Rachel Carson ; mass murderer
- Thread starter Walter
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Juan, keep up the good fight! Biodiversity is the key for this century. A ban on DDT will help enormously in those species where the chemical played havoc before Carson's work. Yes, malaria continues to be a blight. So does poverty. And the latter is where we should focus human capital without endangering other species about us.
If used properly DDT is useful and not an environmental problem. http://www.malaria.org/DDTpage.html
What gives humans the right to decide what animals live or die? Are we gods? Because we are "self aware'? Dolphins and elephants are self aware. I'll bet whales are too. How close does that put us to the line of which humans have the right to live?
Rom, when there are well over 6 billion humans on the planet and habitat encroachment is the single largest player in the endangerment of species it does put the onus on us, the great thinking and self-aware creature, to do something meaningful to support biodiversity.
I don't think humans want to know there are creatures out there like the dolphin and whale and elephant that also are self-aware. We're kind of protective of our specialness.
I don't think humans want to know there are creatures out there like the dolphin and whale and elephant that also are self-aware. We're kind of protective of our specialness.
The law of the jungle is kill or be killed. It is easy to be critical sitting in our arm chairs in western nations where we have no risk of malaria and even if we did we could afford the vaccine. If Africa stays in such a state of poverty they are powerless to question the gap in wealth. It is nice that the left has replaced the value and well being of a person bellow the value and well being of birds and insects.
How does allowing the use of DDT forward cooperate interest? It is an old cheap pesticide which the patent has probably expired. With DDT banned cooperation’s can charge more for newer more expensive pesticides.
nothing gives us the RIGHT, but we DO have the ability. If we have the ability to make one species live or die, the decision has to be made
Perhaps we are the newest force of nature. Animals had to adapt to their environment or die. The world is now a human environment. Animals adapt to us or die. Raccoons and pigeons are thriving. Coyotes, rats, songbirds and dandelions, too.
So what drives our evolution now. We can actually change global weather patterns if we put our minds to it. What is the necessity which drives our adaptation? Have we peaked? In 10,000 years will we be creatures of atrophied legs and able to breathe carbon monoxide tainted air?
So what drives our evolution now. We can actually change global weather patterns if we put our minds to it. What is the necessity which drives our adaptation? Have we peaked? In 10,000 years will we be creatures of atrophied legs and able to breathe carbon monoxide tainted air?
I presume you mean corporate, not cooperate, interests, but since you got it wrong the same way twice I can't be sure what you think you mean.
I didn't say or suggest that allowing the use of DDT forwards corporate interests, and it's disingenuous of you to respond that way. It's the straw man fallacy. I said the science you'll find on the junk science page is itself mostly junk; the site has an agenda that is not consistent with the nature and goals of good science and is thus not to be trusted. Therefore, using it to justify the claim that Rachel Carson is a mass murderer because she made the case against DDT is intellectually dishonest. Her case against DDT may indeed be flawed--though I doubt that it is, it seems pretty well documented--but you won't find the proof of it at that site.
[FONT="]You know what they say, “The road to hell is paved with good intensions.” Weather or not you consider it a greater good to “save the birds” it is still murder. [/FONT]
DDT was banned in the USA but has continually been used world wide:
In the 1970s and 1980s, agricultural use of DDT was banned in most developed countries, and DDT was replaced in most antimalarial uses by less persistent, and more expensive, alternative insecticides. DDT was first banned from use in Norway and Sweden in 1970, but was not banned in the United Kingdom until 1984.
As of 2006, DDT continues to be used in other (primarily tropical) countries where mosquito-borne malaria and typhus are serious health problems. Use of DDT in public health to control mosquitoes is primarily done inside buildings and through inclusion in household products and selective spraying; this greatly reduces environmental damage compared to the earlier widespread use of DDT in agriculture. It also reduces the risk of resistance to DDT.[10] This use only requires a small fraction of that previously used in agriculture; for the whole country of Guyana, covering an area of 215,000 km², the required amount is roughly equal to the amount of DDT that might previously have been used to spray 4 km² of cotton during a single growing season.[11]
The Stockholm Convention, ratified in 2001 and effective as of 17 May 2004, calls for the elimination of DDT and other persistent organic pollutants, barring health crises. The Convention was signed by 98 countries and is endorsed by most environmental groups. However, a total elimination of DDT use in many malaria-prone countries is currently unfeasible because there are few affordable or effective alternatives for controlling malaria, so public health use of DDT is exempt from the ban until such alternatives are developed. Malaria Foundation International states:
The outcome of the treaty is arguably better than the status quo going into the negotiations over two years ago. 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.[12] In September 2006, almost 30 years after it phased out widespread indoor spraying of DDT, the World Health Organization has announced that DDT will be used as one of the three main tools against malaria. WHO is hence recommending indoor residual spraying (IRS) in epidemic areas, as well as in places with constant and high malaria transmission.[13] The USAID subsequently announced that it would fund the use of DDT.[14]
See Wikipedia and the cites that are listed therein.
Therefore, Rachel Carson is NOT a mass murderer. :wink:
So we are saying that DDT wasn't banned, but just applied in a more sensible fasion? I guess I can buy that.
No it isn't. It could possibly be construed as something akin to manslaughter IF DDT was the ONLY possible way to prevent malaria, but it's not.
It has nothing to do with weather or tension, either.
DDT is old, real old. There are more promising ventures which do not interfere with metabolic processes all the way up the food chain.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/science-environment/59763-gmo-mosquitoes-resistant-malaria.html
The story was found here.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/science-environment/59763-gmo-mosquitoes-resistant-malaria.html
The story was found here.
We should be as chemically free as possible. We have had a mammoth, country-wide crusade against lawn and park and road shoulder spraying for some time. Surely, if that can be an issue, eliminating DDT and all its cousins can't be all that bad at all.
I tend to agree. I also admit that living on the coast solves a lot of the mosquito problems in that mosquito larvae don't hatch in salt water or whatever the process is.