The environmentalists’ assault on chemicals is twofold -- first, that chemicals violate the fictitious rights of animals, and, second, that they are destructive to human life.

Certainly the risky aspects of chemicals, particularly pesticides, should be known. However, we could also keep in mind that the environmental movement has largely exaggerated the dangers of chemicals for its own ideological purposes.

Even in the 1960s classic, “Silent Spring,” which was about the pesticide DDT, and which doubled as a manifesto for the environmental movement, the author Rachel Carson didn’t hold back her bias.

“The 'control of nature',” she wrote in this very book, “is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.”

Is that a truly scientific fact, or a subjective philosophical judgment on Carson’s part?

DDT was banned in America in 1972, as a result of this book, but its use may have been necessary in the Third World then and now, because of the malaria epidemic.

In 1948 Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), before there was any DDT, there were 2.8 million cases of malaria. From then 1963, after DDT killed the malaria-carrying mosquitoes, the number of malaria cases dropped to 17. After Ceylon’s government heard the environmentalists’ charges, however, it reduced DDT use and malaria cases consequently shot up to 2.5 million by 1969.

One of the reasons why America banned DDT, in spite of its effectiveness against mosquitoes, was out of pity for the birds that died as a side effect.

“The town is almost devoid of robins and starlings; chickadees have not been [present] for two years, and this year the cardinals are gone, too. ...” Carson wrote. “'Will they ever come back?' [children] ask, and I do not have the answer.”

No birds sang anymore, hence it was a “silent spring.” Honestly, though, what are the lives of birds compared to human beings?

Besides, Philip Motooka, an extension specialist in weed sciences at the University of Hawaii, pointed out to me that no birds were harmed when DDT’s effects were directly tested on them in laboratory experiments.

But environmentalists say DDT does pose harm to human health. When a column by Stanford economist Thomas Sowell was reprinted in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, arguing against the DDT ban, University of Hawaii botanist David Duffy wrote an angry letter to the paper in reply.

He denounced Sowell and howled that DDT gets into fish and becomes poisonous after people eat too much of it. This poison, he warned, can be passed from mothers to their babies while nursing.

But, as Philip Motooka wrote in his own letter to the Honolulu Advertiser, “While DDT was banned for possible carcinogenicity, this came shortly after a long hearing that resulted in the hearing commissioner concluding that DDT should not be banned.” (The government banned it in spite of this, out of pressure from public opinion; not science.)

Dr. Motooka added, “Today, 60 years after its introduction and despite the early decades of indiscriminate use, DDT has not caused any human health problems, not even in those with very high levels of DDT in their bodies. Bioconcentration of DDT will build to high levels in animals only if there are massive inputs into the ecosystem. That would not be the case today.”

Finally, “The World Health Organization has estimated that DDT has saved 500 million lives.”

To me personally, he added, “While DDT does bioaccumulate, the phenomenon is not as simple as Duffy described. ... Hormone-mimicking is hardly proven.”

DDT is considered carcinogenic in the first place because it caused benign liver tumors in mice (but nothing in any other animal; not even birds), and this was only at doses 100,000 times higher than what humans would ingest from DDT residue on food.

When actual human test subjects were fed DDT in food, every single day for 27 months, they developed nothing remotely cancerous. During America’s period of greatest DDT usage -- from 1944 to 1972 -- liver cancer cases reduced 30 percent.

This is far from being the only incident in which the environmental movement has obfuscated the facts about chemicals.

The chemical Alar, made for use on apples, was banned after the Natural Resources Defense Council said that its tests proved conclusively that apples sprayed with Alar were carcinogenic.

Since the 1970s, April 22 of every year has been celebrated as Earth Day. Nowadays, environmental activists meet on this date to give speeches about how they disapprove of capitalism and industrialization.

Click here to link to Part 2: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?32fe7fcb-5ea6-45e2-a52b-4e710cdc1190

Stuart K. Hayashi is the president of the Reason Club of Honolulu and an undergraduate in Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawaii Pacific University, though his opinions do not necessarily reflect that of either institution. He can be reached at radical_individualist@hotmail.com (If you would like to continue seeing Stuart Hayashi's editorials on this site, please let Hawaii Reporter know at info@hawaiireporter.com)

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