GREENIES BACK DOWN ON DDT!

How awful! Now all the birds are going to die and we will all have a "silent spring". How COULD they back down on something as important and well-proven as that?

The World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace apparently have reversed their long-standing opposition to the use of DDT to fight malaria. In his column in the New York Times (Jan. 8), Nicholas Kristof quotes spokesmen from WWF and Greenpeace as supporting the use of DDT in anti-malarial programs:

* "I called the World Wildlife Fund, thinking I would get a fight. But Richard Liroff, its expert on toxins, said he could accept the use of DDT when necessary in anti-malaria programs. 'South Africa was right to use DDT,' he said. 'If the alternatives to DDT aren't working, as they weren't in South Africa, geez, you've got to use it. In South Africa it prevented tens of thousands of malaria cases and saved lots of lives.'"

* "At Greenpeace, Rick Hind noted reasons to be wary of DDT, but added: 'If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it.'"

DDT was banned by the U.S. -- and for practical purposes by the rest of the world -- in 1972 following an intense lobbying campaign by the Environmental Defense Fund. Tens of millions of people -- mostly pregnant women and children -- have died from malaria during the last 30 years. Many, if not most, of these deaths may have been avoided had DDT been more widely used.

The WWF nevertheless maintains on its web site that "DDT should be phased out and ultimately banned." Greenpeace has long called for banning DDT, and has been a leading advocate of the POPs Treaty, which would make DDT more difficult to use in anti-malaria programs, if not operate as a de facto ban.

It might be easy for some to dismiss the past 43 years of eco-hysteria over DDT with a simple "Nevermind..." -- a la Saturday Night Live's Emily Litella -- except for the blood of millions of people dripping from the hands of the WWF, Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, Environmental Defense Fund and other junk science-fueled opponents of DDT.

I suppose it's possible that WWF's Richard Liroff and Greenpeace's Rick Hind were misquoted by Kristof or that they don't really mean what they say. But if they really stand by use of DDT in anti-malarial programs, JunkScience.com calls on the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace to apply their multi-million dollar budgets toward ensuring that not another death occurs that could have been prevented by DDT.

A pity that millions of people in poor countries had to die of malaria while the Greenies changed their minds!

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MORE BACKGROUND ON GREENIES AND DDT

The organisation that has spent decades attacking corporate interests and the institutions of capitalism wasn't attacked by the oil or chemicals industry, but by the New York based Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In what is increasingly a black and white issue, CORE charges Greenpeace with being racist and keeping Africa poor, sick and underdeveloped. Last Saturday, Greenpeace organised a run in Liberty State Park, New York, to campaign against chemicals that it considers to be a danger to human health. CORE arranged a rival event at the same venue to highlight Greenpeace1s policies and their damaging and sometimes deadly effects on Africa. CORE's spokesman, Niger Innis lambasted Greenpeace for being a "powerful elite of First World activists whose hardcore agenda puts people last."

Greenpeace has been at the head of campaigns to ban the use of the insecticide DDT. Green groups were successful in banning DDT use in agriculture in most countries during the 1970s. The insecticide is still permitted for use in public health programmes where it saves lives from mosquito borne diseases such as malaria. Despite the fact that it saves lives every day, Greenpeace still campaigns against its production, trade and use. Greenpeace and others campaign against most pesticide use, but most Greens are particularly fond of attacking DDT; many environmentalists cut their teeth on the DDT issue. Their influence stretches far beyond disaffected anti-globalisation students from rich countries who are desperate to be angry. The World Health Organisation, World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme are all against the use of DDT and are encouraging African governments to reduce its use.

The upshot of this pressure is that lives are lost. In 1996 South Africa submitted to Green pressure and removed DDT from its malaria control programme. The result was one of the worst malaria epidemics in the country1s history as malaria cases rose by around 1000% in just a few years and hundreds upon hundreds of lives were lost. South Africa thankfully did the right thing and reintroduced DDT in 2000. In one year, the number of cases fell by 80% in the worst hit province, KwaZulu Natal.

Despite the clear evidence in favour of DDT, Green groups continue to insist that DDT is dangerous to the environment and to human health. In reality DDT is sprayed in tiny quantities on the inside walls of houses and simply does not escape into the wider environment. Even if it did, the environmental impacts of DDT have always been grossly exaggerated. As to the human health impacts of DDT use, in the 60 years of its use, not one scientific study has been able to replicate a case of actual human harm from the chemical. In all that time and with widespread use, one would think that someone somewhere would have had some ill effect from DDT if it was so dangerous, yet apparently not. In any event, the human health dangers from malaria far outweigh those of DDT.

Perhaps it isn't surprising that groups like Greenpeace campaign against something that could save lives. Charles W_rster, a leading environmentalist with the Environmental Defence Fund captured Green thinking succinctly in 1972 when the US Environmental Protection Agency was in the process of banning DDT. When someone pointed out to him that banning DDT would cost lives in poor countries he is reported to have said: "So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any."

Modern greens may be more subtle now, but their misanthropic philosophy still runs deep. If Greenpeace really cared about people, as it likes to portray, why would it campaign against GM technology in agriculture? GM food, which has been consumed in the US for many years, has been shown to be safe for human consumption and to improve agricultural yields. If Africa were free to adopt GM technology, not only could we feed more people and reduce starvation, but we could increase farmers' incomes.

Campaigns against the burning of fossil fuels to provide energy ignore some basic realities and highlight the outrageous naivete of Greenpeace. In almost any African or Indian city, young children suffer from terrible and life threatening respiratory diseases as a result of burning biomass like wood and dung indoors to provide heat. Even the dirtiest coal-fired power plant providing cheap electricity would be a technological advance that would reduce illness. Yet Greenpeace prefers to promote expensive, renewable energy such as solar or wind power, even though this would keep electricity well out of reach of poor people in Africa.

Greenpeace's run in New York was organised by white, wealthy and healthy New Yorkers that were seemingly amazed that anyone would be opposed to their views. Their quizzical looks at the sight of 70 black CORE activists chanting "Africa Yes, Greenpeace NO" betrayed their ignorance of the policies for which their organisation stands. Liberty State Park is a million miles from the poverty and disease in Africa that Greenpeace is helping to perpetuate. But the rally was held in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, that beacon of hope and freedom that so many oppressed people around the globe look up to.

If the Greenpeace activists were capable of looking beyond the ends of their noses, they might have recognised the importance of the statue towering above them. Africa needs the liberty that the US enjoys. We need the liberty and freedom to use whatever technology we require without interference and restrictions from organisations like Greenpeace that have little interest in human life. We need free trade and individual liberties that made the US the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. We don1t need the racist, misguided and life-threatening anti-growth campaigns run by eco-imperialist Greenpeace.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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