Environmentalism as urban mythology

[Squid]

Remarks to the Commonwealth Club

 

by Michael Crichton

San Francisco

September 15, 2003

 

 

 

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the

most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a

fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing

mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality

from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the

truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in

the information age (or as I think of it, the

disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and

importance.

 

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are

real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any

good, whether the problems we're told exist are in

fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us

has a sense of the world, and we all know that this

sense is in part given to us by what other people and

society tell us; in part generated by our emotional

state, which we project outward; and in part by our

genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle

to determine what is true is the struggle to decide

which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are

false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or

generated by our own hopes and fears.

 

As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today

about environmentalism. And in order not to be

misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I

believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in

a way that takes into account all the consequences of

our actions, including the consequences to other

people, and the consequences to the environment. I

believe it is important to act in ways that are

sympathetic to the environment, and I believe this

will always be a need, carrying into the future. I

believe the world has genuine problems and I believe

it can and should be improved. But I also think that

deciding what constitutes responsible action is

immensely difficult, and the consequences of our

actions are often difficult to know in advance. I

think our past record of environmental action is

discouraging, to put it mildly, because even our best

intended efforts often go awry. But I think we do not

recognize our past failures, and face them squarely.

And I think I know why.

 

I studied anthropology in college, and one of the

things I learned was that certain human social

structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated

from society. One of those structures is religion.

Today it is said we live in a secular society in which

many people---the best people, the most enlightened

people---do not believe in any religion. But I think

that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of

mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely

re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in

God, but you still have to believe in something that

gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of

the world. Such a belief is religious.

 

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the

Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism

seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists.

Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the

beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that

environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century

remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and

myths.

 

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace

and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into

a state of pollution as a result of eating from the

tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions

there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all

energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek

salvation, which is now called sustainability.

Sustainability is salvation in the church of the

environment. Just as organic food is its communion,

that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with

the right beliefs, imbibe.

 

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming

doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures.

They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may

even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I

certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I

don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus

Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But

the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these

beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out

of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These

are issues of faith.

 

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism.

Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because

the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief.

It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or

saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people

on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom.

Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

 

Am I exaggerating to make a point? I am afraid not.

Because we know a lot more about the world than we did

forty or fifty years ago. And what we know now is not

so supportive of certain core environmental myths, yet

the myths do not die. Let's examine some of those

beliefs.

 

There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden

of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when

infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five

died of disease before the age of five? When one woman

in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan

was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When

plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a

stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that

when it was Eden?

 

And what about indigenous peoples, living in a state

of harmony with the Eden-like environment? Well, they

never did. On this continent, the newly arrived people

who crossed the land bridge almost immediately set

about wiping out hundreds of species of large animals,

and they did this several thousand years before the

white man showed up, to accelerate the process. And

what was the condition of life? Loving, peaceful,

harmonious? Hardly: the early peoples of the New World

lived in a state of constant warfare. Generations of

hatred, tribal hatreds, constant battles. The warlike

tribes of this continent are famous: the Comanche,

Sioux, Apache, Mohawk, Aztecs, Toltec, Incas. Some of

them practiced infanticide, and human sacrifice. And

those tribes that were not fiercely warlike were

exterminated, or learned to build their villages high

in the cliffs to attain some measure of safety.

 

How about the human condition in the rest of the

world? The Maori of New Zealand committed massacres

regularly. The dyaks of Borneo were headhunters. The

Polynesians, living in an environment as close to

paradise as one can imagine, fought constantly, and

created a society so hideously restrictive that you

could lose your life if you stepped in the footprint

of a chief. It was the Polynesians who gave us the

very concept of taboo, as well as the word itself. The

noble savage is a fantasy, and it was never true. That

anyone still believes it, 200 years after Rousseau,

shows the tenacity of religious myths, their ability

to hang on in the face of centuries of factual

contradiction.

 

There was even an academic movement, during the latter

20th century, that claimed that cannibalism was a

white man's invention to demonize the indigenous

peoples. (Only academics could fight such a battle.)

It was some thirty years before professors finally

agreed that yes, cannibalism does inbdeed occur among

human beings. Meanwhile, all during this time New

Guinea highlanders in the 20th century continued to

eat the brains of their enemies until they were

finally made to understand that they risked kuru, a

fatal neurological disease, when they did so.

 

More recently still the gentle Tasaday of the

Philippines turned out to be a publicity stunt, a

nonexistent tribe. And African pygmies have one of the

highest murder rates on the planet.

 

In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a

blissful Eden is only held by people who have no

actual experience of nature. People who live in nature

are not romantic about it at all. They may hold

spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they

may have a sense of the unity of nature or the

aliveness of all things, but they still kill the

animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to

live. If they don't, they will die.

 

And if you, even now, put yourself in nature even for

a matter of days, you will quickly be disabused of all

your romantic fantasies. Take a trek through the

jungles of Borneo, and in short order you will have

festering sores on your skin, you'll have bugs all

over your body, biting in your hair, crawling up your

nose and into your ears, you'll have infections and

sickness and if you're not with somebody who knows

what they're doing, you'll quickly starve to death.

But chances are that even in the jungles of Borneo you

won't experience nature so directly, because you will

have covered your entire body with DEET and you will

be doing everything you can to keep those bugs off

you.

 

The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real

nature. What people want is to spend a week or two in

a cabin in the woods, with screens on the windows.

They want a simplified life for a while, without all

their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a few

days, with somebody else doing the cooking. Nobody

wants to go back to nature in any real way, and nobody

does. It's all talk-and as the years go on, and the

world population grows increasingly urban, it's

uninformed talk. Farmers know what they're talking

about. City people don't. It's all fantasy.

 

One way to measure the prevalence of fantasy is to

note the number of people who die because they haven't

the least knowledge of how nature really is. They

stand beside wild animals, like buffalo, for a picture

and get trampled to death; they climb a mountain in

dicey weather without proper gear, and freeze to

death. They drown in the surf on holiday because they

can't conceive the real power of what we blithely call

"the force of nature." They have seen the ocean. But

they haven't been in it.

 

The television generation expects nature to act the

way they want it to be. They think all life

experiences can be tivo-ed. The notion that the

natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a

damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock.

Well-to-do, educated people in an urban environment

experience the ability to fashion their daily lives as

they wish. They buy clothes that suit their taste, and

decorate their apartments as they wish. Within limits,

they can contrive a daily urban world that pleases

them.

 

But the natural world is not so malleable. On the

contrary, it will demand that you adapt to it-and if

you don't, you die. It is a harsh, powerful, and

unforgiving world, that most urban westerners have

never experienced.

 

Many years ago I was trekking in the Karakorum

mountains of northern Pakistan, when my group came to

a river that we had to cross. It was a glacial river,

freezing cold, and it was running very fast, but it

wasn't deep---maybe three feet at most. My guide set

out ropes for people to hold as they crossed the

river, and everybody proceeded, one at a time, with

extreme care. I asked the guide what was the big deal

about crossing a three-foot river. He said, well,

supposing you fell and suffered a compound fracture.

We were now four days trek from the last big town,

where there was a radio. Even if the guide went back

double time to get help, it'd still be at least three

days before he could return with a helicopter. If a

helicopter were available at all. And in three days,

I'd probably be dead from my injuries. So that was why

everybody was crossing carefully. Because out in

nature a little slip could be deadly.

 

But let's return to religion. If Eden is a fantasy

that never existed, and mankind wasn't ever noble and

kind and loving, if we didn't fall from grace, then

what about the rest of the religious tenets? What

about salvation, sustainability, and judgment day?

What about the coming environmental doom from fossil

fuels and global warming, if we all don't get down on

our knees and conserve every day?

 

Well, it's interesting. You may have noticed that

something has been left off the doomsday list, lately.

Although the preachers of environmentalism have been

yelling about population for fifty years, over the

last decade world population seems to be taking an

unexpected turn. Fertility rates are falling almost

everywhere. As a result, over the course of my

lifetime the thoughtful predictions for total world

population have gone from a high of 20 billion, to 15

billion, to 11 billion (which was the UN estimate

around 1990) to now 9 billion, and soon, perhaps less.

There are some who think that world population will

peak in 2050 and then start to decline. There are some

who predict we will have fewer people in 2100 than we

do today. Is this a reason to rejoice, to say

halleluiah? Certainly not. Without a pause, we now

hear about the coming crisis of world economy from a

shrinking population. We hear about the impending

crisis of an aging population. Nobody anywhere will

say that the core fears expressed for most of my life

have turned out not to be true. As we have moved into

the future, these doomsday visions vanished, like a

mirage in the desert. They were never there---though

they still appear, in the future. As mirages do.

 

Okay, so, the preachers made a mistake. They got one

prediction wrong; they're human. So what.

Unfortunately, it's not just one prediction. It's a

whole slew of them. We are running out of oil. We are

running out of all natural resources. Paul Ehrlich: 60

million Americans will die of starvation in the 1980s.

Forty thousand species become extinct every year. Half

of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2000.

And on and on and on.

 

With so many past failures, you might think that

environmental predictions would become more cautious.

But not if it's a religion. Remember, the nut on the

sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of

the world doesn't quit when the world doesn't end on

the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets

a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the

streets. One of the defining features of religion is

that your beliefs are not troubled by facts, because

they have nothing to do with facts.

 

So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read

any of what I am about to tell you in the newspaper,

because newspapers literally don't report them. I can

tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not

cause birds to die and should never have been banned.

I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that

it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can

tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of

tens of millions of poor people, mostly children,

whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous,

technologically advanced western society that promoted

the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy

about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the

third world. Banning DDT is one of the most

disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history

of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and

we let people around the world die and didn't give a

damn.

 

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health

hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always

known it. I can tell you that the evidence for global

warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever

admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area

that is taken by urbanization, including cities and

roads, is 5%. I can tell you that the Sahara desert is

shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is

increasing. I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in

Science magazine concluded that there is no known

technology that will enable us to halt the rise of

carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not

solar, not even nuclear. The panel concluded a totally

new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary,

otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime

all efforts would be a waste of time. They said that

when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative

technologies existed that could control greenhouse

gases, the UN was wrong.

 

I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis

for these views, and I can cite the appropriate

journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the

most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and

Nature. But such references probably won't impact more

than a handful of you, because the beliefs of a

religion are not dependant on facts, but rather are

matters of faith. Unshakeable belief.

 

Most of us have had some experience interacting with

religious fundamentalists, and we understand that one

of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have

no perspective on themselves. They never recognize

that their way of thinking is just one of many other

possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful

or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is

the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the

business of salvation, and they want to help you to

see things the right way. They want to help you be

saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested

in opposing points of view. In our modern complex

world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its

rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.

 

I want to argue that it is now time for us to make a

major shift in our thinking about the environment,

similar to the shift that occurred around the first

Earth Day in 1970, when this awareness was first

heightened. But this time around, we need to get

environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We

need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop

the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard

science instead.

 

There are two reasons why I think we all need to get

rid of the religion of environmentalism.

 

First, we need an environmental movement, and such a

movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a

religion. We know from history that religions tend to

kill people, and environmentalism has already killed

somewhere between 10-30 million people since the

1970s. It's not a good record. Environmentalism needs

to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable

science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be

flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix

environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that

people have about one political party or another is to

miss the cold truth---that there is very little

difference between the parties, except a difference in

pandering rhetoric. The effort to promote effective

legislation for the environment is not helped by

thinking that the Democrats will save us and the

Republicans won't. Political history is more

complicated than that. Never forget which president

started the EPA: Richard Nixon. And never forget which

president sold federal oil leases, allowing oil

drilling in Santa Barbara: Lyndon Johnson. So get

politics out of your thinking about the environment.

 

The second reason to abandon environmental religion is

more pressing. Religions think they know it all, but

the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are

dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and

we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those

who are certain are demonstrating their personality

type, or their belief system, not the state of their

knowledge. Our record in the past, for example

managing national parks, is humiliating. Our

fifty-year effort at forest-fire suppression is a

well-intentioned disaster from which our forests will

never recover. We need to be humble, deeply humble, in

the face of what we are trying to accomplish. We need

to be trying various methods of accomplishing things.

We need to be open-minded about assessing results of

our efforts, and we need to be flexible about

balancing needs. Religions are good at none of these

things.

 

How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the

clutches of religion, and back to a scientific

discipline? There's a simple answer: we must institute

far more stringent requirements for what constitutes

knowledge in the environmental realm. I am thoroughly

sick of politicized so-called facts that simply aren't

true. It isn't that these "facts" are exaggerations of

an underlying truth. Nor is it that certain

organizations are spinning their case to present it in

the strongest way. Not at all---what more and more

groups are doing is putting out is lies, pure and

simple. Falsehoods that they know to be false.

 

This trend began with the DDT campaign, and it

persists to this day. At this moment, the EPA is

hossly politicized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it

is probably better to shut it down and start over.

What we need is a new organization much closer to the

FDA. We need an organization that will be ruthless

about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund

identical research projects to more than one group,

and that will make everybody in this field get honest

fast.

 

Because in the end, science offers us the only way out

of politics. And if we allow science to become

politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the

Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting

fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who

don't know any better. That's not a good future for

the human race. That's our past. So it's time to

abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return

to the science of environmentalism, and base our

public policy decisions firmly on that.

 

Thank you very much.

[Jim]

"I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not

cause birds to die and should never have been banned.

I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that

it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway."

 

This is a bit twisted eh? It wasn't banned because it was a carcinogen it was banned because of it's bio-magnification properties and interference with reproduction. The adult birds didn't die - they just couldn't reproduce. Idiot.

[Greg_W]

I think the general message is: "Die tree-hugger scum!!!" Bwahahahahaha!!!!

[slothrop]

Very interesting, thanks for posting it. The idea that banning DDT was a major disaster is news to me. Anyone have more info on this?

[Ireneo_Funes]

Crichton makes some good points about the naivete of city-dwellers vis-a-vis the practicality of country folk, but I don't buy his thesis. First of all, "environmentalism" may encompass belief systems ("religion," if you like), but it's broader than that. It means different things to different people. It's disingenuous for him to try to pretend that environmentalism is some kind of formal institution, rather than a vague collection of sometimes contradictory ideas and impulses.

 

And sure, lots of so-called environmentalists are starry-eyed Romantics who like the idea of the woods better than they like the woods themselves...but really, I'd probably prefer their company over the "practical" yahoos going mud-bogging in their ATVs.

 

It sounds like he's got some real minority-report information about DDT, the icecaps, second-hand smoke, etc. I sure would like to see that stuff footnoted.

[catbirdseat]

There are "lumpers" and "splitters". Creighton is a lumper. He has one conception of what environmentalism is and everyone must fit into it.

[slothrop]

I'm guessing Crichton's "environmentalism has killed 10-30 million people" includes an estimate of the number of people who could have been saved from death by malaria if only DDT hadn't been banned as a method of killing mosquitoes. Seems pretty disingenuous to make such a broad claim, especially without mentioning the lives saved by responsible environmental practices.

[Squid]

How about the statement "I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it."

 

The FDA is responsible for the second-hand smoke warnings, and classifies second-hand smoke as a Class A carcinogen (known to cause cancer in humans).

[bDubyaH]

he does make some interesting points. i do agree that environmentalism needs to get more science based and out of the romaticized and political arenas....but i'm a scientist and likely biased

[foraker]

while i agree that environmentalism needs to be more science based (speaking as an earth/marine science grad) i worry that politicians will ignore the results if it doesn't suit their political ideals or who pays their campaign bills. i was a *bit* heartened to see that bushco recently acknowledged that science does indicate an anthropogenic factor in global warming. i thought they'd never admit to that given their previous rhetoric.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

The data that DDT intefered with reproduction (i.e. thin-shelled eggs of birds) was manufactured and has been recently debunked.

 

Perhaps you should forego the knee-jerk reaction and simplistic one-word ad hominem attack and instead follow up with research and consideration commensurate with the effort Crichton spent to arrive at his conclusions.

 

But that would be too much work. Much better to remain in the comfortable confines of your "religion" and its dogma...

[Camilo]

How about just posting an informational link, footnoted, so we can spread facts instead of opinions? No need for personal attacks.

Like this

 

Now relax.

[Jim]

Well if that is the evidence your going to point to then it will get shredded by anyone with a science background. This is little more than an opinion piece. Show me a peer reviewed journal article from Environmental Toxicology or something related not another wanky web site from the American Council on Science and Health(?) Always check the source: http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=American_Council_on_Science_and_Health#History

 

 

Take the following passage:

 

Additionally, the evidence regarding the effect of DDT on eggshell thinning among wild birds is contradictory at best. The environmentalist literature claims that the birds threatened directly by the insecticide were laying eggs with thin shells. These shells, say the environmentalists, would eventually become so fragile that the eggs would break, causing a decline in bird populations, particularly among raptors (birds of prey).

 

In 1968 two researchers, Drs. Joseph J. Hickey and Daniel W. Anderson, reported that high concentrations of DDT were found in the eggs of wild raptor populations. The two concluded that increased eggshell fragility in peregrine falcons, bald eagles, and ospreys was due to DDT exposure.9 Dr. Joel Bitman and associates at the U.S. Department of Agriculture likewise determined that Japanese quail fed DDT produced eggs with thinner shells and lower calcium content.10

 

Notice how skillfully they dismiss the over 100 articles published that statistically correlate DDT with eggshell thinning - hardly contradictory as they claim.

 

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp35-c9.pdf

 

Heads up when you start trolling the web. The difference between science and opinion is an abyss. But you have to be able to wade through a lot of gunk to find solid ground. Good luck.

[shapp]

Jim is right, go have a search for peer-reviewed papers on the subject and you will find a pile that statistically coorelate DDT concentrations and egg shell thickneses.

[markinore]

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health

hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always

known it.

 

I am not an expert on some of the topics that underly Crichton's other fanciful, inflated, and outrageous assertions. But I do something about smoking, the damage that it does, and epidemiology. First of all, the EPA never has made second hand smoke one of its main priorities, and it is far less active in this area than are other public health organizations. That aside, there is compelling evidence that second hand smoke does have consequences for people's health. The best evidence came from Helena, Montana. In Helena, there was a smoking ban imposed that included all public places. After six months, a legal challenge overturned the ban. Investigators studied the frequency of heart attacks before, during, and after the six month period. Because there is only one hospital in Helena that takes care of heart attack patients, there was no possibility that referral patterns could affect the observations. The results showed that during the six month period when smoking was banned, heart attacks fell by almost 50%! Then they went back up when smoking was again legal. (Reference: Sargent, Richard P.; Shepard, Robert M.; Glantz, Stanton A., "Reduced incidence of admissions for myocardial infarction associated with public smoking ban: before and after study," British Medical Journal 328: 977-980, April 24, 2004.)

 

Therefore, Crichton is just plain wrong when he says that second hand smoke is not a health hazard. Such an assertion does nothing but undermine the credibility of his other statements.

[scott_harpell]

First of all, "environmentalism" may encompass belief systems ("religion," if you like), but it's broader than that. It means different things to different people.

 

Cannot this be said of religion as well?

[Camilo]

Thanks for the clarification, Jim. I hesitated to post that link because it had few (I think I counted 1 or 2) peer reviewed journals as sources, but it was just to make a point about spouting off fact or fiction about something without backing it up. I could have found something better, but I'm supposed to be working . I personally think it's a pain in the ass to wade through the bullshit that people state as fact, but it has to be done because people will spin anything to support their point, on both sides of the argument. Does this make sense? Anyways, I apologize for posting disinformation about a topic of which I know little. It wasn't my view, but I should've done my homework. Stupid way to make a point.

[j_b]

The greatest challenge facing

mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality

from fantasy, truth from propaganda.

 

i don't know about humanity but it does appear to be a challenge for michael crichton

 

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the

Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism

seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists.

 

crichton attempts to paint environmentalists as atheists in need of religion but a majority of americans consider themselves environmentalists, yet few are atheists.

 

 

So I can tell you some facts

 

in light of what follows, he must mean spin ...

 

I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned.

I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that

it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can

tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of

tens of millions of poor people, mostly children,

whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous,

technologically advanced western society that promoted

the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy

about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the

third world. Banning DDT is one of the most

disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history

of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and

we let people around the world die and didn't give a

damn.

 

what a bunch of doodoo. ddt was banned in the u.s. and a few industrialized nations but it wasn't banned in countries were malaria today is a problem. ddt is still produced in industrialized nations and shipped to the regions of interest.

 

shortly after it was introduced, ddt was used indiscriminately and in massive applications which rapidly led mosquitoes to develop resistance to the pesticide. that is the main reason why international organizations promoted the selective and topical use of ddt. as a matter of fact ddt is still used today inside houses in mosquito-infested regions. ddt is also a dangerous compounds that has been linked to reproductive problems in animals as well as humans. ddt like other organic pollutants dissolves at warm temperature and settles in colder regions which means that organic pollutants can also be found in pristine bodies of water and glaciers at high latitudes. if massive use of ddt hadn't been discontinued, it would have led not only to its being ineffective against malaria but also huge environmental problems. today there exists safe alternative to ddt such as bt and one can only wonder why the ddt issue comes up once more. it must too tempting for the likes of crichton to paint environmentalists as responsible for the death of millions.

 

 

 

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health

hazard to anyone and never was ...

 

this guy is too much.

[scott_harpell]

few are atheists.

 

do a poll on this board.

[Dru]

Is this board representative of the US population?

 

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health

hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always

known it. I can tell you that the evidence for global

warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever

admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area

that is taken by urbanization, including cities and

roads, is 5%. I can tell you that the Sahara desert is

shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is

increasing. I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in

Science magazine concluded that there is no known

technology that will enable us to halt the rise of

carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not

solar, not even nuclear. The panel concluded a totally

new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary,

otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime

all efforts would be a waste of time. They said that

when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative

technologies existed that could control greenhouse

gases, the UN was wrong.

 

I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis

for these views, and I can cite the appropriate

journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the

most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and

Nature.

 

seems to me that the one with religious beliefs that cannot be scientifically proven is Chricton. About what I'd expect from a writer of cheap pulps.

[Dru]

Well, except for the 5% urbanized thing. i can buy that. By the same statistic though, only 1% of Japan is urbanized. Go figure.

[Camilo]

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health

hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always

known it.

 

What does the EPA have to do with second hand smoke? Just wondering, but wouldn't this be more of a concern for a medical organization?

[Squid]

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) is regulated by the EPA, not the FDA.

The EPA has maintained since 1993 that ETS is a significant health hazard. link

 

Everyone knows this is bogus science paid for by rich urban Subaru-driving marriage-undermining homosexual atheist sport-climbing tofu-marinading job-outsourcing war-protesting Bosch-bolting cold-dead-finger-prying metrosexual environmentalists who go by the mysterious name Climbers 4Kerry !!!

[cracked]

In the exit 32 parking lot there was a huge new shiny gas-guzzling SUV. It was the biggest car in the lot. On the rear window, there was a C4K sticker. The hypocrisy was palpable.

[Dru]

Yeah, everyone knows that people who drive gas-guzzlers should only vote for BUSH!