Book Reviews From "Environmentalism is Fascism" Web Site

By Rich Kozlovich

I have decided to add some book reviews that are not my own. The web site "Environmentalism is Fascism" has some of the most expansive reviews I have read. They also have commentaries worth reading. You may wish to peruse that site...however, be prepared...these are in depth commentaries.


Review of Paul Driessen's Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death

The following is a review of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death by Paul Driessen, published in 2002 by The Free Enterprise Press of Bellevue, Washington. At the time of the publication of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, the author, Paul Driessen, was looking back on a 25-year career including staff tenures with the US Senate and Department of the Interior. He is presently a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Review Foundation and the Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise. Driessen has a BA in Geology and Field Ecology and a JD in Law. Like others in the movement resisting environmentalism, he did not start out in life as an eco-basher. He is a former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth.

Editor's Note:  No wonder the greenies are so mad at him. He used to be one of theirs and he abandoned them, and probably for the same reason that Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder and Bjorn Lonborg did. They have become irrational and misanthropic. RK

Review of Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

After eight years of work Thoemmes published the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005). The project was conceived during a 1997 American Academy of Religion conference when Professor Jerry Kaplan expressed interest in the “religion of nature” after noticing it was a worldview common to both his specialty, the racist right, and radical environmentalism, a specialty of the Encyclopedia’s editor Professor Bron Taylor.

The Encyclopedia, a manifesto of sorts, has 1,000 entries from 500 academics. Many entries were written by key movement personalities such as Arne Naess, Jane Goodall, and Steven Rockefeller. Taylor stresses, “every standard entry in this encyclopedia was fully peer reviewed”.

(1) The Encyclopedia affirms a wide connection between a “religion of nature” and fascism and an equally broad overlap between a “religion of nature” and environmentalism.

The Encyclopedia betrays environmentalism as a social movement lousy with neo-Nazis, devil-worshippers, superstitious lunatics, pseudo-intellectuals, history fabricators, saboteurs, murderers and genocidal maniacs, narcotized youth, romantic primitivists and perniciously elitist anti-democratic religious nutters who corrupt science and slander technology while offering no realistic way to live in the modern world…….

Ecology is sometimes called “the subversive science”. This is too generous because Ecology should not be grouped with the sciences at all – it is a religion.

Ecology is Pantheism and Pantheism is nature worship. Among the sciences and humanities, this highly political “religion of nature” functions like a computer virus. Many faculties over the last 40 years have imparted sub-disciplines led by the “eco” prefix or the “environmental” adjective. Ecology aspires to theocracy – to Pantheocracy. This is not some distant dystopia. Already, across the West development proposals are routinely vetted through environmentalist inquisitions where the precautionary principle, the rights of migratory animals, complexity theory and the sacrality of nature are within the realm of legitimate discourse.

Editor's Note:  And to think that some of you thought that I had strong opinions. RK

The Real Face of DDT

By Rich Kozlovich

All the nonsense about raptors, game birds, song birds and whole eco-systems being wiped out by DDT is just that….nonsense. All of the information that I have presented is public information and is readily available to anyone who really wants to know what the “true” DDT story is; so I am not going to waste my time providing anything for those who make a career out of attacking pesticides. And why? Because they can’t be swayed no matter what anyone says! Dealing with them is a Sisyphean task.

Normally I don't explain myself, but I am going to make an exception this time.
Rachel Carson and I have a great deal in common. We both grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania. We both saw the irresponsible behavior industry and government demonstrated to the environment. We both saw the coke ovens bellowing dark smoke so thick that it would denude hillsides of greenery and even make it hard to see while driving along the highways near them. We both saw creeks that were colored a yellowish orange from the sulfur pumped out of the coal mines so thick that you couldn’t see the bottom, known commonly as “sulfur creeks”. We both saw the blacked walls of Pittsburgh from the smoke stacks of the furnaces that made steel. We both knew pollution up close and personal and resented it.

I believed all the things that were said about DDT. I believed that Rachel Carson was a truly brave and brilliant scientist. I believed that the EPA was a wonderful beneficent agency devoted to the well being of humanity; until I started researching the information for myself.

Being a pesticide applicator I wanted to make sure that what I was doing wasn’t hurting people and the environment. The more I read the more I became startled to find that everything I believed was complete nonsense; and nothing upsets a person more than being told that everything they believe is complete nonsense. Fortunately, I am only concerned with the facts, and I am prepared to go where the facts lead, and that is where Rachel Carson and I parted company. Rachel Carson, it turns out, was the mother of junk science, the EPA is a virtual lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations and DDT was one of the greatest discoveries ever in mankind’s history.

We need to see the face of DDT. We need to face the facts about DDT. We need to come to grips with the consequences of "going green" in those areas of the world that don't have the financial ability to use more expensive products, and yet still have mosquito pressure and diseases as we have never seen. And those consequences have a face. A face that is replicated to the tune of about a million a year!

Here are two articles that I have linked for this purpose. One is an oldie but a goodie and the second one is a heartbreaker. I have saved that one for last.

DDT-eating scientist exposes eco-fraud, By Jack Cashill
Posted: June 30, 2005
© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com
Editor's note: The following commentary is excerpted from Jack Cashill's eye-opening new book, "Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture," where he shows how, over the last century, "progressive" writers and producers have been using falsehood and fraud as their primary weapons in their attack on America.

If there is any one man who defined the word "environmentalist," it is the recently deceased J. Gordon Edwards. Edwards was an author, a park ranger, a legendary mountain climber, and an esteemed entomologist. In 1962, when Rachel Carson published her breakthrough book on the environment, "Silent Spring," Edwards was delighted. The young scientist eagerly raced through the first several chapters, but as he did, his anticipation eroded into uneasiness: "I noticed many statements that I realized were false." Attracted by Carson's message, Edwards tried to overlook the misstatements or to rationalize them away, but increasingly he could not. "As I neared the middle of the book," he adds, "the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts.

This Post Brought to You By the Green Movement, By iowahawk
This is Bakouma Kpatekatola, a young man from the West African nation of Togo. In 2003, when Bakouma was 9 years old, my family became his sponsor through the Childreach-Plan USA organization. In the years since we became occasional pen pals; a few times a year we'd get a letter from him, in his native French, along with an English translation from his caseworker. Sometimes he spoke of coming to America. At Christmas the letters would contain a photo, which we ritually magnetted up on the fridge to chronicle his growth. We reciprocated with our family pictures. I sometimes wondered if he wondered about us like we wondered about him. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't really notice when we didn't receive his annual Christmas letter last year. Yesterday we received a letter from his caseworker explaining why: Bakouma died in December of malaria. He was 14 years old.

DDT isn't a dead issue...it is the only issue. There will come a day when something will be as cost effective and efficacious as DDT, and I will be happy to support that in place of DDT. However, it will still be THE issue. Why? Because the lies told about DDT gave impetus to a movement that is irrational and misanthropic. It is the emotional basis for every outrageous claim made against pesticides and chemicals in general. Does anyone really think that whatever is used in place of DDT, now or in the future, will please the greenies? They will work just as hard to ban those products also.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. The people of the world live longer, healthier lives than at any time in recorded history and chemistry is the reason for it. That is a reality we should appreciate and embrace. This is a reality that should cause us to challenge the very idea of "going green". "Going Green" isn't about responsible environmental behavior in support of humankind. It is about elevating the environment above humankind. To mankind’s detriment! And when we embrace “going green”; we are enablers to a philosophy that is irrational and misanthropic.

The Secret of Success

By Alan Caruba

(I would like to thank Alan for allowing be to reprint this article. Alan has been a staunch defender of our industry for many years. RK)

Unless you are a pest control professional, it is unlikely you ever heard of Norm Ehmann. Those of us who were fortunate to know him, however, just loved the man. He passed away recently at the age of 84 and everyone in America owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

Every business and industry in America has a handful of men who transform it and always for the better. They come to their daily tasks with a personal integrity and an enthusiasm that is irresistible.

There was a time when, if people had a pest problem, they asked the local pest control provider to park his car or truck around the corner so others would not know. The inference was that you were not keeping a clean house. People who engaged in pest control had a handful of products and devices to get rid of insect and rodent pests. Their business practices frequently involved a low-ball price for dubious services and results.

Norm Ehmann was instrumental in changing that. He was involved in pest control for more than fifty years and he was passionate about it. What he and others did was introduce educational seminars to the profession. He understood that the most important element of eliminating insect and rodent pests was a thorough-going knowledge and understanding of their habits, life cycles, and harborages.

I knew Norm because, back in the 1970s I participated in the introduction of a remarkable new insecticide called “Ficam.” It was applied with water. It was lethal to a wide variety of insect pests, but virtually harmless to human beings. You’d think this was a good thing, but many years later, the Environmental Protection Agency demanded that the product undergo a repeat of the multi-million dollar registration process and the manufacturer decided it just wasn’t worth it.

I tell you this because it reflected what happened to DDT. During WWII, DDT successfully saved the lives of countless American soldiers and refugees from insect-borne diseases. People were literally dusted with DDT and, then as now, they lived because of this remarkable insecticide. Then Rachel Carson wrote a book, “Silent Spring”, that defamed DDT and, in time, it was banned. Every year now, in Africa alone, five million people die from Malaria for the lack of this miracle insecticide.

Norm worked for Van Waters & Rogers, a leading distributor of pest control products that purchased the company for which he was a salesman. He helped take VW&R from a $3 million operation under its previous owner to a $200 million enterprise. The introduction of new pesticides is the reason that Americans do not have to fear the diseases that insect and rodent pests spread whether it be in a supermarket, a hospital, a school, a hotel, or anywhere else professional pest control services exist.

For Norm, pesticides, used properly, were the answer to the threats of disease and property damage that had always plagued mankind. Over his life he was instrumental in creating 8,000 insect slides and specimens to help train pest control operators, owners and technicians.

That’s why people greet “the Orkin man” and other pest control folk with a smile. Most arrive in a clean uniform, have a professional demeanor, and all are licensed and certified by state agencies.

Norm didn’t just give sales talks. He helped train thousands of men and women to be effective, to understand the products they were using, to understand the pests to be exterminated, to project pride in their profession, to regard and respect each customer as essential to their own success.

Such people transform their industries and, as a result, improve the lives of all Americans.


"Alan Caruba has been the PR Counselor to the New Jersey Pest Management Association since 1986. He is the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about "scare campaigns" (www.anxietycenter.com) and blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com."

Following Europe ’s lead on climate change

by Paul Driessen

EU countries are having second thoughts about Kyoto . Whose lead should we follow?

There is no “consensus” on the “problem” or “solution.” Over 31,000 scientists, including hundreds of climate scientists, vigorously disagree with the assertion that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause a climate cataclysm. Many express concern that climate legislation would cost jobs and punish families and businesses, to reduce global temperatures by perhaps 0.1 degree.

Long ago ice ages and interglacial periods, the Sahara’s shift from verdant valleys to parched desert, and protracted droughts in the Yucatan and American Southwest had nothing to do with humans, they note. Sunspot counts are now at a 50-year low, indicating reduced solar activity and possibly explaining why planetary temperatures haven’t risen in a decade, despite soaring CO2 levels, say solar experts. Some computer models predict major climatic shifts, but they don’t include solar and other natural factors.

Hydrocarbons provide 85% of all US energy. They are the foundation of an economy that has been shaken to its core and may be entering a recession. Wind and solar represent less than 0.5% – and provide only intermittent auxiliary power. The new “Lights out in 2009?” study warns that the United States “faces potentially crippling brownouts and blackouts,” beginning in 2009, especially in regions that experience prolonged hot spells during summer months, due to insufficient generating capacity.

A bank that wanted to install solar panels found it would cost $850,000 – but would cut only 12% off its electricity bill. That meant it would take 90 years to pay off panels would last only 30 years.

Climate change alarmists ignore inconvenient truths like these, and say Europe signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. They don’t even mention the troublesome realities of current European and global climate politics.

As of 2008, many EU countries’ actual emissions are well above their Kyoto targets. Italy ’s were 14% above, Portugal ’s 17%, Denmark ’s 19%, Austria ’s 30%, Spain ’s 37 percent. (By comparison, US emissions are some 23% above target levels we would have agreed to, had we signed Kyoto . But America ’s carbon dioxide emission growth rate has been just 0.2% per year since 2000, notes University of Colorado climatologist Richard Keen.)

Last year, the European Union solved its predicament by agreeing to slash emissions 20% by 2020. Now, because of the global financial crisis, many EU countries and industries want to back away from even that. Perhaps they will agree to 30% by 2030 – or perhaps 40 by 40.

In 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in Germany . Today she wants to keep nuclear power, build new coal-fired plants, and shield chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement and auto industries, by reducing emission goals or providing free cap-and-trade permits.
Austria and Italy also want EU climate restrictions eased to help industries that are struggling with high energy prices, the economic crisis, and competition from less regulated overseas competitors that rely on coal for power generation and easily undercut European production costs.

Italian ministers have called the EU climate action plan “politically correct garbage” that “would kill any economic improvement” and “achieve very modest environmental benefits” – on the order of reducing projected global warming by 0.1 degrees or less. Prime Minister Berlusconi insists that any EU climate deal be revisited in late 2009, after its real economic and employment costs have been fully analyzed.

Poland and other former Eastern Bloc nations strongly oppose any EU climate change plan that doesn’t exempt them, because they depend on coal for up to 90% of their electricity and on Russia for up to 97% of their natural gas. They were held back for 50 years under Communist dictators – and now are loathe to have development restricted by dictates from Brussels .

Britain is likewise reexamining its commitments, because punitive climate taxes and energy prices have forced 5.5 million households to live in “fuel poverty” – and factories are saying they may have to close their doors and furlough workers all winter, because of high fuel prices.

In Australia , public opinion has shifted from 55% in favor of taking action on climate change in 2007, to 55% opposed to such action in 2008 – before the global financial meltdown. And a recent poll found that 78% of Canadian citizens feel they have been mislead about the costs and benefits of Kyoto , and want fair and objective information from the media and politicians.
Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every month. They put reducing rampant poverty ahead of the speculative effects of future climate change – and say they will be better able to adapt to climate changes (natural or human) if they are rich and technologically advanced.

Impoverished African nations also want abundant, reliable, affordable energy, to ensure safe water, refrigeration and modern hospitals, and reduce lung and intestinal disease and death. But US and EU greens say they must be satisfied with pitiful amounts of intermittent energy from “sustainable” sources like wind and solar.

Al Gore prophesies ecological doom – but flies only private jets, owns a fancy houseboat, and uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. NASA climate scold James Hansen wants to silence any debate on global warming science and economics.

California gets much of its electricity from coal-fired power plants located 600 miles from Los Angeles – enabling it to claim it’s “a leader” in curbing carbon dioxide. It also gets substantial electricity from a nuclear power plant in Arizona , and most of its oil from Alaska .

Utah, on the other hand, generates most of its electricity from coal-fired plants within the state. That helps ensure more affordable electricity, enabling poor families to live better on lower incomes – and still have money left for rent, college, retirement, healthcare and charity.

Which policies are more responsible, humanitarian, ethical and sustainable? Which should we follow?

In the midst of all this debate, rancor, economic chaos and power plant construction, Senator Obama, House Democrats and others are nevertheless promoting new cap-and-trade legislation that could be even more damaging than Warner-Lieberman, which even sponsors admitted would have cost nearly $7 trillion. They oppose oil and gas drilling, and new coal, nuclear and hydroelectric plants.
Many want to “transform” our energy and economic system – from one that works to one based on heavily subsidized “renewable” technologies that aren’t ready for prime time, and likely won’t make a significant contribution for decades.

Morality, environmental justice and corporate social responsibility are too often defined by narrowly-focused environmental ideologies. They pit rich countries and eco-elites against poor families and nations that worry more about immediate life-or-death concerns than speculative human-caused climate chaos. They replace rough-and-tumble debate over science and economics with dogmatism and intimidation.
We need to protect our economies, jobs, poor families and planet. We need conservation and all forms of energy: whatever works best, at lowest cost, for particular cities, states, regions and nations.

We cannot afford policies that roll back economic and civil rights gains – or reflect the “leadership” of increasingly isolated environmental activists who insist that punitive climate policies must be adhered to, for tiny environmental gains, even in the midst of fiscal, employment and public health disasters.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death.




(I would like to once again thank Mr. Dreissen for allowing me to reproduce his work. RK)


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Mr President, DDT will end malaria

(As you can see, this was originally published in 2006 and permission was given to me by Mrs. Kobusingye to reprint it in my old blog. I believe it is worth reprinting. Ridiculous claims are constantly being made by the anti-pesticide crowd about DDT; I think we need to put a face on the need for DDT. Let us open our eyes to what people living in these countries are really suffering and recognize that this is what the anti-pesticide green crowd would promulgate in the whole world; dystopia. RK)

By Fiona Kobusingye

Thursday, 8th June, 2006

DEAR Mr. President, in recent days the business community has written to you and even taken out newspaper ads opposing your carefully considered decision to fight malaria using indoor residual spraying with DDT. We are deeply concerned that this could undo years of hard work, undermine new USAID policies and programs, and result in needless deaths.

These businesses are worried about threats to ban exports from Uganda if traces of DDT are found in food products or flowers. We believe these fears are misplaced. Exports to European and other countries are vital to the nation’s future as they bring jobs and revenue to Uganda. However, other considerations are equally important:

Nothing is more important than protecting our people’s lives and health against the impact of malaria is. By contrast, concerns about revenue losses are speculative. They assume the European threats will be carried out and fail to recognize that international support is growing for indoor spraying with DDT, while pressure is building against anyone who threatens actions against life-saving insecticides and anti-malaria programs.

• The stigma and loud condemnation will come not from using DDT but from failing to use it; from putting profits and baseless fears about insecticides like DDT ahead of human lives. The stigma will go to former colonialist powers that are now malaria-free (thanks to DDT and modern housing which only wealthy people can afford), and that now demand environmental purity from poor people who still suffer and die from malaria.

• Indoor residual spraying does not contaminate the environment with DDT. Small amounts are used, by trained specialists, under carefully controlled programs that also safeguard the supplies, transportation and use of the insecticide. Only the walls and eaves of houses are sprayed; the chemical is not sprayed outdoors, the way it was in Europe and the United States years ago. So the chance of any DDT getting onto crops or flowers is almost zero.

• Concerns about DDT being harmful to wildlife or people are also misplaced. Despite decades of studies, no one has ever shown that DDT causes cancer or anything worse than skin rashes on people. Most claims about harm to animals have also been disproven – even when large amounts of DDT were sprayed on trees and fields.

• Past aid agency efforts simply have not worked. Bed nets, education and other “approved” programs have done little to reduce malaria — which is why South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and now Uganda and Tanzania are turning to DDT and other insecticides, which do work.

• Contrary to what the business ads say, DDT does not attack malaria parasites; it attacks mosquitoes. The parasites do not build up resistance to DDT, though they have to chloroquine. And while mosquitoes can build up resistance to DDT’s killer properties, if the insecticide is overused (which would not be the case in IRS programs), they do not build resistance to DDT’s amazing repellent properties, which in effect put a long-lasting net over an entire house and all its occupants.

• Businesses would be much better off if their workers and the business executives’ own families were not at constant risk from malaria. By using DDT in conjunction with modern ACT drugs, we can eliminate malaria from most parts of our country and population. People could work, attend school, care for their families, have money to spend on things other than anti-malaria medicine, make our country prosperous, and address our energy, transportation and other health problems.


Mr. President, I myself have suffered many times from malaria, and now my internal system is totally out of balance. I lost my son, two sisters and three nephews to this vicious disease. In one year, 50 of the 500 orphan children who attended the school that my husband and I help sponsor died from malaria! There is probably not a single family in Uganda, or all of Sub-Saharan Africa, that has not lost loved ones to this disease.

Caring people have been working for years to change policies about the use of DDT. Finally, just a few months ago, USAID decided that the disease and death tolls were unconscionable and intolerable. USAID changed its policies. It is now supporting and paying for indoor spraying with DDT and other chemicals. Other agencies are also thinking seriously about supporting indoor spraying with DDT.

Mr. President, the business community fears losing export markets and money. But we must not lose sight of our single most important objective: protecting the health and lives of our precious, irreplaceable people. I therefore beg you, Mr. President, please ignore the newspaper ads. Listen to us, the people whose lives are in danger. Please don’t give us a death sentence. Give us life and good health.

Mr. President, my experience and suffering allowed me to testify in 2004 at a Martin Luther King Day conference in New York and present my statement to a US House of Representatives committee hearing. These actions, and the efforts of many others, have brought many allies to our side. President George Bush and USAID are supporting and paying for DDT. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and hundreds of clergy and doctors have signed a declaration supporting DDT to control malaria. They have been joined by renown international researchers, civil rights activists, NGO leaders and environmentalists, policy analysts and authors. Mr. President, if we join with them, we will become an unstoppable force.

Organisations that fund health and development programs will follow USAID’s wise example, including WHO, World Bank, UNICEF and European Union. Uganda will become like the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and China – all of which once had malaria but eradicated it using DDT.

Mr. President, I have suffered so much from malaria. Whenever I think about the possibility of a malaria-free Uganda, I am overjoyed by the vision that one day Ugandans could wake up to lives freed from constant fear of disease and death to lives where good health brings prosperity, when we no longer have to spend our hard-earned money on treating this disease and burying its victims. That will be a day when we can compete equally with farmers and businessmen from other nations and take our rightful places in a fair and just world.

With the help of your good government, we have registered as an NGO here locally called CORE Uganda Chapter. We believe that global racial equality is possible, that the same rights enjoyed in other parts of the world should be accessed freely by all, and that God has given our leaders the power and obligation to fulfil this for their people.

Mr. President, I am a woman with a big, but simple wish: That you will hear the voices of people who want to be safe in their homes from mosquitoes that would sentence them to death by malaria. That you will empower your supporters even more strongly, and unite all Ugandans to fight our common enemies – the mosquitoes and the malaria they carry. And that we will all join in using sound science, good health practices and the great power of God to bring a new future to Uganda.

Thank you for considering our views, hearing our pleas and doing so much for all the people of Uganda. For God and my country!

The writer is the Regional Coordinator, Great Lakes, and Chairman of CORE Uganda


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Heterodoxy Is Not For The Faint of Heart

By Rich Kozlovich

It was reported on February 4th that Bill Gates released mosquitoes in the conference room of a “well heeled crowd” of attendees at a technical conference in Calfiornia; proclaiming that “Malaria is spread by mosquitoes; I brought some. Here, I’ll let them roam around – there is no reason only poor people should be infected.’

Needless to say the crowd wasn’t happy, even after he assured them that these mosquitoes weren’t carrying malaria parasites, but I thought the whole irony of this stunt was rich in symbolism. The “rich” and I include everyone living in the first world, including you and me because we benefit from the realities of first world economics generally don’t worry about mosquito borne diseases because we can afford to spray for them and we do. First it was DDT, and now we have a host of products that are used (none of which the greenies support by the way, so whether it is DDT or anything else it just doesn’t matter to these misanthropes). Yet so many in the first world stand against the use of products, including DDT, that will save millions of lives. However, what if it was different?

Secondly we have expensive medications. David Gardner makes this point, “Although pills exist that can help prevent malaria, there is currently no vaccine. Preventative medication is used mainly by travelers and is not available to the vast majority of people living in the Third World.” Although he goes on to note that, “Resistance to antibiotics by the malaria parasite is also becoming a problem, with some preventative medications no longer effective in certain parts of the world.” However, what if it was different?

So why did Bill Gates “perform” this stunt. To advertise the disaster that malaria is to the rest of the world…to shock the “rich” out of their sense of complacency and help them to understand what it is like when it really is different and it is very different in the third world.

Gates quit Microsoft to work on his charitable programs. One of them is malaria, and he wanted to “hammer home the importance of malaria prevention.” He and his wife donated almost 170 million dollars last year to a program that is working to develop a vaccine for this nightmare disease.

In Africa there isn’t a family that hasn’t suffered from the tragedy of malaria and its overall effects; death, retardation, reoccurring afflictions, not to mention the economic impact of having so many sick people in a society all the time. No society can overcome poverty when so much money is devoted to caring for the sick. No economy can overcome poverty when so many are unable to work. No economy can overcome poverty when so many healthy people have to devote so much time to care for their loved ones. No economy can overcome poverty when the healthy will themselves be struck down by this disease and they all know it is just a matter of time before it is their turn. According to Gardner, “Up to 2.7 million people a year still die of malaria each year, 75 per cent of them African children”.

Gates has been criticized for not recognizing that DDT is still the number one product in malaria prevention, however I am not going to beat on him over this. He at least recognizes that the problem exists and how severe it is. He at least is putting his money where his mouth is. He at least is advertising how serious a problem this is and I have tremendous respect for him over this. Still…this is a case of not seeing the whole problem. Malaria isn’t the only disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Let’s review! I have logged onto two web sites; one from the CDC and one from the state of Minnesota. Why Minnesota? Because it is so far north…it isn’t a subtropical or tropical area. Let us review Minnesota's problems first.

West Nile Virus (WNV)
West Nile virus is a disease transmitted to people, horses, and birds. It is the most commonly reported mosquito-transmitted disease in Minnesota. Most people infected with West Nile virus show no symptoms or flu-like symptoms, but some (primarily elderly) have more severe illness.

LaCrosse Encephalitis (LAC)
LaCrosse encephalitis, which is transmitted by the Tree Hole mosquito, is responsible for 3 to 13 cases of severe illness (primarily in children) each year in Minnesota.

Western Equine Encephalitis (WEE)
During 1941, there was a large regional outbreak of Western equine encephalitis. There may have been as many as 791 cases in Minnesota that year with 90 deaths. In more recent years, Minnesota has had infrequent and smaller outbreaks of WEE (15 human cases in 1975, single cases in 1983 and 1999).

Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) Eastern equine encephalitis is a rare illness in humans, and only a few cases are reported in the United States each year. EEE is quite severe and typically fatal among infected horses.

St. Louis Encephalitis (SLE)
CDC; Cases of St. Louis encephalitis are usually the result of unpredictable and intermittent localized epidemics. Attention: Non-MDH link

Along with those listed above the CDC listed a few more.

Arboviral Encephalitides
Causes aseptic meningitis or encephalitis. Many cases have only fever with headache, but can progress to focal paralysis, intractable seizures, coma and death. Varies with occurrence and intensity of epidemic transmission; usually 150-3,000 cases/year.

Japanese encephalitis
Mild infections occur without apparent symptoms other than fever with headache. More severe infection is marked by quick onset, headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, occasional convulsions (especially in infants) and spastic (but rarely flaccid) paralysis.

Dengue Fever
Also known a break bone fever because of the pain the symptoms of dengue include, fever, severe headache, pain behind the eye , joint and muscle pain, rash. Usually dengue fever causes a mild illness, but it can be severe and even cause dengue hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever (DHF), which can be fatal if not treated. People who have had dengue fever before are more at risk of getting DHF.

No vaccine is available to prevent dengue, and there is no specific medicine to cure dengue. Those who become ill with dengue fever can be given medicine to reduce fever, such as acetaminophen, and may need oral rehydration or intravenous fluids and, in severe cases, treatment to support their blood pressure.

Rift Valley Fever
RVF virus can cause several different disease syndromes. People with RVF typically have either no symptoms or a mild illness associated with fever and liver abnormalities. However, in some patients the illness can progress to hemorrhagic fever (which can lead to shock or hemorrhage), encephalitis (inflammation of the brain, which can lead to headaches, coma, or seizures), or ocular disease (diseases affecting the eye). Patients who become ill usually experience fever, generalized weakness, back pain, dizziness, and extreme weight loss at the onset of the illness. Typically, patients recover within two days to one week after onset of illness. The most common complication associated with RVF is inflammation of the retina (a structure connecting the nerves of the eye to the brain). As a result, approximately 1% - 10% of affected patients may have some permanent vision loss. Approximately 1% of humans that become infected with RVF die of the disease. Case-fatality proportions are significantly higher for infected animals. The most severe impact is observed in pregnant livestock infected with RVF, which results in abortion of virtually 100% of fetuses.

It is easy to see that the picture is much larger than malaria. The best prevention against malaria and all the other afflictions that mosquitoes can transmit is to avoid getting bitten by a mosquito. Although that isn’t entirely possible, it can be seriously reduced by the appropriate application of pesticides. Pesticides that work and are affordable in the third world! I applaud Bill Gates: I just hope that he can begin to really see the whole picture and begin to realize that those who oppose pesticides can never be appeased because they are irrational and misanthropic.

The Boyd Principle states that at some point in our lives we come to a fork in the road and must make a decision. If you take one path you will be popular and you will be rewarded. If you take the other path you will be criticized, ridiculed and scorned. However, you won’t have to turn your back on your friends or your principles. If you are more concerned with accomplishing that which is right and best the satisfaction for having stood against the conventional wisdom on right principles will be your reward, and you may actually accomplish something worthwhile.

Legacy for our Children

by James Marusek

(I would like to thank Mr. James Marusek for sending this to me and allowing me to publish it. Jim is retired from the U.S. Department of the Navy, a Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. He is also the publisher of a fascinating web site that is really worth exploring, IMPACT. You may wish to read the articles in the following link The Legacy of the Environmental Movement, which you will find to be extremely well done. RK)

There is a lot of talk these days about the legacy we will leave our children and our grandchildren. When I stare into the immediate future, I see a frightening legacy caked in darkness and famine. Instead of intelligently preparing, we find ourselves whittling away this precious time chasing fraudulent theories. We have a decade to prepare, but have a misguided sense of direction and urgency.

Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars. Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system. As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature. These periods of quiet sun are referred to as a Grand Minima. The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) are examples.

During a Grand Minima the Earth begins to slowly cool. The start of the planting season is delayed and in the fall early frost limits the harvest. Earth’s abundant bounty is put on hold and starvation takes its ghastly grip. Historian, John D. Post, referred to the last Grand Minima, the Dalton Minimum, as the “last great subsistence crisis in the Western world”. With the cold came massive crop failures, food riots, famine and disease.

Several scientists including David Hathaway (NASA), William Livingston & Matthew Penn (National Solar Observatory), and Khabibullo Abdusamatov (Russian Academy of Science) have forecasted that the sun may enter a Grand Minima a decade from now in Solar Cycle 25. A few scientists including David C. Archibald (Australia) and M. A. Clilverd (Britain) have warned this might even begin in Solar Cycle 24. We are at the transition into Solar Cycle 24 and this cycle has already shown itself to be unusually quiet. The number of spotless days (days without sunspots) during this solar minimum appears to be tracking 3 times the typical number observed during the last century (Solar Cycles 16-23).

There are some in the U.S. that urge us to follow Europe’s lead. On January 13, 2009, the European Parliament adopted a regulation dramatically restricting the number of pesticides allowed. This move is based on the precautionary principle and on junk science. According to Dr. Colin Ruscoe, chairman of the British Crop Production Council, "If farmers are forced to stop using certain products, crop yields would halve. There would be such huge losses in the yields of potatoes, carrots, peas and parsnips that it would become uneconomical to farm them." Is this the kind of lead we should be following? Europe is also leading in another area - in its opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops. In Europe, environmentalist have driven fear into the hearts of their citizens by labeling GM food as “Frankenfood”. In our country, we have been using GM crops for almost two decades without any ill effects. GM crops hold the promise of helping us survive the next Grand Minima by offering crops that can grow under extreme weather conditions. North American is currently a leader in this technology. Should we follow Europe’s lead and ban GM crops? And in ten years from now when the next solar cycle begins, if the sun goes quiet, who will comfort the starving children who cry out in the middle of the night for a small piece of bread? These will be our children. So what legacy will we leave behind?


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Some Resemblance to Reality

by Rich Kozlovich
Science fiction writers are an interesting lot. They do seem to have an innate ability to see farther into the future than most. They can take seemingly innocuous trends and extend the potential effects of these trends beyond the horizon. Forty some years ago I read a science fiction short story that dealt with the concept of risk mitigation.

As the story went, there was some scientist on another planet who created robots whose sole purpose was to keep people safe. Although this scientist's motives were of the highest order, his creation got away from him. Naturally, these robots had difficulty determining what exactly "safe" meant, and interpreted their programming far beyond anything he had intended or wanted. They extended risk mitigation to a computers logical extreme and stifled all activity.

They increased in number and eventually discovered the Earth. They started out quietly by creating an automobile that was called (if I remember this correctly) the Everlasting Car. Safe, efficient, cost effective wouldn’t rust (that was a big deal in the 50’s and 60’s), and they were, most importantly, very inexpensive. Soon they put all other car companies out of business. This gave them enormous capital and credibility and they soon took over more and more of mankind’s responsibilities.

There was to be no war, no dangerous jobs and no risk to mankind of any kind. Naturally everyone thought this was a great idea. Everyone was to be safe! Except that the robots would be the ones to determine what constituted "safe". Since these were robots with computer brains, “safe” became extreme, and now this “great idea” wasn’t so great anymore….but it was too late. They now controlled every aspect of human life.

The state of New York has banned total release aerosol cans because some idiots blew up their houses with them. I am sorry that people do stupid things….it is unfortunately part of what it means to be human. It is unfortunate that homes have been destroyed and extremely unfortunate when someone is hurt. I have to ask though; over the whole of this country; in how many houses has this happened over the last 60 years? I would bet that the number is remarkably low compared to the number of aerosol cans sold.

Although I have used them I've never been a big fan of total release aerosols, but when these products are removed from the market, “for our own good”, are we not now depriving responsible people of the ability to control pests in their homes. Are they all that effective? I don’t think so, but they do have their place and people should have the choice and option to use them or not as they please.

Risks are definable and there are charts that list risks. Approximately fifty thousand people are killed on the nation’s highways every year. Between ten and fifteen thousand children are hurt by lawn mowers each and every year. Each and every year approximately three million adolescents will contract a sexually transmitted disease and thousands drown every year. These are very high on the risk charts and yet we find it necessary to ban total release aerosol cans.

Our view of risk has been molded by misinformation through a corrupt media. We worry unendingly about theoretical risks regarding genetically modified foods, food additives, hormones in milk, electromagnetic radiation, fluoride and chlorine in our water and most importantly, pesticide residues on our fruits and vegetables. These have been shown to be extremely low on the risk charts.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. In reality we live longer, healthier and more satisfied fulfilling lives than ever in human history. In 1945 the world’s population amounted to two billion people, and it took thousands of years to attain that number. During the time when modern chemistry came into its own, mankind’s numbers grew at an unprecedented rate, with people living longer to boot. The greenies constantly spew out all forms of claptrap about how dangerous chemicals and modern living are; and yet if all that they claim was true; do we really believe that we would have increased the world’s population to over six billion in less than 75 years?

Make no mistake about this. The patterns of history will repeat over and over again. Starting with the Progressive movement of Teddy Roosevelt, which laid the ground work for Woodrow Wilson's (whom historians call the first Fascist president)massive government programs, which was the basis for FDR’s New Deal (same people and programs as Wilson’s with different names), to Nixon’s massive regulatory factories at EPA, OSHA, and the Wildlife Service enforcing the Endangered Species Act, we see that very same extreme computer like mentality. We know best! Only we can protect you from yourself! Perhaps they really are from another planet.

We need to stop emoting and start thinking. That starts by reading something besides the lava flow of misinformation put out by the EPA and the green movement. I would like to recommend the book "Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals", by the American Council on Science and Health.


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