Through The Looking Glass

By Rich Kozlovich

Editor’s note: This article has been hit a great deal lately and so I went back and read it. Since I am a bug man and not a trained writer I find that much of the work I have done in past years could stand improvement, therefore I have reworked this article. I hope it is an improvement. RK - 3/9/11

Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory – The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes. May I be so bold as to entertain the thought that this certainly would apply to those who attempt to define Integrated Pest Management (IPM) or Green for the structural pest control industry? Here is the reality we are faced with; we have agreed to use these terms without agreeing on what they mean. I hear the statement often; “we all know what IPM is or; we all know what Green means”. Really? The reality is that there is “no universally accepted definition of the IPM and Green phenomena; there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them.”*

Yet, the activists wield words and phrases such as, “we must reduce our chemical impact” like a cudgel to browbeat anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their views regarding IPM or Green pest control. They suggest that we are a bunch of evil fascists attempting to pollute the world and kill our children for mere profit.

My questions are always the same;

1. Exactly what chemical impact are they talking about?
2. What are the statistics?
3. Where is the reduction in life expectancy?
4. Where is the massive increase in diseases?

They aren’t in countries that are the heaviest users of pesticides. In fact, it is now reported that the life expectancy is increasing in these countries. However, the opposite is true in countries that use pesticides the least. They answer by making unfounded claims in the press, where they sound like songbirds; however, when you challenge these people face to face they sound more like croaking toads.

It can be clearly shown that while they spew out unproven claims about pesticides and those who use them, the green movement has wreaked havoc on people’s lives all over the world. Children dying by the millions and tens millions suffering from a host of maladies and conditions created by the things that they promote, which could have been easily prevented except for the influence activists have on the decision makers of the world. These are facts and they are part of the public record for those who are willing to look for them. They cannot be disputed! They can be spun, they can be denied, they can be twisted and the can be ignored….but they cannot be disputed!

This brings me to some questions that I would really love an answer to:

1. Why are promoters of these misanthropic concepts given columns that regularly appear in our industries trade journals? All of a sudden these people become teachers and journalists to the structural pest control industry and de facto spokesmen for the industry.
2.  Why is it that those who have different views are not given the same opportunity to refute these activists’ views?
3.  Why do I never see a regular column devoted to defending us as we are! I have said it before and I will say this again. They are not the pest control industry! Consultants and researchers are hired help and it is their job to salute and say; yes sir. We need to start telling them and not the reverse. If they don't like it we need to fire them!

For years the green activists have promoted causes and programs that have resulted in devastation to the poorest and most desperate people of the world. And all the while these activist induced devastations have been going on these people have maintained a steady drumbeat of misinformation, condemning us with their unscientific claims about pesticides and public health. And the media inside and outside of our industry has either been silent or has been party to this campaign of Jabberwocky. What has the application industries done to defend itself from these false charges? Little or nothing! Worse yet, the pesticide manufacturing, distribution and application industries are becoming part and parcel of that package.

How do these ideas take hold in an industry? It is caused by decent, everyday, go to work men who willingly but unknowingly take these concepts seriously. And why are they so 'willing' and 'unknowing'?  Actually it is understandable. It is because there is no one from our industries that is rebutting these claims, or responding to the arbitrary demands from the activists and regulators in our own forums. And apparently, it appears that no one else is permitted to publically rebut them. As a result they have no other touch stone to go by except the propaganda of the greenies and the EPA.

Another point that I think should be obvious to the most casual observer is that we can't get “ahead of this green issue”. How can we get ahead of something that isn’t ours? It is their program and they will adjust it to offset anything we do. If we even appear to be “getting ahead” they will adjust it in such a manner that we will fall behind again. We will never get ahead of this “green” phenomenon; period! You can’t get ahead of an irrational concept that is initiated by those who wish you ill. If it isn’t your program you can’t control it; you can only defeat it!

Green is even less definable than IPM. “We didn’t get ahead of IPM and look where it got us”; I was recently told. We waste energy trying to get ahead of things we cannot get ahead of and cannot control. Furthermore, we shouldn’t be trying to get ahead; we should be working to eliminate them. The reason we have “green” as an issue now is not because we didn’t get ahead of IPM; it’s because we didn’t defeat IPM. This was the next obvious step after IPM. Their goal is to eliminate pesticides, and each time we adopt an attitude of appeasement, they will go to the next level and each level will be more extreme than the last. Make no mistake about it; we didn’t stand up to IPM then, and if we don’t defeat “green” now the next step will be elimination. The European Union has already taken steps to do just that. See EU Ministers Clinch Deal on New Pesticides Law in this week's Green Notes Newsletter.

"Through the Looking Glass" was a book by Lewis Carroll with Alice (As in Alice in Wonderland) as the main character. In the book Alice finally awakens from her irrational and nightmarish dream and promptly blames one of her cats for the whole thing.

Who will we blame when we awaken from this irrational and nightmarish attempt to please the green activists inside and outside of our industry? More importantly; who will take responsibility for the disasters that awaits us when the developed world eliminates pesticides and loses the benefits they impart? I will not! I will not have to!

"The time has come," the Walrus said, to talk of many things: Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax - Of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings."- Lewis Carroll

* Paraphrased statement by Stanley G,. Payne in the book Dictionnaire historique des fascisms et du nazisme as cited and quoted in the book Liberal Fascism.


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