Winter’s Haven

Rachel Carson was born a hundred years and a few days ago. The New York Times science column has an excellent overview of how Silent Spring’s claims regarding the dangers of pesticides compare to state of scientific knowledge.

The short version: in light of the best scientific knowledge available at the time the book was published (1962), most of the claims made by Silent Spring were unfounded and irresponsibly alarmist. Our experience with pesticides since 1962 and the research done in that time have only confirmed the views of Carson’s earliest skeptics. And Silent Spring-inspired bans on DDT, used to kill mosquitos, have caused a lot of people in third-world countries to die of malaria.

All too often, the loudest voices in the environmental movement are the people who seem positively eager to see modern civilization brought down by technological hubris. I consider myself a pragmatic environmentalist: someone who wants a clean, healthy world with prosperity for humankind and some lands left wild. Of course, by that definition, nearly everyone is an environmentalist. Who doesn’t want clean air and water? We members of this silent majority need to speak up when alarmist cranks make demonstrably wrong claims. Because people are still needlessly dying of malaria.

Update: I was completely wrong about DDT bans causing people to die of malaria. See this post for the details.

This entry was posted 2007-Jun-8 and is filed under Natural Sciences, Politics, Technology. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.