"Silent Spring" was my wakeup call those many years ago. Lost my copy
at school and scarce remember the content, but she was the one who
started it for me....she and John & Jane with TMEN.

Care Ya'll
Charlie

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for
use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of
working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."
Wendell Berry

-------------------------

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/27/1493/

Rachel Carson’s Alarm Still Echoes
by Rebecca Clarren

Today marks Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday.

She has been dead for more than 40 years, but the environmental
movement she gave life to with her seminal book “Silent Spring” has
evolved from the grass-roots movement to a politically expedient force
embraced by mainstream Americans.

More than a movement, though, Carson inspired real change.

In my own backyard in Northeast Portland, I wonder how my narrow slice
of the ecosystem would be different if not for Carson. Here, as late
afternoon sunlight threads the tall grass and spring flowers, bugs dive
and weave, bird songs pierce the din of a distant lawnmower. Without
Carson, the world in my own backyard would look and sound far
different.

Carson, concerned about indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT,
worried about a silent world. In the first chapter of “Silent Spring,”
published in 1962, she imagined an entire community destroyed by “a
white granular powder.” Her best-selling book challenged the
mid-century assumption that pesticide use was for the greater good. A
shy biologist, unmarried and in her mid-50s, Carson created a public
outcry with her thorough research and lyrical prose.

Change happened fast. President Kennedy appointed a science advisory
committee to examine the book’s conclusions. Congress debated
legislation to require pesticide labels on how to avoid damage to fish
and wildlife. In less than a decade, we celebrated the first Earth Day,
Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the
National Environmental Policy Act as well as a host of the nation’s
bulwark environmental laws.

Here in Oregon, where the economy has forever been intertwined with the
health of natural resources, the environmental movement quickly flared.
We passed the nation’s first bottle bill in 1971. Looking south to
California’s suburban sprawl, former Gov. Tom McCall created landmark
land-use planning laws. The fight about the spotted owl and logging in
the late 1980s and early ’90s made Oregon a flash point for a national
tension that pitted urban environmentalists against the rural working
class.

Clearly, debate about environmental issues isn’t done: We’re still
grappling with land development and Measure 37, and how to protect
endangered species without hurting local economies. There are fringe
eco-saboteurs, some convicted just this past week in Eugene, who
committed arson to raise public awareness about threats to animals and
the environment.

Yet on a larger scale, caring about the environment has become the
accepted norm.

Wal-Mart stocks organic produce and uses compact fluorescent lights.
Energy companies accept the science about global warming and hawk green
energies. Last month at least four glossy magazines, including Vanity
Fair, Fortune and Elle, had “Green Issues.” Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient
Truth” about global warming is the third-highest-grossing documentary
film ever in the United States. The City of Portland’s Water Bureau
trucks run on biodiesel. Recycling bins are as ubiquitous as rain
puddles. Hunters, farmers, corporations, schoolkids and simplicity
advocates all say they care about nature.

That’s a good thing because critical environmental concerns remain.
When “Silent Spring” was published, Carson reported that 200 basic
chemicals were created for use in killing pests, insects and weeds,
sold under thousands of brand names. Today, in Oregon alone, there are
10,480 registered pesticide products with more than 500 pesticide
ingredients. When we use these pesticides on our agricultural land and
urban lawns and golf courses, rain and runoff carries them into our
rivers. Twenty-seven pesticides have been detected in the Clackamas
River Basin, and 36 pesticides appear in the Willamette River Basin, a
recent U.S. Geological Survey reports. However, the USGS only tested
for the presence of 86 pesticides, meaning that far more could exist in
the rivers. Furthermore, the EPA hasn’t established maximum contaminant
standards for the vast majority of chemicals to protect fish and other
aquatic life or humans who drink the water.

This failure to know all the effects of chemicals on our environment
before their application is exactly what troubled Carson nearly a
half-century ago. Her birthday should inspire us to question the status
quo. We can begin with issues right here in our Oregon backyards. It
was, of course, such a close-to-home concern that motivated Carson.

While Carson was visiting two friends, Stuart and Olga Huckins, at
their two-acre private bird sanctuary in coastal Massachusetts, a plane
spraying DDT to control mosquitoes flew overhead. The next morning she
and her friends paddled through the estuary and saw dead and dying fish
everywhere. Crayfish and crabs staggered, their nervous systems
destroyed. This captured Carson’s curiosity and sparked more than four
years of research, which resulted in “Silent Spring.”

Only two years after her book’s publication, Carson died of breast
cancer at age 56. But her voice continues to inspire. To date, “Silent
Spring” has sold more than 250,000 copies in at least 59 countries. Her
birthday reminds us of what one individual can accomplish, if she only
pays close attention to places she cares about and asks critical
questions with a calm clear voice.

In article , Charlie wrote:

Rachel Carson’s Alarm Still Echoes
by Rebecca Clarren

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/27/1493/

Good on you Chalie, good on you.

- Bill
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

On May 29, 6:00 pm, Charlie wrote:
"Silent Spring" was my wakeup call those many years ago. Lost my copy
at school and scarce remember the content, but she was the one who
started it for me....she and John & Jane with TMEN.

Care Ya'll
Charlie

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for
use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of
working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."
Wendell Berry

-------------------------

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/27/1493/

RachelCarson's Alarm Still Echoes
by Rebecca Clarren

Today marksRachelCarson's 100th birthday.

She has been dead for more than 40 years, but the environmental
movement she gave life to with her seminal book "Silent Spring" has
evolved from the grass-roots movement to a politically expedient force
embraced by mainstream Americans.

More than a movement, though,Carsoninspired real change.

In my own backyard in Northeast Portland, I wonder how my narrow slice
of the ecosystem would be different if not forCarson. Here, as late
afternoon sunlight threads the tall grass and spring flowers, bugs dive
and weave, bird songs pierce the din of a distant lawnmower. WithoutCarson, the world in my own backyard would look and sound far
different.

Carson, concerned about indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT,
worried about a silent world. In the first chapter of "Silent Spring,"
published in 1962, she imagined an entire community destroyed by "a
white granular powder." Her best-selling book challenged the
mid-century assumption that pesticide use was for the greater good. A
shy biologist, unmarried and in her mid-50s,Carsoncreated a public
outcry with her thorough research and lyrical prose.

Change happened fast. President Kennedy appointed a science advisory
committee to examine the book's conclusions. Congress debated
legislation to require pesticide labels on how to avoid damage to fish
and wildlife. In less than a decade, we celebrated the first Earth Day,
Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the
National Environmental Policy Act as well as a host of the nation's
bulwark environmental laws.

Here in Oregon, where the economy has forever been intertwined with the
health of natural resources, the environmental movement quickly flared.
We passed the nation's first bottle bill in 1971. Looking south to
California's suburban sprawl, former Gov. Tom McCall created landmark
land-use planning laws. The fight about the spotted owl and logging in
the late 1980s and early '90s made Oregon a flash point for a national
tension that pitted urban environmentalists against the rural working
class.

Clearly, debate about environmental issues isn't done: We're still
grappling with land development and Measure 37, and how to protect
endangered species without hurting local economies. There are fringe
eco-saboteurs, some convicted just this past week in Eugene, who
committed arson to raise public awareness about threats to animals and
the environment.

Yet on a larger scale, caring about the environment has become the
accepted norm.

Wal-Mart stocks organic produce and uses compact fluorescent lights.
Energy companies accept the science about global warming and hawk green
energies. Last month at least four glossy magazines, including Vanity
Fair, Fortune and Elle, had "Green Issues." Al Gore's "An Inconvenient
Truth" about global warming is the third-highest-grossing documentary
film ever in the United States. The City of Portland's Water Bureau
trucks run on biodiesel. Recycling bins are as ubiquitous as rain
puddles. Hunters, farmers, corporations, schoolkids and simplicity
advocates all say they care about nature.

That's a good thing because critical environmental concerns remain.
When "Silent Spring" was published,Carsonreported that 200 basic
chemicals were created for use in killing pests, insects and weeds,
sold under thousands of brand names. Today, in Oregon alone, there are
10,480 registered pesticide products with more than 500 pesticide
ingredients. When we use these pesticides on our agricultural land and
urban lawns and golf courses, rain and runoff carries them into our
rivers. Twenty-seven pesticides have been detected in the Clackamas
River Basin, and 36 pesticides appear in the Willamette River Basin, a
recent U.S. Geological Survey reports. However, the USGS only tested
for the presence of 86 pesticides, meaning that far more could exist in
the rivers. Furthermore, the EPA hasn't established maximum contaminant
standards for the vast majority of chemicals to protect fish and other
aquatic life or humans who drink the water.

This failure to know all the effects of chemicals on our environment
before their application is exactly what troubledCarsonnearly a
half-century ago. Her birthday should inspire us to question the status
quo. We can begin with issues right here in our Oregon backyards. It
was, of course, such a close-to-home concern that motivatedCarson.

WhileCarsonwas visiting two friends, Stuart and Olga Huckins, at
their two-acre private bird sanctuary in coastal Massachusetts, a plane
spraying DDT to control mosquitoes flew overhead. The next morning she
and her friends paddled through the estuary and saw dead and dying fish
everywhere. Crayfish and crabs staggered, their nervous systems
destroyed. This capturedCarson's curiosity and sparked more than four
years of research, which resulted in "Silent Spring."

Only two years after her book's publication,Carsondied of breast
cancer at age 56. But her voice continues to inspire. To date, "Silent
Spring" has sold more than 250,000 copies in at least 59 countries. Her
birthday reminds us of what one individual can accomplish, if she only
pays close attention to places she cares about and asks critical
questions with a calm clear voice.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007...on_ra.php#more

headline:


Taking aim at Rachel Carson
Category: DDT
Posted on: May 30, 2007 3:13 PM, by Tim Lambert

I've been doing a little research into how the Rachel-killed-millions
hoax was spread. In The War Against the Greens (1st edition, published
in 1994), the argument appears, but it is confined to the lunatic
fringe:

"How many people have died as a result of environmental policies like
the banning of DDT?" the Larouchite [Rogelio Maduro] asks
rhetorically. "I'd say millions, because it was the most effective
weapon against malaria. Right now methyl bromide is supposedly being
banned for ozone depletion, but I think this is really an attack on
refrigeration, because that's what CFCs and methyl bromides are used
for: the storage and transportation of food. If you look at the
environmentalists' policies, they say they want to reduce world
population to 500 million and 2 billion, and the best way to do that
would be to destroy the world food system. That would create mass
starvation. That's the way to achieve their aim"

Ron Bailey's 1993 book Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological
Apocalypse must have found this too nutty to mention, but in his 2002
book: Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental
Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death he has a chapter from
Angela Logomasini who states:

Nowhere is this danger more apparent than in the efforts to ban DDT,
which has led to millions of deaths every year around the world.

The same year Bailey wrote in Reason:

Carson's disciples have managed to persuade many poor countries to
stop using DDT against mosquitoes. The result has been an enormous
increase in the number of people dying of malaria each year.

So how did the "Rachel killed millions" claim get from lunatic fringe
to mainstream?

Well, in 1998, the new Director-General of the World Health
Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland established the Tobacco Free
Initiative to reduce death and disease caused by tobacco use. Since it
would also reduce tobacco company profits, they used one of their
favourite tactics: When an agency plans to take actions against
smoking, tobacco companies pay third parties to attack the agency for
addressing tobacco instead of some other issue. For example, when the
FDA proposed to regulate nicotine, Philip Morris organized and paid
for an expensive anti-FDA campaign of radio, television and print ads
from think tanks such as the CEI.

So Philip Morris hired Roger Bate to set up a new astroturf group
Africa Fighting Malaria and criticize the WHO for not doing enough to
fight malaria. The key elements of AFM's strategy:

Simplify our arguments.
Pick issues on which we can divide our opponents and win. Make our
case on our terms, not on the terms of our opponents - malaria
prevention is a good example. ...
this will create tensions between LDCs and OECD countries and between
public health and environment.

The simple argument they used to drive a wedge between public health
and environment was that we had to choose between birds and people.
That by banning DDT to protect birds, environmentalists caused many
people to die from malaria.

The only problem with the simple argument is that it is contradicted
by the story of the fight against malaria. The standard history of
this is Gordon Harrison's Mosquitoes, malaria, and man: A history of
the hostilities since 1880, and he tells you the real reasons why the
plan to eradicate malaria failed. It had nothing to do with Rachel
Carson stabbing DDT in the back and more to do with mosquitoes
evolving resistance to DDT, just as Carson had warned. You don't have
to choose between birds and people -- protecting birds by banning the
agricultural use of DDT also protects people by slowing the evolution
of resistance.

By using DDT, Sri Lanka had reduced the number of cases to just 17 in
1963. They thought that had won and suspended the spraying program.
Harrison writes:

Despite these rumblings of trouble the epidemic that hit the island in
1968-69 was shocking, unexpected and deeply discouraging The few score
cases suddenly multiplied into more than half a million. In a single
season parasites reestablished themselves almost throughout the areas
from which they had been so expensively driven in the course of twenty
years. Sri Lanka went back to the spray guns, reducing malaria once
more to 150,000 cases in 1972; but there the attack stalled. Anopheles
culicifacies, completely susceptible to DDT when the spray stopped in
1964, was now found resistant presumably because of the use of DDT for
crop protection in the interim. Within a couple of years, so many
culicifacies survived that despite the spraying malaria spread in 1975
to more than 400,000 people.

Sri Lanka was only able to get malaria under control again by
switching to malathion instead of DDT.

So what was Bate's plan to deal with this? ... (cont)