The Wrong of "Spring"

[Greybird]

Today, a figure of entirely undeserved positive repute has a 100th birthday anniversary.

The human being most directly responsible for the largest, and most unnecessary, body count of all time. Exceeding Hitler and Stalin combined, and probably topping Mao.

And who, for me, bears considerable guilt for nearly a half-century of mass murder:

Rachel Carson.

If I believed in Hell, I would hope that the tens of millions who have needlessly died of malaria over these decades are roasting her soul mercilessly.

Her junk "science" in Silent Spring induced the governments on this planet to ban DDT. Wrongly so, as (in the U.S.) the EPA's own scientists admitted and documented at the time.

And only very recently, and haltingly, the mass hysteria she induced has been bypassed, and the ban has begun to be reversed. It's still not enough.

As her contemporary, someone of her utter moral opposite, wrote in Atlas Shrugged:

Mistakes of this size are not made innocently.

[Chris Grieb]

Steve; It is worth noting that on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Report Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma received praise for blocking the US Senate from honoring Miss Carson. The destructive Miss Carson is with us still.

[Michael Russell]

I logged on to OL this morning and wondered what on earth was Lyndon LaRouche doing here. For a reasoned critique of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring check out this article.

Mick

[Chris Grieb]

Mick, I didn't find Steve's piece LaRouchy in tone. I still happy that Sen. Coburn stopped Rachel Carson being honored.

Edited May 27, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Greybird]

I presume that, like me, Lyndon LaRouche doesn't want to murder his own family members in cold blood. Does that mean my political outlook has one iota of practical or principled similarity to his?

This section is labeled for making "Rants," not for making cheap smears such as yours. I wasn't making a footnoted argument. I'm not in the mood.

I'll give the general populace here some links anyway, though.

~ JunkScience.com overview on DDT hysteria, with referenced quotes, including WHO's "reducing the surplus population" yearnings

~ Worldwide treaty attempting to ban DDT even from existing on the planet, and its faults

~ The continuing crusade against DDT and how it's encouraging malaria to flourish

~ Peer-reviewed article on environmental elitism being loaded on the backs of the world's poor

Go and do thou what Carson wouldn't have wanted you to do: Get genuinely informed.

Edited May 27, 2007 by Greybird

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I agree that the DDT issue is a shameful blot on human history.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

For a reasoned critique of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring check out this article.

Mick

Mick, I just read the Reason article you cite. It does not appear to contradict anything Steve said.

Barbara

[Michael Russell]

Steve,

I agree with you that Silent Spring was "junk 'science'", and with Michael that "the DDT issue is a shameful blot on human history", hence the Reason article. But to label Rachel Carson a mass murderer on par with Hitler, Stalin and Mao is about as over the top as labeling you a LaRouchie. I apologize for my unfair cheap shot; I genuinely enjoy most of your posts.

Rachel Carson is guilty of rushing to judgment on DDT, not mass murder. I think the fact that she was dying of breast cancer while writing the book, and believed (wrongly) that DDT caused cancer, may have had something to do with her overzealousness on the issue. I place most of the blame not on Ms. Carson, but on the governments who banned DDT without thinking through its implications.

Mick

[Chris Grieb]

Mick; That's better! We're all on the same page. PS I think the worse thing you can call a person is a LaRouchy.

[Ross Barlow]

[i think I wrote and posted the following rant a year ago on the Atlantis II list, after an exasperating night battling mosquitoes here in Thailand. -R.B.]

//begin rant//

A plague upon Rachel Carson

And William Ruckelshaus.

In the afterlife, may they forever reside

In a mosquito-ridden Hell

Where, of course,

DDT is banned and unavailable.

May malarial fevers violently quake their rest,

And may the ghosts of millions of African children

Haunt their thoughts and dreams until the end of time.

Amen.

I have been reflecting on the needless suffering deaths of millions of children in Africa and Asia by malaria -- when the bulk of these tragedies would have been prevented by the cheap, easy to use, effective and (when used properly) safe anti-mosquito treatment, DDT.

If I seem a bit uncharitable to this mother of the Greens, it is because I have recently endured the Night of the Mosquito. The Rainy Season has started early and hard here in Thailand, and it took me by surprise. I forgot how intense tropical mosquito raids can be during rainy nights. It seems that one of our dogs may have left a door ajar, and the bloodsuckers got in. Although I quickly protected myself with repellent, it was definitely a wake-up call.

But we are taking care of it. Thailand is one of those countries that have never banned DDT, so we can cheaply, easily and safely treat our home with it. It is great stuff.

It does not taste too bad. When topping seafood, stir-fried rice and vegetables, I find it to be particularly savory with a little curry, hot peppers and fish sauce added. Washed down with copious amounts of Mekong Whiskey, the after-taste is tolerable. And the mosquitoes sure have been staying away.

Woops. … It looks like I misread the directions on the DDT can, and I might be applying it incorrectly. <hic> I am starting to feel a bit unsteady, my vision is getting distorted, and now I am having a hard time reading the label. <gasp>

Later. <gurgle … rasp … clunk>

-Ross Barlow.

//end rant//