Thu, Jul 24, 2008

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Anonymous


From the page: "For example,

From the page: "For example, we used the pesticide DDT to rid ourselves of the scourge of malaria, and then bullied the people of the global South into foregoing DDT in their own lands because we feared its impact on local wildlife."

This is a totally disingenuous argument: ignore the fact that the negative impact of DDT - which is completely disastrous not just to "local wildlife" but likely to humans as well - was not known at the time, and then conclude that it would be wrong to deny the positive results to other countries, as if they could also go back to the days before the harmful effects of DDT were known (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT, especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health).

These kinds of arguments are a kind of anti-intellectual throw-back to the simplistic 1950's "spray the hell out of it" attitude to pest control, and amount to a nonsensical hissy fit against a responsible attitude towards the environment.





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