The Nazis killed approximately 11,283,000 people.
Stalin alone was responsible for killing nearly 62,000,000.
Pikers. Rachel Carson and the greenies who took up her lies in Silent Spring have been responsible for killing anywhere from 50,000,000 to 500,000,000* people in the 25 years since the use of DDT has almost disappeared because of their lies.
(*It all depends on who’s counting and whether they count the actual deaths from malaria or deaths caused by ancilliary issues. The 500,000,000 figure is quite likely high. The 50,000,000 probably low.)
Just a lil bright, sunny Tuesday morning thought…
David,
I used to use these sorts of arguments too until I took a few stats courses and went back to school for a degree in Biochem. I understand why these numbers and arguments are persuasive until one actually begins to think a bit more deeply about them.
Have you read any peer-reviewed scientific literature that exist on mosquito resistance to DDT? Have you done any investigation into when most LDCs banned DDT? Have you looked at correlation coefficients between DDT use and cases of malaria at the time bans took place in any countries? Do you read about what the debate was in these countries when DDT was banned, and whether or not environmental issues or, more specifically, the issues discussed by Rachel Carson, even entered the debate?
Whether or not your mind is completely changed about DDT use is one thing. I don’t have absolutist views about it myself, and on a certain level sympathize with southern African countries who are reconsidering DDT use. But I assure you that your opinions would take on a complexity that would make you proud of yourself. 🙂
Have a good day. I hope that your Friday is even sunnier than your Tuesday.
Jakub,
I’ve read a number. I balance “peer reviewed” articles with a sceptic’s eye. The peer review process is as open to bias as any other (note the herd instinct amd mob rule on nearly every campus faculty). When a popsci rag like Nature publishes some grog for the masses, for example, yes, I do look up and read the supporting documents.
The fact is that by and large the self-annointed intellectual elites in LDCs largely took their cue from the self-appointed intellectual elite in the U.S. and rachel Carson’s lying “Silent Spring” (she wittingly lied and wittingly misrepresented research) did indeed color the herd’s publications about DDT.
Mosquito resistance? NOT demonstrated, even in peer-reviewed articles whose summaries said it was. Not any time NEAR the LDCs’ banning moves…
And yeh, it has been thirty years since I had a stats course. After calculus, so I at least knew the basis for the formulas most pseudo-scientists use to manipulate their data. (And yeh, my maths are rusty, now. So? Still quite able to recognize B.S., which is all I seem to hear/read from so-called greens.)
The (mostly pseudo-liberal) elite greenies led by Rachel Carson’s lying meme are definitely responsible, by any reasonable epidemiological study, for more murders than Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the other vicious and utterly evil men of the 20th century.
If that doesn’t make the greens evil, then the definition of evil is certainly pejorated beyond reason.