Greenpeace and WWF Approve DDT

Ronald Bailey | January 10, 2005

Well, at least half-heartedly. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes an op/ed "It's Time to Spray DDT" which quotes spokespeople from Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund as saying that spraying the demonized pesticide DDT to prevent malaria from killing 1-3 million poor people per year is now OK. Thanks guys.

While the broadcast spraying of DDT on crops did adversely affect some raptors, DDT has never been shown to harm human beings. reason argued that the global DDT ban needed to be lifted years ago and it's well past time for ideological environmentalists drop their opposition to using this life saving pesticide to prevent malaria.

Comments

Warren|1.10.05 @ 3:13PM|#

Great! I guess sometime around 2030 they'll repeal their opposition to genetically modified food. What's left of the developing world can then start growing crops for export.

|1.10.05 @ 3:13PM|#

How is this news? The DDT was first used in a WWF match by Killer Kowalski in 1967.

Kidding, and made up.

Mike|1.10.05 @ 3:32PM|#

Great! I guess sometime around 2030 they'll repeal their opposition to genetically modified food. What's left of the developing world can then start growing crops for export.

Right, because it's the lack of GM crops that's keeping the developing world hungry. It has nothing to do with corruption, horrible economic policy, and war.

|1.10.05 @ 3:33PM|#

Right, because it's the lack of GM crops that's keeping the developing world hungry. It has nothing to do with corruption, horrible economic policy, and war.

The first two much moreso than the later.

|1.10.05 @ 4:16PM|#

Ah, where is Gunnels to chide Mr. Bailey for saying "global DDT ban?"

Personally, I think Greenpeace and WWF care more about animals than people. There is something deeply misanthropic about many of the "deep green" environmental organizations, i.e., the world would be "better" without the cancer humanity.

|1.10.05 @ 5:03PM|#

There has never beem a global DDT ban; someone was always making and selling that stuff.

Anyway, the effort to ban life-saving DDT in favor of a bunch of birds is another example of "progressive" ideas at work.

|1.10.05 @ 5:22PM|#

"There has never beem a global DDT ban..."

However the US ban and the conditioning of aid on non-use has been a de facto ban. The STOCKHOLM CONVENTION ON PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS (POPs)includes DDT so it will formalize the ban.

http://www.pops.int/

"Anyway, the effort to ban life-saving DDT in favor of a bunch of birds is another example of "progressive" ideas at work."

My sentiments exactly.*

African countries have use it intermitently, but now they're getting ready to say "fuck you, eco-imperialists, we care more about our people than your fucking eagles." Note that the research Rachel Carson used in her book has been pretty well debunked, so it's not even a choice between eagles and people.

*joe assures me that the "progressives" have learned from their mistakes and will henceforth get it right. Thereby they will guarantee their inferiors safety, security, prosperity and happiness.

|1.10.05 @ 5:29PM|#

Isaac Bertram,

Ever notice how almost every "environmental" documentary that dealt with animals from the 1970s-1990s painted DDT as an evil menance that had benefits?

|1.10.05 @ 6:00PM|#

"...evil menance that had benefits?"

Did you mean: "...evil menace that had NO benefits?", 'cause that's sort of what I recall, but I may be wrong.

|1.10.05 @ 7:20PM|#

Ron Bailey sez: "...it's well past time for ideological environmentalists drop their opposition to using this life saving pesticide to prevent malaria."

Why? So that people in malaria-ridden countries can starve to death instead?

"While the broadcast spraying of DDT on crops did adversely affect some raptors, DDT has never been shown to harm human beings."

Some of us think that adverse effects on raptors is a good enough reason to curb its use.

Jose sez: "Personally, I think Greenpeace and WWF care more about animals than people. There is something deeply misanthropic about many of the "deep green" environmental organizations, i.e., the world would be "better" without the cancer humanity."

By and large, human beings have rights codified into the laws of civilization. By and large, (non-human) animals (and other organisms) don't. I think it's unethical to drive other organisms to extinction for human self-centeredness.

|1.10.05 @ 7:45PM|#

Isaac Bertram,

Thanks for spotting the missing term. :)

biologist,

Anti-DDT legislation kills people plain and simple. Humans are more important than other animals. Accordingly if it comes down a choice between a single human being and an entire species of birds, I pick the human being. If you want to save the species, do it on your own time, with your own money, and stop trying to kill human beings in the process.

|1.10.05 @ 8:32PM|#

100 million human lives in exchange for protecting some eagle shells from thinning... sounds like a fair exchange to the environmental crowd! In fact, it's a win/win situation, what with the population bomb about to go off.

|1.10.05 @ 11:34PM|#

"There is something deeply misanthropic about many of the "deep green" environmental organizations..."

It sure is disturbing. I've always thought it was a perverted reincarnation of the theory of original sin. "Nature was good, but then along came man and on that day evil was born...." It would seem there are people who can't tolerate the fact that homo sapiens is the top of the heap. I've listened, and never been able to understand the sentiment.

|1.11.05 @ 8:59AM|#

Malaria was common across the lower U.S. Swamp drainage programs and pesticides removed this threat.

|1.11.05 @ 11:01AM|#

I remember reading somewhere that in the early days, Washington, D.C., was considered a hazardouse duty station for military personnel, who recieved extra pay for working in a malaria-ridden area.

|1.11.05 @ 11:28AM|#

Extinction is the rule not the exception. Over 90 percent of the species that have ever existed are now extinct... and man can only take a small measure of credit for the extinctions.

It is a general (and ironic) rule that affluent societies care most about the environment. I presume this is because people in these societies can afford it. If you don't have food, shelter or security, it's tough to get worked up over the fate of avian raptors.

If the environmentalists really cared about the environment, they would advocate policies to ensure that societies become affluent quickly. But deep green ecology is a religion, not a science. The world (Eden) was paradise until man (Satan) entered the garden. Through technology (the fruit of the tree of knowledge), Man destroyed the paradise of Gaia.

Sound familiar?

|1.11.05 @ 1:18PM|#

Malaria was common across the lower U.S. Swamp drainage programs and pesticides removed this threat.

Comment by: rmarks at January 11, 2005 08:59 AM

I remember reading somewhere that in the early days, Washington, D.C., was considered a hazardouse duty station for military personnel, who recieved extra pay for working in a malaria-ridden area.

Posted by db at January 11, 2005 11:01 AM


Indeed, in 1968 I met a women of about 50 who had contracted malaria in Georgia in the 1930s. She still suffered regular attacks that were quite debillitating.

In the 1950s I remember my mother talking of closing the windows at night, to keep the "night air" from coming in and making us sick. I finally asked my father if this was some ancient New England superstition (like witchcraft, I was pretty young and got confused easily). Anyway he (sort of indignantly - he was a New Englander)that it was a New Jersey thing (my mother is from South Jersey) from the days when malaria was prevalent there.

In spite of a Harvard education my mother clung to old local stories she had gotten from parents and grandparents to avoid the "night air" because it made you sick.My mother knew that mosquitoes spread malaria, but these stories persisted long after she was born and referred to mysterious ailments you might get. She eventually got over it and sleeps with windows wide open in Florida summers (she will not use air conditioning and believes that it is unhealthy to not get fresh air so I guess she just went from one extreme to another).

Malaria and Yellow Fever were eradicated in the US largely by mosquito abatement program.

Jose Ortega y Gasset at January 11, 2005 11:28 AM

Exactly.

Gary Gunnels

I was sure that's what you meant.