 2010

No one has discussed the link of over use of DDT and the parallel rise in "polio" or for that matter the removal of DDT or certainly its overuse and the subsequent fall in "polio".
No one has discussed that polio was not a disease of importance and its level and seriousness rose 20 fold with the massive use of DDT.
DDT has an effect on calcium production in animals. The so called polio of the 40's and 50's mirrored this effect when one two three or four limbs got affected. The body was unable to utilise calcium.
Of course for an adult the effect of DDT is less and the limbs are fully formed so suffer less.
A rethink on DDT and polio would help see through studies today showing wonderful effects of vaccines when they are in starkness actually causing death rather than saving it. The difference between science and journalism. The difference in Fact and Propaganda.
Harry Clark injected with a polio vaccine in 1997 decades after the DDT/polio rise and fall. He died in 6 hours after the vaccine and in total there are around 1 000 000 dead infants previously healthy that died many like Harry. All UNEXPLAINED.
Vaccines are one of a dozen or more health safety barriers but the current trend to rely on it 100 per cent is literally and actually FATAL.
Smallpox is one success claimed for vaccines but in fact relied more on ISOLATION and chasing down those infected. No small pox vaccines in the west for years before its elimination.

John 5:48AM August 07, 2010

DDT is deadly It killed our river It took over 50 years for the birds to come back. When the birds die it is an indicator of the health of our Planet. No disease can be every be eradicated but using a Pesticide so toxic as DDT is not the way.

Lori 6:33PM June 04, 2010

You really need to stop getting your facts from "Wikipedia".
Here are a couple of facts;
1. In Rachel Carson's book of eco-worries, "Silent Spring" , she endlessly frets over the possibility of declining bird populations (a false assumption, I might add), but never even considers the tens of millions of human lives saved by DDT. That says all I need to know about Rachel Carson and the birth of big "E" - Environmentalism.
2. As an example of the DDT success rate, in 1947 India had 75 million cases of malaria. 10 years later, after DDT was used, that death rate dropped to near zero and only a few thousand cases. India still uses DDT, and despite rebound resistance still has a death toll of less than 1% of the pre-DDT level. Similar data are recorded for Africa and Asia.
3. WHO recommends DDT be used indoors on doors, walls, windows and mosquito netting - so much for their concern over DDT as a human carcinogen.
4. World wide, malaria kills a person every 20 seconds - mostly children. That we could save at least half of those victims if we went back to "non-agricultural" use of DDT is a conservative estimate - That's a lot graves and tears Andrew.
5. Let's not forget that DDT also saved tens of thousands of lives from West Nile Virus, typhus, plague etc..
6. Finally, let's remember the tens of millions who are permanently disabled or sickened by chronic disease as a result of malaria infection or the trillions of dollars spent treating the sick.
Environmentalism has morphed into an intolerant, dogmatic religion - it's theology is leading us backward to the caves and an early grave. "Going Green" has gone too far.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 1:59PM April 27, 2010

"The World Health Organization estimates that between 1 and 1,5 million people die each year because of the DDT ban." This is 100% bogus. There is no such statement for the WHO or the UN.
WHO reports that malaria kills about 900,000 people per year. They do not claim that this is "because of the DDT ban," in fact there is no such ban. While DDT is banned for agricultural use, and it is not--nor has it ever been--banned for use against malaria. There are plenty of reasons why malaria, a curable and preventable disease, continues to take some many lives, but an imaginary ban isn't one of them. WHO, USAID, and others involved in malaria control efforts finger lack of funds, poverty, and corruption as the primary causes.
While it might be fun to pretend that environmentalist are to blame, this line of reasoning only distracts from the real dialog on how best to fight the disease, and thus ensures that these needless deaths continue to occur.

andrewew of CA 1:14PM April 23, 2010

The World Health Organization estimates that between 1 and 1,5 million people die each year because of the DDT ban. There are about a hundred websites you can visit to confirm this.
How many more millions must die on the altar of Environmentalism.
It's an intolerant, dogmatic, arrogant religion!
Happy Earth Day - indeed...

R.L. Schaefer of CA 5:03PM April 22, 2010

DDT was the most important life-saving chemical of the past century and, until a better chemical comes along, it will be one of the most important of the first few decades of this century too.
Winston Churchill was the first national leader to applaud the insecticide DDT. Sixty-six years ago, when prime minister of Britain, he praised the “excellent powder,” which was preventing thousands of allied troops, refugees, and other victims of war from dying of typhus, yellow fever, and malaria. For the next 20 years, DDT became seen as the world’s most successful public health insecticide, saving millions of lives from insect‐borne diseases. It helped eradicate lethal diseases from dozens of countries, including the United States and, by the 1970s, all of Europe.
But one book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, changed DDT from global savior to global pariah. Published in 1962, its influence was gradual but irrevocable. Carson made emotional claims of great harm to wildlife and human health, but these were easy to test, and most proved false. The persistence of DDT, which made it so valuable as a long-lasting insecticide, meant that it did bio-accumulate up the food chain; as a precaution, it was banned for widespread agricultural use in most countries. Yet despite decades of use in disease prevention, with hundreds of millions being exposed to moderate levels of the chemical, no one has been able to show human harm from it. Claims of DDT’s harm to human health fail the most basic epidemiological criteria required to prove cause-and-effect relationships. Indeed, after thousands of studies on its effects, DDT remains the world’s most misunderstood chemical.
Despite decades of DDT use in disease prevention, with hundreds of millions being exposed to moderate levels of the chemical, no one has been able to show human harm from it.
As the recent revelations about climate science attest, once the preferred political decision has been reached, the science supporting this conclusion is funded and promoted, leading to a reinforced policy position. But eventually truth will win out and when people understand how policy decisions have become corrupted, uncertainty and outrage remain. In many respects the misuse of scientific evidence on DDT is far worse than the recent revelations of Climategate. (Roger Bate, American Magazine)

R.L. SCHAEFER of CA 4:37PM April 22, 2010

Everything you just said about land use change is refuted here:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/desiremore/biofuelmyths1.htm#bookmark2

RTF of WA 4:23PM April 22, 2010

H'mm,
Being a moderate in the environmental field is no longer allowed. One must abide by the party line or be called a counter-revolutionary for denying the creed of “Global Warming.”
Being a moderate in the Democratic Party is no longer allowed. One must abide by the party line or be called a counter-revolutionary for denying the “socialist” dream.
Any counter-revolutionary is a racist, bigoted, world destroying, bible thumping Christian, fascist, jack-booted, capitalist Republican.
Any counter-revolutionary is a mentally ill person who should be locked up for their own good. Their families should also be considered suspect since such beliefs run in families. They must be re-educated, forcefully if needed for the greater good of the STATE!
For those who forget history, let me remind you of the National Socialist Workers Party – NAZIs and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – USSR (CCCP).
Who relocated and murdered some 6-12 million people internally? They were murdered by the STATE for being Jewish, homo-sexual, bi-racial, traitors to the STATE or otherwise non-Aryan believing un-humans. Answer: The National Socialist Workers Party!
Who re-located and murdered some 25 million people internally? Whole ethnic groups were re-located, families broken up and children educated by the STATE for believing in religion, equal justice and that every person had values. Answer: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!
Who has forgotten that Mao Zedong and his People’s Republic of China (PRC) has murdered some 35-70 million in their socialist engineering programs? This was all for the better good of the STATE.
Who has forgotten the Killing Fields of Cambodia? Who has forgotten the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia and in the Sudan? All in the name of socialist beliefs!
More inhumanity to man, since 1919, has been done in the name of Socialism that any other cause.
Are we doomed to see tens of millions die because of backward steps of socialists?

John R. Carpenter of CA 11:56AM April 22, 2010

There was no mention of the reasons why DDT was banned from use (but not for manufacture) in the US. There was no mention of the breakdown product DDD and it's persistance in the environment. By not giving a balanced view, it is merely propaganda.

Lou Brehm of NY 7:52AM April 22, 2010