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Bill Heath's avatar

Carson did more damage than any other single individual concerned with the "environment." The message is always the same. "There's an emergency. Only we, the enlightened, care." It seems bird eggs had thinner shells if the female had eaten mosquitoes killed by DDT. So, DDT was banned. Hooray!

Except the price paid was in more mosquitoes, biting more children, transmitting more malaria, and we can measure the price paid in 500,000 additional unneeded deaths of children every year. But the children are small and brown and out of sight, so in this (and other cases) "we care" about the wrong thing, and others pay the price.

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The Upright Man.'s avatar

Carson, David Brower, Farley Mowat, Greta, the list goes on. This has been a tactic of the environment left for ages; the need to lie for the "greater good." And each time it comes back and bites them in the ass.

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DC Reade's avatar

that's the Dunce version of the story, Swagman. It's a Right-wing Ideological Fable.

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The Upright Man.'s avatar

Then show me exactly how I am wrong, and that this is just a "Right-wing Ideological Fable."

I will be waiting.

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DC Reade's avatar

Assuming that you're still on hand to read my other posts in this reply thread, your wait is over.

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The Upright Man.'s avatar

So, your other posts address the lies told by the four people I mention? 'Cause I am not searching for things that have no relation to what I said.

I will be waiting.

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DC Reade's avatar

You're just plain wrong on this, Bill. I don't know where you're getting your information, but it certainly wasn't the book Silent Spring.

DDT is banned in the US, but it is not banned for pest control globally. The UN, which only got involved with establishing a worldwide standard in 2004, made a specific exemption for pest vector control.

From the Wiki on DDT:

"The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which took effect in 2004, put a global ban on several persistent organic pollutants, and restricted DDT use to vector control. The convention was ratified by more than 170 countries. Recognizing that total elimination in many malaria-prone countries is currently unfeasible absent affordable/effective alternatives, the convention exempts public health use within World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines from the ban.[62] Resolution 60.18 of the World Health Assembly commits WHO to the Stockholm Convention's aim of reducing and ultimately eliminating DDT.[63] Malaria Foundation International states, "The outcome of the treaty is arguably better than the status quo going into the negotiations. For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before."[64]

Despite the worldwide ban, agricultural use continued in India,[65] North Korea, and possibly elsewhere.[20] As of 2013, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 tons of DDT were produced for disease vector control, including 2,786 tons in India.[66] DDT is applied to the inside walls of homes to kill or repel mosquitoes. This intervention, called indoor residual spraying (IRS), greatly reduces environmental damage. It also reduces the incidence of DDT resistance.[67] ..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

A passage that alludes to another thing that Rachel Carson- a trained aquatic biologist- got right: insects evolve to develop resistance to chemical pesticides, and the more frequently they're used, the more intractable of a problem that resistance tends to get.

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Bill Heath's avatar

I do what I can to avoid Wiki (fill in the blank). It's largely a popularity-based source. I do go to the citations and references and often find something useful that way.

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DC Reade's avatar

Most posters in Internet disputes have away of avoiding anything, when it comes to backing up their claims with references.

I use Wiki as a place to start. The vast majority of their pages are uncontroversial, and well-referenced. When passages like the one I quoted are given with source references, I think it's sufficiently reliable to use for support.

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Bill Heath's avatar

Quite fair.

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DC Reade's avatar

That's what I'm aiming for. Fairness, aka "maximizing my online unpopularity."

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El Monstro's avatar

To crickets from the critics. It’s funny they love to spout opinions but when presented with facts they are silent.

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Jan's avatar

Heart not working. Comment liked.

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