The Lies and Myths of the “Anthropogenic Global Warming” Fear Mongers and the Dire Threat They Pose
June 5, 2008
The American people are constantly being bombarded more and more with piffle and drivel from the lunatic fringe of the “Greens” movement.
Organizations with their own political, social, and economic agendas, like the IPCC and the UN General Assembly present themselves as clearing houses for “scientific information” while placing their own philosophical brand on the findings they report.
The proponents of the “doom and gloom” scenario of man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW) tend to fall into easily recognizable categories:
- Climatologists and other scientists whose livelihoods depend on the perpetuation of the theory that:
a. The planet is warming up, and
b. That man’s activities are the primary driving force behind such a change. - Computer modelers who take current data and construct mathematical models which they then use to confirm their already drawn conclusions about the origin and ultimate results of global warming.
- Members of organizations (generally, but not exclusively found on the extreme left-wing of the political spectrum) like the Greens Party, the Sierra Club, and other environmental wacko groups who believe that mankind (and especially American mankind) is basically a toxic presence which infects the planet and that the planet would be better off without him.
- Naïve, well intentioned do-gooders who lack the intellect or knowledge to penetrate the fog of jargon with which the global warming alarmists camouflage their intentions and to critically examine the weak, faux science now being presented as fact.
- Leftists who understand global warming as the scam is, but see in it, through their cynical, Machiavellian eyes, a useful tool to further government control over the economy and the people.
- The average citizen who lack the time, knowledge, or inclination to learn the truth about AGW and the aims of its proponents and who fall victim to the massive propaganda machine in the Leftist controlled mainstream media that tells them tales of a “grim reality” rapidly approaching which can only be prevented by taking draconian measures…IMMEDIATELY!
There have been innumerable “doom and gloom” cults throughout history, but never before have they had such a powerful propaganda weapon as the mass communications apparatus now in place.
That propaganda machine has already catapulted Albert Gore, Jr. from Clinton court jester to superstar status (with commensurate income) and has rendered him immune to cries against his hypocrisy, by excusing his massive “carbon foot print” (as well as those of other celebrity alarmists) as being an unfortunate side effect of the obligation he has to spread the gospel.
Al Gore, the man who flunked out of Divinity School, is presented as an expert in AGW. If he says it, we are to believe it without question. In fact Barbara Boxer quoted Al Gore, Jr. as one of her unimpeachable sources influencing the design of her global warming substitute amendment, a massive government takeover of the American economy.
Al Gore tells us that human generated CO2 is causing global warming and he uses charts derived from ice-core samples to prove it…he even shows us a huge blown up image of a graph of that ice-core data…nevermind that he misrepresents what those data tell us, we must believe him.
Al Gore is the new messiah of the global warming movement.
What a joke!
We already know. Through a close examination of those same data, that increases in CO2 levels lag behind increases of global temperatures by 800 years, not precede it. They occur as a result of increased temperatures and have no causative effect whatsoever.
If, as enviro-mental wacko's and their naive adherents claim, solar, gravitational, and geophysical effects contribute only a small percentage to the phenomenon of global warming and the accumulation of CO2 (caused by "evil" man) in the atmosphere is the primary causative factor, then there would be little evidence of massive climatological changes occurring on other planets, but there is.
"Long-time greens" (as at least one has presented himself to me), are so twisted in their thinking that they view mankind as (to quote from the movie Matrix) "a virus" which infects our planet.
They willingly adhere to any theory which predicts the imminent destruction of mankind in a sort of convulsive purging of itself by Mother Earth which they believe is a living organism called Gaia (didn’t Bluebonnet or Parkay already do an ad about that?). “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
The fact that these consummate "neo-Malthusians" are invariably and repeatedly proven wrong by science and by the continued stubbornness of mankind in refusing to "go quietly into that good night," deters them not one whit.
Apparently reality impinges but little into their world.
Global warming has already stalled for the past decade and last year was the coldest in a decade.
According to the geological record, we are not even close to the warmest temperatures Earth has seen over the past few hundred-thousand years.
In past interglacials, temperatures rose considerably higher than they have in the current inter-glacial...and yes we are still in the midst of an inter-glacial, so periods of warming are to be expected.
If these facts elude you, try reading some works of genuine science instead of these politically motivated diatribes written by people with a social agenda.
One of the more recent observations to send a tremor of fear through the global warming alarmists, is a report that subsurface ocean temperatures, as directly measured by over 3000 robotic probes have shown no rise in global oceanic temperatures. In fact those same probes have shown a small but statistically significant decrease in subsurface oceanic temperatures.
These results were so unexpected that, even now, the little Gorebots are scrambling to alter their models to account for what simply have to be anomalous data.
It is an immutable truth about Liberal dogma that, as they are proven wrong in their pet theories, the tenor of the conversation (such as there is) approaches hysteria. The level of hyperbole and the number of predictions of “doom and gloom” rise.
The fevered pitch of the comments coming from those alarmists and the more and more dire predictions of our approaching demise, serve only to prove their desperation as once more one of their pet theories falls onto the ash-heap of history.
AGW is yesterday's news and over the next 10-20 years, people in these organizations will be warning us, once again, of an impending ice-age or some other dire prediction, with the requisite imminent end of civilization as we know it.
I am not a part of the "pro-carbon" lobby, I am a part of the pro-science, pro-reality lobby, a voice of sanity standing in defiance of the raging tide of alarmism emanating from the Left. I am a green’s worst nightmare, a Conservative with a strong knowledge of science and the ability to know Leftist BS when I see it.
I am far from being alone. Most individuals of good common sense (mostly Conservatives) see AGW for the con-game it is. The arguments, as put forward by AGW alarmist, offer neither compelling scientific nor logical reasons to react impulsively to each spate of tornadic activity reported on the evening news.
The most compelling scientific evidence and arguments rest with AGW deniers like me.
It is individuals such as those I have described above who, through their blind following of false profits of doom like Rachel Carson (author of one of the deadliest lies in history, the book "Silent Spring") and Albert Gore, Jr, represent the most pressing danger to the world’s population.
Rachel Carson (after Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the 1973 Supreme Court through its ruling in Roe v. Wade) is the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. She and her gullible little army of adherents are responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria. By demanding and achieving the a ban on the manufacture, distribution and use of DDT, one of the most innocuous chemicals ever invented by mankind, they have caused unimaginable suffering by those in developing nations.
That book and the “science” upon which it was based is one of the most horrendous (in consequences) mistakes of the faux scientists in the green movement. Her theories were flawed and the science upon which they were based was bad and, in spite of her full knowledge of this prior to the precipitous actions her work generated, she persisted in her campaign.
The story of Rachel Carson and her egregious error of arrogance should be an object lesson for all who now heed the siren call of the greens in this AGW campaign, but that same arrogance, the arrogance inherent in the Left, will prevent them from paying attention.
AGW is a monstrous scam and any action taken by congress or any government will most certainly have grim unintended consequences, just as all poorly thought out and ill-conceived laws have, throughout our nation’s history.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!









11 Comments:
1. Al Gore didn't flunk out of divinity school. By the way, he volunteered for military service, and volunteered for Vietnam. Do you slander all Vietnam vets, all vets, or just what are your criteria for slandering military veterans?
2. Rachel Carson's methods for mosquito control are what is reducing malaria rates in Africa today.
Good heavens. If you can get things that would be easy to check so wrong, where are on the stuff that is not easy to check?
Can you tell us where we might find three glaciers growing in size this year?
Well Ed Darrell,
1. You may define flunking out differently than do I, but I would have to suggest that failingfive out of the eight classes he took at Vanderbilt Divinity before he "dropped out" sounds an awful lot like "flunking out" to me.
2. As for Al Gore's service in Viet Nam, I don't normally bad mouth veterans of any war, but I do know the difference between an REMF and a genuine "grunt."
Al Gore was the consumate REMF and he didn't even serve his full tour. He was "in country" for five months (as a "journalist") and never faced live fire (something else he lied about) before he abandoned his fellow troopers to go flunk out at Vandy.
3. What concerns me more about the mass murderer Rachel Carson is the number of deaths which resulted from malaria due to the ban on DDT that she caused through her efforts and writings.
The data she used was false or at the very least questionable. All those deaths just to pursue her own vanity of being an environ-mental-ist and her personal vendetta in reaction to her own cancer.
I don't care about growing glaciers, I care about absurd pointless efforts to control harmless chemical compounds, whether man-made-like DDT, or naturally occurring-like CO2, in pursuit of a socio-political agenda, in spite of the pain and harm it may cause people.
The cruelist cut of all is that they are now using DDT to do what should have been done decades ago, saving lives by killing the mosquito vector.
Global warming is a natural phenomenon and it will happen whether or not we control CO2 emissions because those emissions are unrelated to the phenomenon.
Like most Liberals, you're not much of a fan of the truth and you like to engage in ad hominem attacks (by the way, if you are going to accuse someone in a personal attack, it always helps to use the correct word...the word you should have used is libel, not slander; libel is written, slander is oral).
I would have thought that a "lawyer" would know the difference. I guess some folks just don't have the intellectual jets.
You're not even worth the time or effort
The data she used was false or at the very least questionable. All those deaths just to pursue her own vanity of being an environ-mental-ist and her personal vendetta in reaction to her own cancer.
There were 53 pages of citations. Can you point to one that is in error?
Carson didn't get the diagnosis of Cancer until the book was mostly written. Stick to the historical facts.
The cruelist cut of all is that they are now using DDT to do what should have been done decades ago, saving lives by killing the mosquito vector.
So it is your claim that Africa didn't use DDT because Rachel Carson said not to?
There are a few problems with that argument.
First, do you have any evidence that DDT use was ever widespread in Africa?
Second, do you have any evidence that most nations had a government capable of conducting anti-malaria drives? Consider Uganda under Idi Amin, for example -- for your complaints about Carson to be accurate, you're alleging that Idi Amin didn't pull out the stops and use DDT because he followed the advice of a dead, white American woman not to use DDT?
Third, do you have any evidence that Rachel Carson ever urged a ban on DDT for malaria -- or for anything else? You can quote from Silent Spring, of course, if it's in that book.
Fourth, you're alleging that the World Health Organization (WHO) had an effective malaria-fighting tool in its hands, and stopped using it?
Fifth, you're alleging that African nations stopped using an effective tool against malaria solely because the U.S. banned its use on cotton -- though the U.S. kept manufacturing it for other nations and made it available specifically to fight malaria.
Santayana warned that those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it. It seems to me you could catch up on some history of fighting malaria here.
You're correct, nevermind your first two lies, lets just cut to the Rachel Carson chase.
You are correct, Africa did not have the wherewithall to fight malaria on its own, as a "Third World" continent, they are and always have been dependent on the goodwill efforts of the wealthier nations...a trust we have utterly failed to uphold, thanks in large part to ill-informed individuals who blindly follow the wishes of the environmentalists and their agenda of controlling the population of Third World nations through attrition, or as it is more properly described, "mass murder."
You still can't read very well, I was very specific in my accusations against Carson the mass murderer, "the ban on DDT that she caused through her efforts and writings," I never said, "Africa didn't use DDT because Rachel Carson said not to."
What did occur is a near universal ban imposed by the World Bank and WHO.
If I remember correctly, only India openly defied the ban on manufacturing.
Various nations, first among them being the United States, have stepped in to help Africa but their efforts have been hindered by the ban.
I shall quote myself (I love doing that):
"Each year, almost 2 million people in Africa die of malaria. Most of those who die are children under the age of five. Survivors often suffer from impaired cognitive development and face a blighted future. Malaria is a parasitic infection characterized by cycles of chills, fever, sweating, anemia, enlarged spleen and a chronic relapsing course. Four types of parasites affect man, through infection by the anopheles mosquito. In the past, malarial outbreaks were controlled by the liberal application of DDT. Yep, that’s the very same DDT that the Leftist green movements lobbied so vigilantly to eliminate from world-wide use. Even today, a reintroduction of DDT into the malarial breeding grounds of Africa and other tropical areas of the world reduces the incidence of malaria to a tolerable level. In India, which in 1953 had a population of about 500 million; malaria affected over 75 million people. Now, because they have never stopped using DDT and are manufacturing their own supplies, deaths from malaria are in the low thousands and infection rates which by now were projected to be near 200 million, are about one 100th of that with a population nearly three times what it was."
Those are grim numbers and most of those deaths can be traced directly to the influence of Rachel Carson's campaign against DDT and other pesticides.
You are correct, Rachel Carson never fought for the complete elimination of DDT or any other pesticides, but she must still be called down for her efforts. It is called the law of unintended consequences.
Do gooders, interferers of good intent, are often responsible for the misery of others not as a direct result of their actions, but as an indirect result.
By playing to the fears of people and politician's, the unintended result of her efforts was the ban on DDT in 1972 and with it any hope of eliminating malaria (which was well on its way to occurring).
Another unintended consequence was the emergence of intractable and virulent strains of malaria, which has long since become resistant to quinine and other traditional medications, as well as the death .
The mosquitoes have become resistant to the other "preferred" pesticides, but DDT remains as effective today as it was 60 years ago...and as harmless.
Again quoting from my earlier article:
"DDT has become more difficult to procure and use and pressure against the insecticide remains. On 17 May 2004, an international treaty aimed at restricting or eliminating persistent organic pollutants, known as the Stockholm Convention, came into force and only through a major campaign by South Africa and others DDT was exempted for use in public health. Anopheles mosquitoes have grown resistant to the insecticides that replaced DDT and the first-line drug therapies have also been losing efficacy in stricken areas such as the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Since 2000, the combination of the reintroduction of DDT and the use of expensive new drugs has had considerable success in reducing the malarial incidence in South Africa.
Other nations have sought to follow suit, but there is still considerable resistance against using DDT. And funding for these eradication programs is not forthcoming because of this unreasonable reluctance to use DDT. Further complications occur from the mistaken policies of “do-gooder” organizations like USAID. USAID has an annual malaria budget of $80 million, but the agency does not spend a single cent buying either insecticides or drugs for malaria control. The vast majority of the agency’s budget is directed towards US-based consultants who ‘advise’ malaria control programs and conduct nebulous projects that have no clear solutions."
As for Rachel Carson's bad science, this should do well enough:
"10. Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote "Dr. DeWitt's now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched." DeWitt's 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the "control"" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt's report that "control" pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs."
Since you seem disinclined to avail yourself to the voluminous information readily available on the internet, I shall help you. Here are just a few references.
Malaria | Western Nations, International Organizations Should Lift Ban on DDT for Malaria Control, Letter to Editor Says
Global Health | 'Ideological' Ban on DDT for Malaria Control Worse Than Catholic Church's Religious Ban on Condoms, Opinion Piece Says
Should the DDT Ban be Lifted?
SOUTH AFRICA: DDT finds favour in fight against malaria
To quote you:
"Good heavens. If you can get things that would be easy to check so wrong, where are [sic] on the stuff that is not easy to check?"
I shall quote myself (I love doing that):
"Each year, almost 2 million people in Africa die of malaria.
You need to be more picky in your sources. It's running just above 1 million annually. Without DDT, we've got the rates down to the lowest in history over a decade.
It's still too many. Most are children. Broadcast DDT could have saved perhaps 20,000, but at a price of killing 40,000 next year when the mosquitoes come roaring back, and according to recent studies, at a price of 30,000 deaths in 10 to 20 years from other health complications.
Most of those who die are children under the age of five. Survivors often suffer from impaired cognitive development and face a blighted future.
Which makes all the more mysterious the Bush administration's claim that the victims need to buy their own bednets and fund their own DDT. Children can do neither.
Malaria is a parasitic infection characterized by cycles of chills, fever, sweating, anemia, enlarged spleen and a chronic relapsing course. Four types of parasites affect man, through infection by the anopheles mosquito.
. . . and other species of mosquito. Anopheles is one of the genera that carry the disease.
Anopheles are a good case in point. Not only are they resistant to DDT, many species are immune. They digest DDT as a nutrient. Increasing DDT use, especially beyond the IRS use Rachel Carson recommended, would be absolutely useless in these cases, at least for combating malaria. In fact, it would be counterproductive: The anopheles mosquitoes that spread the deadliest forms of malaria wouldn't be affected, but the predators of those mosquitoes likely would die off, leaving a huge population explosion in the mosquitoes that carry the deadliest form of the disease. The press release on the isolation of the gene that makes the enzyme that digests DDT can be found at my blog, and a dozen other places.
Whose side are you on, malaria's?
In the past, malarial outbreaks were controlled by the liberal application of DDT.
In a few limited cases. Where malaria has been wiped out, we've depended on medical care and improved housing, with window screens. In the U.S., for example, we effectively eradicated malaria by 1939. DDT didn't come along for another five years.
In no case in history has malaria been wiped out by DDT alone, and in most cases where DDT was used, the disease has come roaring back after the mosquitoes developed resistance or immunity to DDT.
Yep, that’s the very same DDT that the Leftist green movements lobbied so vigilantly to eliminate from world-wide use.
Balderdash. Environmental Defense, the first group to sue to stop broadcast spraying, has been begging the Bush administration to allow DDT to be purchased for use in Africa against malaria for years -- to no avail (is Bush part of the "leftist green movements?" He's the block; I guess, by your definition, he is . . .)
Opposition to limited, indoor residual spraying of DDT (IRS) comes from conservative businessmen, not from environmentalists. Check the news from Uganda.
There never has been a "world-wide ban" of DDT -- it's been in constant use in Mexico against malaria since 1946, with dwindling effects -- and every restriction on DDT includes a specific waiver for use against malaria vectors. If DDT was not used, it had nothing to do with environmentalists, who lobbied to included the health protection clauses.
Even today, a reintroduction of DDT into the malarial breeding grounds of Africa and other tropical areas of the world reduces the incidence of malaria to a tolerable level.
But not as effectively as DDT in extremely limited, Rachel-Carson-approved use, in conjunction with bed nets and education. DDT alone is just a poison; DDT in a program of integrated pest management can help out.
In India, which in 1953 had a population of about 500 million; malaria affected over 75 million people. Now, because they have never stopped using DDT and are manufacturing their own supplies, deaths from malaria are in the low thousands and infection rates which by now were projected to be near 200 million, are about one 100th of that with a population nearly three times what it was."
Of course, India also uses bednets, screens on windows, and has among the best health care systems of all countries in the endemic area. India won't say DDT alone helps out. WHO won't say it. Why would anyone else?
And, India is having massive problems with DDT poisoning domestic animals, foods, and people. (You can see it here:
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/meanwhile-back-at-the-ddt-manufacturing-plant/ ) That's part of why it was banned in other places. Once again, Rachel Carson was right.
Perhaps you should be more picky in choosing your sources.
Seems that the South African Government disagrees with you. They thought DDT to be so important that they successfully organized a campaign to take it off the Stockholm agreement.
In India DDT was indispensible in controlling malaria. Africa and India are perfect for comparison. In Africa they are dependent upon the international organizations for assistance in fighting malaria.
Thanks to the efforts of Carson and her ilk, WHO, the organization you say won't say DDT alone helps control malaria is the same organization that stopped its manufacture and distribution, along with the World Bank, at the behest of rich white "environmentalists" from rich white nations.
Gee, I wonder why WHO would refuse to make that claim...do you think maybe it's to protect them against the charge of being responsible for the millions of dead Africans (as well as those in other tropical regions).
As for the numbers, those estimates are issued by the WHO, again the organization which has a vested interest in minimizing the numbers to avoid taking responsibility. We also know that estimates vary from slightly less that one million to almost 3 million so my number of two holds up well as a mid-ground estimate.
Funny how the numbers in India, where DDT was used extensively in defiance of the WHO/World Bank ban, differ so profoundly from those in Africa.
The Malaria Clock
"In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, EPA Administrative Law Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. ... The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. ... The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.”
Two months later, EPA head [and Environmental Defense Fund member/fundraiser] William Ruckelshaus - who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings - overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.
Since Ruckelshaus arbitrarily and capriciously banned DDT, an estimated 14 Billion cases of malaria have caused immense suffering and poverty in the developing world.
Of these largely avoidable cases, 97 Million people died."
Washington Post
"If Malaria's the Problem, DDT's Not the Only Answer
By May Berenbaum
Sunday, June 5, 2005; Page B03
...Now DDT is making headlines again. Many African governments are calling for access to the pesticide, believing that it's their best hope against malaria, a disease that infects more than 300 million people worldwide a year and kills at least 3 million, a large proportion of them children. And this has raised a controversy of Solomonic dimensions, pitting environmentalists against advocates of DDT use.
To spray or not to spray: Many African nations believe DDT is their only hope against malaria, but the powerful pesticide is not a magic bullet, the author argues. Many mosquito species have become resistant to the poison. Above, in 2001, an Ethopian girl afflicted by the disease. (By Per-anders Pettersson -- Getty Images)
The dispute between them centers on whether the potential benefits of reducing malaria transmission outweigh the potential risks to the environment. But the problem isn't that simple. This is a dispute in which science should play a significant role, but what science tells us is that DDT is neither the ultimate pesticide nor the ultimate poison, and that the lessons of the past are being ignored in today's discussion.
The United Nations Environment Program has identified DDT as a persistent organic pollutant that can cause environmental harm and lists it as one of a "dirty dozen" whose use is scheduled for worldwide reduction or elimination. But some DDT advocates have resorted to anti-environmentalist drama to make their case for its use in Africa."
Now of course being from the Washington Post, Berenbaum toes the party line on DDT not being the solution, but her numbers on deaths from malaria stand in stark contrast to your claim, as do the previous quotation numbers and an almost universal figure is that 90% of the deaths due to malaria are in Africa - 3 million X 0.90 = 2.7 million.
UNICEF estimates that 3000 children die every day from malaria in sub Saharan Africa. That number in children alone exceeds your assertion of one million deaths (3000 X 365 = 1095000).
That's children Ed, 1,000,000 dead children due to the efforts of bureaucratic do-gooders who know less about science than they do about interfering in the lives of people and sticking their noses in places they don't belong...I believe you are intimately familiar with the type.
Your assertion is correct that there was a resurgence of malaria in areas in which it was close to elimination...primarily due to the withdrawal of DDT because of the ban imposed by rich white liberal governments.
While ther have been a number of resistant strains of mosquitos, had DDT not been withdrawn from use, they might not have existed.
We know that anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria come about from the incomplete elimination of a given organism by patients who fail to complete their medication regimen. It is in the partial exposure to a chemical that organisms mutate to become resistant to those chemicals.
We never can know fully, what effect the 1972 ban had on the malaria problem and on the anopheles mosquito (as well as other vector organisms).
What we can know is that it was a very effective tool in the eradication of tropical diseases, that it was pulled just as major successes were being seen in control of those tropical diseases and organisms, and that millions of unnecessary deaths have occurred because of ignorance and arrogance of individuals who react out of fear and emotion rather than cool logic and reason.
We also know that the toxicity of DDT was and is today still grossly exaggerated, usually by individuals with little or no knowledge and a lot of arrogance...interesting how the two so often go hand in hand, particularly in governmental bureaucrats.
Funny how Liberals like you like to attack the Bush administration for not doing enough when they are doing more by a long shot than the Clinton administration did in its eight years, which was a lot of talk and very little effort.
Bush has pledged more money and resources than have ever been given by any nation to Africa...even Bono, no friend of Republicans or of Bush, has been forced to admit that the Bush administration has been exceptional in its response to the problems in Africa.
I believe it is you who needs to examine his sources more closely...maybe if you quit using MoveOn.org and Media Matters as your source of propaganda, your arguments would be more compelling.
Careful Eddy, your partisanship is showing. Looks like BDS to me...can't you even control your hatred of President Bush long enough to help those tens of millions of children who are dying?
Oh yeah, I forgot I was addressing a lawyer...nevermind.
One more thing Eddy,
You correct me and say 1 million. Gee, I know you're a lawyer and all, but I must say isn't the difference between 2 million deaths a year and 1 million deaths a year kind of irrelevant?
I understand that as a shyster, you are more used to discussing money than lives so the difference between $1 million and $2 million is quite substantial, but in lives I would think that were it one tenth as many, even a lawyer would be gravely concerned about it...far more concerned about it than about splitting hairs over numbers.
One more thing. I was wrong about Rachel Carson. From the total number of dead estimated over the years from 1972, due to malaria, she deserves to be moved up from fifth place to probably second or third as the all time greatest mass murderers. She's moving up in the world.
Of these largely avoidable cases, 97 Million people died."
Since 1972?
2008 - 1972 = 36 years
97,000,000/36 = 2,694,444 deaths/year.
So, your claim is that we've miscounted malaria deaths by more than a million and a half people per year?
Or your guys can't count?
Or you're exaggerating so that the rest of the argument will seem a lot more urgent than it is?
If your source is going to more than double the death rate, which could be checked easily at any number of sources, why should we take anything else as accurate?
And then you have the gall to claim Sweeney found DDT harmless?
That's untrue. Sweeney said that he wouldn't lift the registration of DDT as amended -- which was almost exactly the same "ban" that Ruckelshaus imposed. Sweeney's findings were based on an projected use of DDT that excluded all uses for cotton and other agriculture. That is, he projected use about what we have today.
Sweeney said he didn't think EPA had the authority to ban a substance for carcinogenicity (that authority rests with FDA and Agriculture). But the hearing record is clear about the dangers -- DDT harms birds, and is a probable human carcinogen.
Ruckleshaus's ruling, as required by two different courts, simply over-ruled Sweeney's finding that EPA lacked the authority. Everything else in the ruling is the same. The courts ruled that Sweeney's record clearly established the dangers of DDT.
Now, who to believe -- you, or the federal courts, deciding a case brought by the DDT manufacturers?
Meanwhile, Socrates Litsios and Fred Soper, two of the guys who ran the malaria eradication campaign, say that DDT was already ineffective in much of Africa, and it was politics that killed the program, not a lack of DDT. Who to believe, the guys who dedicated their lives to fighting malaria, or you?
Maybe if you'd quit using junk science sources and Lyndon Larouche's campaign flyers for your information, you could do some good in the fight against malaria.
In the meantime, I note that even Tom Coburn has backed off, and let the bill pass naming the post office in her hometown for Rachel Carson.
3,000 kids a day, and rather than fight malaria, you kick a dead woman.
Whose side are you on, again?
Hey, you actually did the math correctly, 2.7 million deaths/year, just like Berenbaum of the Left-wing, tree-hugging, anti-DDT Washinton Post stated in her article.
Not my numbers Ed, not my people, yours. Your buddies at the Post must not have gotten the "I love Rachel Carson" Kool-aid press kit like you did.
Rachel Carson bears the responsibility in large part because through her efforts, DDT was withdrawn from use in the areas where it was being used most successfully.
Lyndon LaRouche is more along your lines then mine. He's a nutjob Democrat which means he has a lot in common with a RINO like you.
As to the toxicity of DDT, the MSDS sheet states an oral LDLO of 500mg/kg in humans. Any idea how massive a dosage that is Ed? For comparison, the LD50 for aspirin is only 400mg/kg and that LD50, not LDLO.
Even the TDLO for DDT is 5 mg/kg. That's the minimum exposure level for the expected lifetime of a human being exposed on a daily basis, over their entire life to produce any tumors.
Now since MSDS sheets are notoriously conservative in their warnings and tend to grossly exaggerate the risks associated with chemicals, as toxic substances go, DDT is one of the least toxic industrial chemicals around.
Who to believe, a lawyer/governmental bureaucrat with no experience in industrial chemicals, or the federally mandated MSDS sheet?
Done much work in the Chemical industry Ed...I thought not. Well I have, extensively with all kinds of industrial chemicals and working around DDT wouldn't be a very frightening idea.
Maybe that's why all those GI's who were dosed extensively with DDT for de-lousing and who served in the Pacific tropics survived as long as they did rather than dying of preventable tropical diseases like malaria.
As toxic substances go, DDT is one of the least worrisome. Maybe you should stick to pushing papers and telling lies about global warming rather than discussing toxic chemicals with those who have far greater experience than you.
The fact remains, tens of millions of people around the world died because of a false assumption promoted by a do-gooder bird watcher with faulty data and good PR.
Rachel Carson will remain in the pantheon of worlds greatest mass murderers. The damage done by her is beyond that of Hitler, and just as heinous because it too stemmed from an ideological agenda.
Yes, you're right! That's precisely what I have been saying. Politics largely driven by Rachel Carson's work of fiction and lobbying by the tree-huggers who enthusiastically embraced it because it matched their anti-human agenda caused the ban on DDT production and usage implemented by the WHO and the World Bank.
Had the use of DDT not been halted in 1972 it is more than likely that we would not be seeing the grotesque numbers of deaths resulting from malaris today.
You cite sources which are rife with political agendas and tarnished credentials.
When scientists become proponents of their own theories, they cease to be scientists. The essence of good science is not an attempt to prove a hypothesis, it is to experiment in an attempt to disprove ones hypothesis. A concept which today's scientists have almost completely abandoned for the mighty dollar of grant money.
Publish or perish is not a good paradigm for nourishing science. It is a great paradigm for nourishing biased opinions with fudged data. We see it today in the AGW hysteria and we see it today in it's aftermath in the continuing holocaust of dying Africans largely caused by the banning of DDT by politicians with an agenda and an uneducated constituency.
Oh yeah, Tom Coburn didn't recant his belief that Rachel Carson's science on DDT was faulty as you imply in your comment, as you well know. He did it because the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania petitioned him to.
From your own website:
"The House passed H.R. 1434 on April 23; however, the measure was stalled for months in the Senate by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who objected to Carson’s writings on DDT. In response, Congressman Altmire organized a local petition drive, gathering 150 signatures from area residents, and collecting letters of support from elected officials and local organizations, including Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, County Councilman James Burn, County Councilwoman Susan Caldwell, the Rachel Carson Homestead Association, Carnegie Mellon University, and Chatham University, Carson’s alma mater.
Following the outpouring of support from southwestern Pennsylvania in favor of H.R. 1434, Senator Coburn agreed to release his hold on the bill. On August 1..."
That is bowing to the will of the people not a change in his objection to her egregious work on DDT.
You should know better than to conflate the two. It's...dishonest.
3000 children each day are dying of malaria and you are more concerned about Rachel Carson's reputation than you are about them.
My only concern is that the campaign of calumny against Rachel Carson keeps us from getting aid to those dying kids. Quite the contrary of your claim, it turns out that Rachel Carson's methods could save the lives of those kids. The Bush administration holds the money that could save their lives, though, because, they say, environmentalists will complain. When I point out that the environmental organizations have endorsed even Indoor Residual Spraying with DDT, they point to "media reports" like this blog as evidence there is still opposition.
Go figure.
Better, stop saying it. Maybe Bush will get the message.
3,000 kids a day -- why not do something about it? Rachel Carson's been dead 44 years. It's not her fault if these kids don't get treated.
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