"Just Say No" To Oil Revenues?

(As always, I thank Mr. Dreissen for allowing me to reprint his work. RK)

by Paul Driessen

Plummeting stock and housing prices have triggered a painful recession, America’s worst job losses since 1945, and trillions in lost national wealth.

California is grappling with a $42-billion budget deficit. That’s more than the GDP of 112 countries. Maryland, Virginia, New York and other states likewise face billion-dollar budget shortfalls.

Congress and the White House want a $1-trillion “stimulus” for the banking, auto and steel industries, roads, bridges and ports, and “worthy” projects like water parks, parking garages and fitness centers.

They also support expanded renewable energy programs that will require tens of billions in subsidies and tax breaks – but provide intermittent electricity and deliver only 5-15% of their “rated capacity” during peak summer demand periods.

Many states have oil, gas, coal uranium and other energy and mineral resources, within their borders or off their coasts. Development would produce critically needed energy, reduce oil and gas imports, create millions of jobs, and generate trillions of dollars in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues, to help pay these bills.

California could nearly double its offshore oil production within 12-18 months, without installing a single new platform, by using directional drilling technology to bore more wells from existing platforms.

But environmentalists vigorously oppose development. Many states increasingly restrict exploration and production. The US Senate is considering bills that would place more energy prospects off limits. Many legislators want a permanent lock on billions of barrels of oil beneath Alaska’s North Slope and America’s Outer Continental Shelf – despite support for drilling by two-thirds of voters.

Onshore, the usual justification is speculative or exaggerated impacts on wildlife, habitats and groundwater from drilling and production. Offshore, the most common rationale is the infamous oil blowout that occurred forty years ago this month, off Santa Barbara.

That spill is the only one in over 45,000 US offshore wells where significant amounts of oil reached our coasts. And it never would have happened, if it weren’t for the incompetence of a few federal regulators and oil company officials.

The guilty well was being drilled into brittle, highly fractured rock formations which sit atop a more stable zone that holds billions of gallons of gooey crude oil, mixed with natural gas under high pressure. It’s the same oil that’s been seeping out of the shallow formations and washing up on California beaches since long before Spanish explorers used it to waterproof their galleons.

But having drilled several wells without incident, company officials requested a waiver from normal regulations. Unbelievably, it was granted. The drill crew was allowed to install minimal well casing – steel pipes that go into well bores to prevent blowouts.

When oil and gas began to erupt out of the deep drill hole, the crew’s quick response stopped it only temporarily. Because the casing didn’t go deep enough, the pressurized goo surged into the brittle rocks, creating huge gashes that sent gushers of oil out around the platform. For six days, favorable winds kept the oil slick offshore. Then the wind shifted.

Oil inundated Santa Barbara’s gorgeous beaches. Thousands of sea birds died, along with seals and countless other marine animals. The anti-oil environmental movement was born.

Thankfully, dire predictions of permanent damage were wrong. Bird, crab, lobster, seal and other populations soon rebounded. Under the platform, the magnificent artificial reef ecosystem returned.

Enormous mussels, scallops and barnacles again cover the huge scaffold that holds the production platform above the waves. Gorging on shellfish, and having to move mere inches for their next meal, starfish grow to three feet across. Oriental carpets of white, pink and lavender sponges and sea anemones create firework displays of color, while crabs scamper about and thousands of mackerel, sardines and other fish cruise by.

I know this, because I’ve been there, up close and in person, in scuba gear, beneath that very platform and a dozen others in the Santa Barbara Channel and Gulf of Mexico. I joined biologists, wrote professional papers, and produced a documentary film about these towering steel reefs.

Even more important, the technologies, regulations and enforcement programs have changed. Today, instruments monitor temperature and pressure in wells 24/7. Blowout preventers, pipeline shutoff valves and other devices on or beneath the sea floor control the flow of oil and gas. Offshore operators conduct regular accident training and safety exercises. The efforts have paid off.

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pounded the Gulf of Mexico’s 3,000 drilling rigs and production platforms. Over 200 were damaged or destroyed. But virtually no oil or gas escaped.

In fact, according to the US Minerals Management Service (where I used to work), oil companies produced nearly 12 billion barrels of oil from OCS leases between 1980 and 2007. Only 102,000 barrels were spilled: 3,780 barrels a year, on average. That’s a 99.999% safety record.

By contrast, natural seeps like the ones off California leak 620,000 barrels of oil per year into US waters. America’s oil industry has a pollution record 164 times better than Mother Nature’s!

And producing more US offshore oil has an added bonus. It means there is less seepage, and thus less oil in our oceans and on our beaches.

Our energy policies should recognize these facts.

America has been held hostage far too long by anti-oil ideologues and foreign “oiligarchs.”

Keeping our vast resources off limits won’t convince consumers to slash petroleum use. We will just import more, and be ever more indebted to foreign powers. (At $50 per barrel, imported oil costs the United States $235 billion per year; at $140 per barrel, we send $650 billion annually overseas.)

Oil prices are low at the moment, because world demand is down, due to the global recession. We could keep them down, by prolonging the recession – an unpalatable option. Or we can help keep prices at tolerable levels, by developing the domestic oil and gas that we have in abundance, but politicians, courts and greens for too long have told us we can’t touch.

We need the energy, jobs and revenues that offshore (and onshore) oil and gas development can provide. We can no longer afford to “just say no” to domestic petroleum, during the long transition to future energy technologies that we cannot begin to envision – any more than even Jules Verne could have foreseen the wondrous energy and other technologies that creative minds have made a reality today.

That’s the kind of change we can believe in. The kind America needs.


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Green fanatics vs. genetic science

(I would like to thank Mr. Jackson for allowing me to reprint his article. RK)

Gerard Jackson, of BrookesNews.Com 

In Mary Shelley's chilling tale Dr Frankenstein creates a monster out of body parts, which, according to the Hollywood version, becomes a beastly killer completely out of control. Latching on to this vision green cultists malevolently labeled genetically modified food as "Frankenstein foods", conveniently ignoring the fact that we have been genetically altering our foodstuffs — including livestock — for thousands of years.

As expected, a number of green-sympathizing journalists joined this reactionary crusade, some of whom relied on Dr David Suzuki's Altered Genes. Reconstructing Nature: The Debate as a prime information. Although this book was published about ten years ago it seems that like Rachel Carson's grossly dishonest and very lethal Silent Spring Suzuki's book keeps being recycled by half-witted intellectuals.

The underlying theme of Altered Genes is so obvious, even when the author tries to conceal it, that the discerning reader can easily express it in a single sentence. A relentless hatred of capitalism! This tendentious work masquerades as a scholarly attempt to debate the dangers of genetic engineering. Unfortunately, of the many things missing from the book, debate and scholarly intentions are the most prominent.

Suzuki's introduction set a tone from which the book did not waver. Using the tactic of giving a dog a bad name to justify shooting it, he resorted to historical fiction in which genetics was blamed for the rise of eugenics that culminated in the horrific experiments of Josef Mengele. In fact, the origins of the Nazi euthanasia program and Mengele's experiments had their beginnings in the victory of positive law over the rule of law.

Euthanasia was rationalized in Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, a book published in 1920 and written by Karl Binding, a famous law professor, in collaboration with Dr Alfred Hoche. Even though the authors were social democrats their views were welcomed by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, it still took the destruction of the rule of law to make possible the despotic rule of the jackboot and its consequent horrors. Genetics played no role whatsoever in this atrocity, despite Suzuki's views.

The rest of the book is no better. Fourteen authors condemning markets and the wickedness of profiting from genetic engineering; warning us against the perils of "genetic pollution" and the menace of the unknown; railing against the alleged potential horrors of genetic engineering; the greed and dishonesty of multinationals, especially Monsanto; the injustice of intellectual property rights in genetically engineered organisms; the danger of allowing multinationals the right to patent and market their genetically altered products. (No wonder it reads like a political tract). Yet the authors failed to provide a shred of genuine credible evidence that warranted their dire predictions or justified what amounted to a ban on genetic engineering.

Regardless of the word debate in the title, debate was the last thing on the authors' minds. They made no genuine concessions to genetic engineering; they stressed only 'facts' and allegations that could be used to condemn the technology; alternative opinions are ignored and nightmare futures are a staple ingredient; multinationals are attacked along with science; much is made of the alleged social costs of genetic engineering while the benefits are treated as mere assertions.

Astonishing increases in agricultural productivity made possible by chemical and genetic engineering do not rate a mention along with their social benefits; ideological claptrap is passed off as informed opinion and scientists are denigrated as being part of some mysterious "bio-elite"; green organizations are paraded as acting in the public interest, though they are self-appointed and ideologically opposed to economic growth; public fears and concerns about genetic engineering that environmentalist organizations fuelled are used to justify political control of the technology.

Particularly irritating was their tactic of frequently quoting themselves or each other in support of their own arguments. A sure sign that there is little or no genuine scientific support for their views! What is particularly striking, however, is the book's complete lack of humanity, despite its humanitarian pretensions. People merely appear as background scenery for the authors' ideological setting.

There is no acknowledgement of the role Western science, technology and chemical companies have played in eliminating the threat of mass famine from the planet. The extent to which the Third World has benefited from technology transfers is completely ignored. But this attitude should not surprise us once we consider that the book's proposals would even see an end to the production of life-saving genetically engineered vaccines. The very fact that their proposals would literally amount to a death sentence for millions of people, just as the ban on DDT did, is enough to condemn them as a vicious bunch of misanthropic green.

The real Frankensteins are greens fanatics and their media mates who have tried to create a monster out of a life-saving technology so they can get it banned. What does this say about them? Plenty, is the answer.

Gerard Jackson is Brookesnews' economics editor

“In Balance With Nature”

(This was sent to me by Terry Witt, one of my regular readers at Oregonians for Food & Shelter (OFS). (RK)

“In Balance With Nature” is a thought-provoking verse written by the late Dr. John Carew, former head of the Horticulture Department at Michigan State University. His original version was first published in 1970. It paints a scary picture of where our society may be headed. (*updated with 2008 statistics)
IN BALANCE WITH NATURE

In the beginning, there was Earth, beautiful and wild.
And then man came to dwell.
At first, he lived in caves like other animals,
Feeding himself on creatures and plants around him.
And this was called IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.
Soon man multiplied.
He grew tired of ceaseless hunting for food.
He built homes and villages. Wild plants and animals were domesticated.
Some men became Farmers so that others might become Industrialists, Artists, or Doctors.
And this was called Society.

Man and Society progressed.
With his God-given ingenuity, man learned to feed, clothe, protect, and
Transport himself more efficiently so he might enjoy Life.
He built cars, houses on top of each other, and nylon.
And life became more enjoyable.

The men called Farmers became efficient.
A single Farmer grew food for 143* Industrialists, Artists and Doctors,
And Writers, Engineers, and Teachers as well.
To protect his crops and animals,
The Farmer produced substances to repel or destroy Insects, Diseases, and Weeds.
These were called Pesticides.

Similar human substances were made by Doctors to protect humans.
These were called Medicine.
The Age of Science had arrived and with it came better diet
and longer, happier lives for most members of Society.

Soon it came to pass, that certain well-fed members of Society
Disapproved of the Farmer using Science.
They spoke harshly of his techniques for feeding, protecting,
and preserving plants and animals.
They deplored his upsetting the “Balance of Nature.”
They longed for the simplistic life referred to by some as the “Good Old Days.”
And this had emotional appeal to the rest of Society.

By this time Farmers had become so efficient,
Society gave them a new title: Unimportant Minority.
Because the well-fed Society could never imagine a shortage of food,
Laws were passed abolishing Pesticides, Fertilizers, and Food Preservatives.
Insects, Diseases, and Weeds flourished.
Crops and animals died.
Food became scarce.

To survive, Industrialists, Artists, and Doctors were forced to grow their own food.
But they were terribly inefficient providers.
Parks, golf courses and wilderness had to be converted to growing food.
Soon people and governments fought wars to gain more agricultural land.
Millions of people were exterminated.
Those who survived, faced plagues and famine.

In the end, only a few remained.
They lived in caves like animals,
Feeding themselves on creatures and plants around them.
And this was called, IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.



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“What’s Bugging You?”

by Harry L Katz

FEAR occupies an inordinate part of our time. Fear of more illness, fear of the stock market, world politics, our children’s welfare, and fear of the insects and other pests, etc, etc. The universal fear that I would like to discuss is the fear of perceived danger of the toxicants that we use to control the pests.

Living in an area that was once a semi tropical swamp, we have perennial invasions of many pest species. We kill a colony of ants in the apartment. But another colony comes in to take its place. Most residents call the pest management people and wait for service. Others are too impatient to wait for service and resort to using sprays., disregarding a subconscious fear of the danger of toxicants.

Over sixty years ago, fear of toxicants was indeed real. That was before the BC (Before Carson) Era, and before the Environmental Protection Agency cancelled the registrations of most toxicants. I know of one case in which a woman disposed of her obnoxious husband by buying a tube in a hardware store of “Electric Paste” which contained phosphoric acid rat bait. She squeezed some of it into his fourth glass of beer… and he died. The EPA has since removed all such toxicants from the retail market. In the process, however, they did of good job of overkill in warning of the dangers of all toxicants in our environment.

This legislation all began after Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” when a Congressional Committee was appointed to investigate the hazards of pesticides. A good friend of mine, Dr Carroll Weil, was called to serve on that committee. He was president of the Toxicology Society of America and a Fellow at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. The other members of the committee were all anti-pesticide people.

The committee decided to ban the use of DDT because they said it was carcinogenic. Dr Weill explained that the tests used to reach this conclusion were badly flawed. The committee argued late into the night, but Carroll would not agree to a unanimous decision to ban DDT. Finally, the committee promised that an addendum by Weill could be published, and he gave up. This proved to be the death knell of millions of natives of third world countries who died of malaria from mosquitoes. DDT that had prevented these deaths had been taken off the market.

One of the “Myth Conceptions” that plagues the mindset of the general public, as well as various regulatory communities, is that a low dose of a toxicant is just as bad as a gross dose that can cause a tumor, benign or cancerous. If this were true, according to Bruce Ames of the University of California, at Berkley, we should not eat carrots, celery, parsley, mushrooms, cabbage, brussels sprouts, mustard, orange and grapefruit juices, pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, raspberry or pineapple. All these foods contain natural toxicants that cause cancer in rats or mice when they are tested at the same gross levels that are used to test pesticides. Dr Ames further claims that the natural level of toxicants in these foods is far higher than the trace residues in treated foods.

So, for those of you who are overly concerned about the pesticides that are on the market, all registered by the Environmental Protection Agency, you can remove pesticides from your “worry list“.




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Saving lives with coal

By Paul Driessen

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

There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually, they argue.

It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.

It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.

Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz.

Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. “Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe,” Schwartz says.

The alleged death toll is based on speculative links between pollution and disease, and unwarranted extrapolations from responsible estimates to levels that grab headlines and prompt contributions.

Coal helps keep American homes, businesses, factories, airports, schools and hospitals humming, and provides myriad benefits that never get mentioned by anti-coal factions. Even if we accept these groups’ assertions as fact, the benefits of coal should be considered in any policy debate – just as we acknowledge (and strive to reduce) motor vehicle deaths, but recognize the value of transporting people, products and produce.

Coal generates half of all US electricity, and 60-98% in twenty-two states, according to the Energy Information Administration. Modern, state-of-the-art, low-pollution coal-fired generators have replaced both antiquated power plants and monstrous industrial furnaces that were the backbone of our nation’s steel-making and industrial might just two generations ago. They build and power thousands of products that improve and save millions of lives.

Imposing excessive new regulations, or closing coal-fired power plants, would produce few health or environmental benefits. But it would exact huge costs on society – and bring factories, offices and economies to a screeching halt in states that are 80-98% dependent on coal: Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Coal’s reliable, affordable electricity creates millions of high-paying jobs, and thus provides health insurance, rent and mortgage money, nutrition, clothing and retirement benefits for countless families. It keeps people warm (and alive) on freezing nights, and comfortable during summer heat waves like the 2003 scorcher that killed 15,000 elderly French citizens who didn’t have air-conditioning.

Thanks to coal-based electricity, CT scans, x-rays, colonoscopies and other examinations detect cancer, heart disease and other health threats, saving numerous lives every year. Life-saving and enhancing surgeries are performed because doctors have lights, lasers, computers, and sterile operating rooms and equipment. Premie wards and life-support systems carry people through critical illnesses.

Children and adults get vaccinations that remain viable because of dependable refrigeration. Millions avoid deadly intestinal bacteria, due to refrigerators and freezers, and water that is sterilized and piped in large measure because of electricity.

American families live in houses that are built from stronger materials and to higher standards, because of electricity. Tens of millions have been warned of natural disasters, and given time to flee, thanks to radios and televisions.

Environmentalists talk glibly about replacing America’s 600-plus coal-fired power plants, and the 2 billion megawatt-hours of electricity they generate annually. But with what?

Most greens detest nuclear power as much as they hate coal. They want to dismantle dams, not build new ones. They oppose drilling for natural gas that could partially substitute for coal, and fuel essential backup generators for wind farms. They support geothermal energy in theory, but rarely in practice.

They oppose construction of new state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that America needs to supply more baseload power, to serve a growing population and electricity-hungry products and equipment of every description. Most do support wind energy – and it must also play a role.

However, right now, wind turbines provide a mere 1% of all US electricity. Wind power leader Texas gets just 2% of its electricity from breezes – versus 36% from coal. On blistering summer afternoons, when they most need reliable air-conditioners, Texans can count on wind turbines to generate at only 9% of their installed capacity, because that’s when the wind blows least. (Compare that to 80-95% reliability for coal, gas and nuclear.)

How exactly will Texas replace 36% of its electricity with renewable energy? How exactly will Indiana and North Dakota replace the 94% of the low-cost electricity that they get from coal?

What happens to all those benefits when coal power is legislated, regulated, litigated, priced or cap-and-traded to the sidelines? To lives that are improved and saved with that electricity?

A little specificity, moral clarity and social responsibility would help here. We generally can’t expect it from environmental activists – who excel at denigrating and opposing energy, but do little to generate anything but hot air and political power.

However, we should expect, and demand, clear answers from judges, elected representatives and unelected government regulators. That’s the essence of ethics and social responsibility.

If we are going to end this recession, retain American jobs and living standards, and rejuvenate our economy, we will need vast quantities of electricity from coal – and every other source – now and for decades to come. The rest of the world also needs coal, to lift people out of poverty and save lives.

In impoverished countries, two billion people rarely or never have electricity. Four million infants, children and parents die every year from lung infections – caused by smoke, soot and other pollutants from open fires that heat their homes and cook their meager food, because they don’t have electricity. Two million more perish from intestinal diseases, caused by unsafe water and spoiled food, because they lack refrigeration, sanitation and water treatment.

Radical environmentalists trumpet the exaggerated death count from producing electricity here in the United States. But they callously battle every proposal to build coal, gas or hydroelectric projects in these destitute countries.

24,000 speculative deaths versus six million very real deaths is hardly a fair tradeoff.

As we usher in 2009, may America and all nations resolve to implement policies that honestly reflect the costs, benefits and power-generating capabilities of traditional and alternative energy options that exist in the real world.




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My Predictions for 2009

By Rich Kozlovich

Since everyone else seems intent on making predictions for 2009, I thought I might do so as well. Along with the thinking of my friend Alan Caruba I will say this...If I am right...I will crow about it! If I am wrong, I won't see the need to bring it up again. Especially since "prediction is really hard...especially about the future".

For those who read a great deal, think that history is important and spend a great deal of time watching the world and thinking about what they are seeing, you will not find anything said here startling. There is one thing that I will say that many will find potentially disturbing. History will mark 2008 as the year when everything changed. Dramatically!

1. Pesticides will come under even greater attack by the new head of EPA, in line with those actions by Browner and Ruckelshaus.
2. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to eliminate preemption laws.
3. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to implement new regulations which will mandate IPM language in all locations, not just schools.
4. There will be strong efforts to implement a new IPM licensing requirement in all states.
5. The pesticide manufacturing, distribution and applications industries will continue to jump on the green band wagon.
6. The national and state trade associations for the pesticide applications industries will be forced to implement green initiatives.
7. The national and state trade associations will face financial difficulties.
8. There will be fewer trade associations defending the pesticide applications industries.
9. There will be fewer, or at least less viable, pesticide manufacturers and distributors by the end of 2009.
10. The pest control industry will make more money than ever before, but because of economic issues there will be fewer companies.
11. The pest control industry will adapt to whatever is required.
12. Bedbugs will become a nationwide plague.
13. Strong efforts will be made to remove pyrethroids from the market place for use by the general public.
14. Strong efforts will be underway to remove them from the professional pest controller’s arsenal.
15. Rodenticides will be lost for use by the public.
16. Work will be under way to remove them for use by professional pest controllers.
17. Rodent control will suffer and their numbers will increase dramatically.
18. Prices for pest control services will become so high that those with the most need will be unable to afford it.
19. Insect and rodent borne diseases will increase startlingly, or at least this will be the start.
20. The poorest least educated among us will turn to illegal means of getting the relief that they need from pests that the government and green activists have deprived them of.
"We live in a time when great efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to falsify the record of the past and to make history a tool of propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties, and sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was." - Islam Bernard Lewis', historian

DDT and Chlordane Killed By Politics, Not Science

I would like to thank Harry Katz, who is a legendary defender of our industry and the products we use, for allowing me to re-publish this 1998 article and I hope to use more of his articles. This article was published before many of the new products became available, but his points regarding why these two safe and reliable products were taken off the market are worth reporting and worth repeating. We must keep the history correct; no matter what regulators claim or impose….we must know the history, we must remember the history…correctly. History is the stepping stones to the future. Harry Katz was there and he remembers the events as they occurred….let’s not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the latest philosophical flavor of the day. RK

By Harry Katz
3/1/1998

A lie becomes the truth if it is repeated often enough. This has happened, I believe, with the boomer generation that grew up weaned on the Myth Conception that DDT is carcinogenic. According to Carrol Weil, past president of the Toxicology Society, there have never been any valid scientific tests that prove DDT can cause cancer in test animals or in humans.

Numerous tests were made on animals, mostly mice that were bred to be supersensitive to chemical stress. The mice were given massive doses of DDT long periods of time. Tumors did develop, but they did not metastasize into cancer cells. Many of the mice that were not fed DDT also developed tumors.

This didn’t matter to the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA regulations consider a benign tumor to be a cancer that justifies cancellation of registration. It should be noted that according to EPA regulations, a single positive test by one researcher takes precedence over the negative test results of 100 researchers.

LOW VS. GROSS DOSE. One of the Myth Conceptions that plagues the mindset of the general public, as well as various regulatory communities, is that a low dose of a toxicant is just as bad as a gross dose that can cause a tumor. If this were true, according to Dr. Bruce Ames from the University of California-Berkeley, we should not eat carrots, celery, parsley, mushrooms, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, mustard, orange and grapefruit juices, pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, raspberry and pineapple. All these foods contain natural toxicants that cause cancer in rats or mice when they are tested at the same gross levels that are used to test pesticides. Ames further claims that the natural level of toxicants in these foods is far higher than the trace residues on treated foods.

The Myth Conception of the carcinogenicity of DDT has a corollary with chlordane. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), when chlordane is used at label rates, there is no valid scientific test that shows carcinogenicity in humans. In 1984, a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed existing data on chlordane and concluded that the evidence of carcinogenicity to experimental animals was indeed limited.

CHLORDANE’S EFFECT ON HUMANS. Many studies were made of chlordane’s effect on humans. The WHO reports about a study in 1981 in which mortality of 782 workers who manufactured chlordane and heptachlor for up to 20 years showed no increase in cancer in comparison to normal death figures. In another study by Wang and MacMahon in1980, all cancer deaths were lower than expected. In a follow-up study in 1982, the two Harvard researchers looked again at the mortality rates of termite control technicians and found there was no significant increase of cancer cases.

As secretary of the Western Pennsylvania Pest Control Association and as a formulator, I was concerned about the safety to PCOs. A Pittsburgh physician, Dr. Cyril Wecht consented to give annual physicals to employees of WPPCA members. In those days, the service technicians used chlordane carelessly. They had it on their hands, clothes, and breathed it in crawlspaces. Dr. Wecht found no effect on the liver or other vital organs, after several years of examinations.

MORE EXPENSIVE, LESS EFFECTIVE. There is much ado about the misapplication of termiticides. The regulators’ preoccupation with spacing of holes has little relationship with the concentration of toxicant in each cubic inch of soil. Backfills are usually a hodgepodge of building debris, hunks of clay and roots from dead foundation plantings. The most conscientious technician who carefully measures the concentrate and calibrates the flow of solution cannot be sure that every cubic inch of soil barrier is properly treated. Termites have nothing else to do but to look for that window of opportunity, an untreated pocket of soil.

In the Mallis Handbook of Pest Control, 8th Edition, Dr. Michael Potter claims that liquid dilutions tend to disperse randomly over the subslab fill, resulting in inconsistent coverage, and diversion from target areas.

If government tests of termiticide efficacy were made using the same label procedures mandated for PCOs, we would have no registered termiticides. As tested, the label should call for removal of the backfill to be treated, then mixing it with the termiticide solution in a cement mixer and finally replacing the mixture in the ditch. Fill material to be covered with a slab should also be treated the same way. Further, in testing for the presence of toxicant years later, multiple cores should be mixed and then tested.

The regulatory communities, who are looking for a fall guy to blame for the rash of termite control failures, ignore this double standard. Perhaps the officials should look in the mirror. When they killed relatively innocuous chlordane, they forced the public to pay three or more times the cost for termite control with no increase in safety and with limited residual value.

ENVIROMENTAL VIEWS - THE WORST CLIMATE PREDICTIONS OF 2008?

Prediction is very difficult…especially about the future. - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (1885 - 1962) 

By Dennis T. Avery 

(Editor's Note: I would like to thank Mr. Avery for allowing me to publish his work. I expect to take liberal advantage of his expertise. RK)

CHURCHVILLE, VA—“2008 will be the hottest year in a century:” The Old Farmers’ Almanac, September 11, 2008.

We’re now well into the earth’s third straight harsher winter—but in late 2007 it was still hard to forget 22 straight years of global warming from 1976–1998. So the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted 2008 would be the hottest year in the last 100.

But sunspots had been predicting major cooling since 2000, and global temperatures turned downward in early 2007. The sunspots have had a 79 percent correlation with the earth’s thermometers since 1860. Today’s temperatures are about on a par with 1940. For 2008, the Almanac hired a new climatologist, Joe D’Aleo, who says the declining sunspots and the cool phase of the Pacific Ocean predict 25-30 years of cooler temperatures for the planet.

“You could potentially sail, kayak or even swim to the North Pole by the end of the summer. Climate scientists say that the Arctic ice . . . is currently on track to melt sometime in 2008.” Ted Alvarez, Backpacker Magazine Blogs, June, 2008.

Soon after this prediction, a huge Russian icebreaker got trapped in the thick ice of the Northwest Passage for a full week. The Arctic ice hadn’t melted in 2007, it got blown
into warmer southern waters. Now it’s back. (Reference)

Remember too the Arctic has its own 70-year climate cycle. Polish climatologist Rajmund Przbylak says “the highest temperatures since the beginning of instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s” based on more than 40 Arctic temperature stations.

“Australia’s Cities Will Run Out of Drinking Water Due to Global Warming.”

Tim Flannery was named Australia’s Man of the Year in 2007—for predicting that Australian cities will run out of water. He predicted Perth would become the “first 21st century ghost city,’ and that Sydney would be out of water by 2007. Today however, Australia’s city reservoirs are amply filled. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun reminds us Australia is truly a land of long droughts and flooding rains.


“Hurricane Effects Will Only Get Worse.” Live Science, September 19, 2008.
So wrote the on-line tech website Live Science, but the number of Atlantic hurricanes 2006–2008 has been 22 percent below average, with insured losses more than 50 percent below average. The British Navy recorded more than twice as many major land-falling Caribbean hurricanes in the last part of the Little Ice Age (1700–1850) as during the much-warmer last half of the 20th century.

“Corals will become increasingly rare on reef systems.” Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
In 2006, Dr. Hoegh-Guldberg warned that high temperatures might kill 30–40 percent of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef “within a month.” In 2007, he said global warming temperatures were bleaching [potentially killing] the reef.

But, in 2008, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network said climate change had not damaged the “well-managed” reef in the four years since its last report. Veteran diver Ben Cropp said that in 50 years he’d seen no heat damage to the reef at all. “The only change I’ve seen has been the result of over-fishing, pollution, too many tourists or people dropping anchors on the reef,” he said.

No More Skiing? “Climate Change and Aspen,” Aspen, CO city-funded study, June, 2007.
Aspen’s study predicted global warming would change the climate to resemble hot, dry Amarillo, Texas. But in 2008, European ski resorts opened a month early, after Switzerland recorded more October snow than ever before. Would-be skiers in Aspen had lots of winter snow—but a chill factor of 18 below zero F. kept them at their fireplaces instead of on the slopes.

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

*Sources:

Predictions of 25-30 year cooling due to Pacific Decadal
Oscillation: Scafetta and West, 2006, “Phenomenological Solar Signature in 400
Years of Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere Temperature Record,” Geophysical
Research Letters.

Arctic Warmer in the 1930s: R. Przybylak, 2000,
“Temporal and Spatial Variation of Surface Air Temperature over the Period of
Instrumental Observation in the Arctic,” International Journal of Climatology
20.

British Navy records of Caribbean hurricanes 1700-1850: J.B. Elsner
et al., 2000, “Spatial Variations in Major U.S. Hurricane Activity,” Journal of
Climate 13.
Predictions of coral loss: Hoegh-Guldberg et al., Science, Vol.
318, 2007. Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2008, issued by the Global Coral
Reef Monitoring Network, Nov., 2008.

Aspen climate change study: Climate
Change and Aspen: An Assessment of Potential Impacts and Responses, Aspen Global
Change Institute, June, 2007.

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Get Your Story Right

By Wendell Krossa

(Note: A new extremist religion/ideology is taking hold in public consciousness across the world. This new religion has a grand myth or narrative with which it hopes to shape human consciousness and thereby enslave the human spirit. This religion exhibits many of the basic themes and drives of previous religious movements- an unchallengeable truth impervious to scientific fact, the demand for a strictly constrained and regulated lifestyle in accordance with the core beliefs, an orientation to fear as a basic motivation, and so on. The material below outlines some of the basic features of this new environmental religion and points to facts that counter its central themes.)

All of us inform our lives with stories and we live our lives as individual stories. Living a story is essential to what it means to be human. And various groups in our societies present us grander stories or narratives that powerfully influence our own personal adventures. Many of us live our lives in terms of some in-group story, whether it be religious, ideological, scientific or other.

Global warming alarmism is perhaps the most prominent public story being that is being embraced across the Earth today. While there has been some effort to place this story within the realm of science, at core it is just the latest version of the same old doom/salvation narratives held by our ancestors. Nonetheless, this story has successfully lodged itself in the public consciousness because it resonates with a number of widely accepted themes that have long been beaten into human consciousness. These would include:

Life and ecosystems are fragile (the “great planetary imperilment myth”, according to www.ecofascism.com ).

Life is heading for some soon-to-arrive calamity (this central apocalyptic theme with its related fear-mongering and despair has an especially long history in human story telling- see, for instance, Mircea Eliade’s History of Religious Ideas).

Human intervention in nature is mainly destructive (this is based on the belief that people are inherently bad) and therefore people need to be strictly regulated and constrained. They cannot be trusted. (This theme of pure nature as victim of evil humanity is perhaps one of the more central ideas to this great warming myth. Evil humanity is destroying pure and delicate nature which must be protected from such a greedy species). Life is static and unchanging, hence any change is evidence of decline and fragility. This distortion is most notable in pop ecology and its endless hysteria over any discovered changes in ecosystems.

Resources are scarce and life is stingy or strictly limited. Hence, severely curtailing consumption (which is essential to human progress) is the one and only way of salvation. Guilt and fear are the primary emotions that are manipulated here.

Various other related themes could be added here such as the primitive tribal view of ‘limited good’ which argues that because resources are limited if some take more than a “fair share” then others will suffer loss. Another theme supporting the alarmist climate warming story is plain old anti-capitalist ideology and the drive to halt economic growth. This anti-capitalist ideology fits well with the limited good or limited resources view of contemporary environmentalism. Many environmentalists view capitalism as built around what they believe to be the fallacy of unlimited resources and endless growth. They believe unfettered (free) capitalism will lead to the exhaustion of resources and breakdown of environmental systems. Wilfred Beckerman (A Poverty of Reason), Huber and Mills (Bottomless Well), and Julian Simon (Ultimate Resource), among others, all deal with this primitive and distorting view of limited resources.

Related to the concept of limits is the religious belief in the moral superiority of a low consumption lifestyle (Julian Simon, a rare voice on this issue, deals thoroughly with the importance of consumption and its benefits to all life in his book Ultimate Resource). This set of anti-economic development themes has coalesced in the crusade to enact centralized control and regulation to constrain and even stop economic growth, which makes it a crusade to halt human progress. The socialist element in this crusade is driven by the old collectivist urge to deny the value and freedom of the individual in favor of some greater good. Closely related to this anti-economic growth ideology is the pagan demonization of humanity along with the sacralization of nature as a greater good. In such nature worship, evil humanity is to be sacrificed on the altar of pure and pristine nature.

Julian Simon notes a variety of other elements in the outlook of the lead narrators of the alarmist story. He points to the arrogant debasement and dismissal of other human beings evident in the comments of leaders promoting the socialist/environmental tale. For instance, Paul Erhlich has said that giving people access to cheap, inexhaustible supplies of energy, “is like giving a machine gun to an idiot child” (Ultimate Resource, p.298). Another theologian of environmental apocalyptic, Garret Hardin, said, “People ask me- don’t you have faith in anything? And I always have the same answer…I have an unshakable faith in the unreliability of man” (p.299). Would he also categorize himself and his own views as unreliable?

And then there is the elitist selfishness of the people who want to conserve pristine nature for their own enjoyment to the exclusion of others. “When some famous conservationist tells us that there should be fewer people so that it is easier for him or her to find a deserted stretch of beach or mountain range or forest, she or he is simply saying…’I enjoy it, and I don’t want to share it’” (p.284). This call to save nature for me and my environmentally enlightened friends demands that others be eliminated. The obvious question that is begged here is who decides who should be removed so some may enjoy more untouched nature? Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said, “The human population is the AIDs of the earth…(and) should be cut by 85%”. The rest should return to a primitive lifestyle and only a very small percentage should be allowed to reproduce (“Send in the assmonkeys”, National Post, May 15/07). Would those 85% cut include him and his family? And would the tiny percentage allowed to reproduce include him and his wife?

Simon also notes the perverse orientation to death and destruction evident in the narration of leading environmentalists. Instead of focusing on things like planting and growth (human creativity, productivity, and inventiveness), environmentalists focus on destruction and death (the supposed loss of species and habitat, which has often been proven to have been based on false claims). While there are areas where loss and destruction are a genuine concern, too often the focus on relatively minor problem areas is extrapolated out to damn all human activity and engagement of nature. In this perverse view of human engagement of nature as harmful, harvesting of nature’s resources is not celebrated but damned as destructive. This is evident, for instance, in the environmental charge that using too much paper destroys forests. But people are not told that trees are planted and forests created in order to make paper. Or that only 5 percent of the world’s forests are required to meet humanity’s demands for wood and paper products (Bjorn Lomberg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.115).

With the dismal view of humanity and human activity as destructive is it any wonder that the environmental/socialist response is to advocate for the strict control and restraint of other people? This moralistic urge to tell others how to live their lives is based primarily on the moral and aesthetic preferences of the environmental extremists and not on any sound scientific reasoning. It is a primitive tribal urge to dominate and control others. It has no place in modern human society.

These basic themes and drives, along with others, shape the core of environmental mythology. And they distort the actual nature of life. But they have been effective in reinforcing the current global narrative of fear and despair. They affirm the basic outlook on life that is held by the narrators of this story, an outlook oriented to doom and destruction. To maintain this orientation to disaster the narrators of this story ignore the actual fundamental trends of life to focus too often on aberrations that confirm their addiction to despair (episodes of disease, disaster, and human fallibility).

Nonetheless, this story appeals to many people with its emphasis on looming disaster and promises of salvation. It stirs the urge to heroic action and sacrifice to save something.

But it is a pathological story that has inspired a severe case of denial and, at times, even lunacy among its advocates. The free private property economic system that people have devised over the past three centuries has produced a level of human well being that has never before been attained in the history of the world. Things have never before been so good. We are wealthier, healthier, we live longer with fewer diseases and disabilities, and we are cleaning up and improving our environments as never before. Yet these climate hysterians want to shut down this economic growth and insist on blaming it for all the ills still present in the world. Ills that should more correctly be blamed upon the excessive state interventionism that they advocate.

The promoters of this story of despair are perhaps the most dangerous people on earth. Their hysteria drives them to halt economic growth and development which will only endanger human life and progress as well as undermine our ability to protect the environment. For example, remember the anti-chemical hysteria stirred by Rachel Carson which led to the banning of DDT. That ban led to immeasurable human suffering and the unnecessary deaths of multiple millions of people in some of the poorest regions of the world (see DDT FAQ at JunkScience.com). It has significantly set back the development of regions like Africa.

Contrary to the environmental mythology, the actual story of life is rooted firmly and safely in the following facts:

Life is exceedingly durable and resilient. It possesses incredible self-buffering and self-regulating capacities such as protective and life-enhancing feedback mechanisms/loops. This is especially evident in relation to climate. The Earth has experienced repeated spells of cooling and warming over its history, going through climate changes more sudden and severe than those of today. Yet species have adapted to such changes and life has continued to thrive. Remember that polar bears have survived the repeated entire melting of Arctic ice.
Life has evidenced an amazing creative adaptability in progressing toward something better from the very beginning.

Intelligent human intervention has improved the state of nature and worked well to rescue it from its own dead ends (predation) and deformities (viral, natural disaster- see Craig Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth). This affirms the fundamental goodness of conscious humanity and humanity’s valuable contribution in bringing order to the randomness of nature (as Simon notes, we create more than we destroy).

Life has never known an original and static condition that can be called natural, but is ever-changing and often massively and rapidly.
Life encompasses a generous outpouring of energy and resources to be harvested and ‘wasted’ in creating more order, organization, and wealth (see Hard Green and Bottomless Well by Huber and Mills).

To properly comprehend the nature of life we need to look at the long term trends where we find no reason for fear or despair but rather much evidence for profound hope and optimism. Check the data sources listed at the end and see for yourself what the actual long term trends of life are about. And remember, it was the genius of researchers like Julian Simon to note the long term trends and not to focus on downturns, setbacks, and other aberrations to the fundamental trends of life.

For instance, Bjorn Lomberg gives the example of Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University who ignored the long term trend of improvement in treating tuberculosis and instead focused on a small reversal of this trend in the 1990s. Pimentel then tried to make the argument that TB was getting worse and extrapolated this out to a more general argument that all disease was getting worse (The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.21-26). Ignoring the long term trends to focus on aberrations will lead to such distorting conclusions about life and its fundamental features. This has been a repeated error of the climate hysterians.

The long term rise and progress of life is most evident in the history of humanity and the human engagement of life. Here we find millennia of evidence of creativity, adaptation, development, and progress in health, wealth, peace and order, and general living conditions. This is due to the fundamental human impulse to find and make something better. This basic human impulse has resulted in ongoing improvement to the state of the world. It is an impulse that operates best in a climate of freedom.

Julian Simon said that scares come and go. And it is entirely irresponsible and unscientific to react to each change in life (especially in climate) with schemes of massive government intervention and regulation. Policy choices that are enacted out of fear and that over-react with excessive regulation to prevent imagined catastrophes, such policy choices are detrimental to freedom and progress. History has shown that the state interventionist approach has been the most destructive response to human freedom and progress (note for instance, the devastating impact- on people and the environment- of last century’s grand experiment in socialist intervention and control).

We end up looking real silly when we blow our whole wad, for instance, on each shift in climate. And slowing economic growth will not stop the climate from changing anyway. It has been noted that if Kyoto were fully enacted the impact on climate would amount to a small fraction of one percent which is statistically insignificant and probably not even measurable. It would likely not slow climate change at all. Climate will continue to warm and cool as it has done repeatedly over Earth’s history (remember that just as recently the 1970s we were being warned of climate cooling disaster- that scare crusade was also fueled by an anti-capitalist or anti-industrial ideology).

Recent research now shows that since 1998 no further warming has occurred and this may signal the fact that we are already entering another cooling period (CCNet Dec.20/07). In response to these natural swings in climate it is wiser to promote further economic growth in order that our societies, with increasing wealth, may be able to better assist their populations in adapting to more climate change, whichever direction it takes.

But behind the proposed Salvationism of the global warming alarm story there exists the more fundamental assault on economic freedom and growth by people who want to control others and dictate to them how to live their lives. This drive to dominate is visible in the current widespread endeavor to regulate and constrain economic growth, and to redistribute wealth. It is just more of the same old socialist meddling that destroyed economies and environments across the earth in the last century.

I would suggest that this primitive drive to dominate and control others, to tell others how to live their lives, is one of the core drives behind the global warming alarmist narrative (and it is also behind contemporary Islamic extremist threats, as well as other forms of totalitarianism). It is a perverse drive of people who mistakenly believe that they have a final truth and want to convert all others who lack their level of enlightenment.

This drive to dominate and control assaults the most important human right of all- that of individual freedom. The right of individual freedom has been best stated in the libertarian ideal- that each person is free to live their life as they choose, as long as they grant the same freedom to all others.

Only individual freedom of this type can make a society truly human or humane. As Lanny Ebenstein said in his biography of Milton Friedman, “There is no good of society not found in the good of the individual, just as there is no society apart from the individuals who compose it. In Friedman’s, the libertarian, the classical liberal, and the utilitarian philosophies, all place the individual at the center of the universe and place the individual’s greatest good, happiness and freedom as the summum bonum or ultimate good” (p.141).

Ebenstein continues, noting that what motivated Friedman was his passion for individual human freedom. “Friedman’s philosophy, following the utilitarians, is individualism. ‘The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual’, Friedman writes. Friedman passionately believes that each individual has value. This is why he so strongly emphasizes human freedom. Only in a condition of freedom can each individual develop himself or herself to the fullest” (p.141). Where individual freedom is protected and promoted, there individuals reach their fullest potential. And this is the primary obligation of any state, to protect and promote individual freedom, not some collective good. When states forget the primacy of individual freedom and interfere to promote some imagined public welfare or greater good then individual freedom suffers. And, as Milton Freidman and others have argued, the promotion of individual freedom will result in the highest collective good in the end, anyway. The highest form of any greater good is the sum of free individual choices or free individual lives, diverse as they may be.

On any scale of human well being it is unacceptable for some people to coercively impose restrictions on other’s lives especially when that coercion is based on beliefs that are simply wrong about the real nature of life. This is an intolerable assault on individual freedom. The outcome of the domination impulse in modern society has been the endless crusade to enact new laws and regulations to cover every conceivable potential ill. This regulatory trend often unnecessarily hinders the freedom of others who will never contribute to any potential ill anyway. And more recently, this drive for regulation has been co-opted by those seeking to prevent economic growth by prohibiting the use of the energy that is vital to such growth. It is an endeavor to criminalize the very economic growth and development that is essential to all human progress and well being.

In recent years, the anti-capitalist narrators have focused their crusade to demonize capitalism in the anti-CO2 or anti-energy campaign and would love to halt it entirely or severely hamper its use with all sorts of regulations, bans and caps. But energy is the life blood of our economies (and remember that carbon is the very basis of all life). The extremists simply will not recognize that our free private property economic system has done more than any other system to lift people out of poverty and to consequently clean up and protect the environment (Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World presents evidence of the ‘environmental transition’ where increasing wealth via economic growth and development has resulted in an improved environment). Add to this the fact that scientific evidence has not yet established the linkage of CO2 to global warming. In fact, the evidence shows that CO2 increases follow warming periods.

In the grand narrative employed by those fighting capitalism there is also the continuing devaluation of people as essentially greedy and selfish. This disparagement of people is entirely wrong-headed. Our history proves that, to the contrary, we have steadily improved life. Our history shows that in net terms we are far more creators than destroyers. Central to a more accurate story of life must be the fact of the essential goodness of people and what Joseph Campbell calls the wonder of being human (The Power of Myth). This basic human goodness requires freedom from any constraining government intervention and regulation in order to reach its fullest potential.

I would add here that Milton Friedman countered the grand narrative of his time- that the supposed failures of capitalism required massive government intervention a la Keynes- with a dogged presentation of facts and eventually convinced people of the need to lessen government intervention. Many of his policy proposals to limit government have become conventional wisdom across the globe (see recent biography ‘Milton Friedman’ by Lanny Ebenstein). His policy proposals have done more to advance freedom than perhaps the work of any other individual over the past few centuries.

But admittedly, many devotees of the environmental religion and its doom narrative will not listen to scientific facts or scientific reason. They are enthralled to the grand Salvationist story they have created, a story that appeals to the basest drives in human psyches- fear of the future and change, the urge to convert and control others, guilt over consumption and the felt need to live simply, and hatred of an economic system that is built around consumption. All of these powerful themes reinforce the grand narrative and render scientific reason and fact of little value in the thinking of the committed devotee of the grand story.

In this current global warming hysteria we are observing the irresponsible terrorizing of public consciousness with an alarmist story of climate apocalyptic. Psychologists have even noted the increased levels of anxiety and fear over this climate alarmism (“Anxiety brings memories of nuclear threat”, National Post, Feb.10/07).

This incredible tale of looming disaster is being promoted to hinder and halt the very economic growth that will lift people out of poverty and enable them to properly adapt to whatever climate challenges the future will bring. But scaring people has always been an effective way to manipulate and control them. Once terrorized, people are all too willing to give up their freedom to those who promise to save them from whatever has been employed to terrorize them in the first place. This is why these climate hysterians, like Al Gore, are the most dangerous people on earth. They pose a threat to freedom that has potential to cause more damage to human progress than any other form of terrorism today.

After more than two centuries of theorizing, practical experimentation, and refinement we now know that the story of human and environmental success is built on such things as freedom of commerce and trade, private property rights, limited government, privatization, protected investment markets (good contract and other law), a scientific approach to problem solving, and modern technology, among other elements.

Understand well the global warming narrative that is being beaten into the public consciousness. Note its underlying themes and check them against the real story of life and humanity and what has worked best to advance life on earth. Some excellent sources of data are listed immediately below to aid in checking the fundamental trends of life and the true nature of life. These will help in the creation of a grand new story based on life as it actually exists and functions. This factually based story of life will unleash hope, human potential, and unlimited progress in all areas. It is a life-affirming and humanity-affirming narrative.

The real story of life assures us that we need not fear life or the future. It is critically important that we structure our life and beliefs around the authentic story of life. This will enable us to avoid unnecessary guilt or despair over life and prevent us from taking the wrong actions when engaging life (e.g. the unnecessary demonization and regulation of CO2, which is not a pollutant but is a nutrient of critical importance to life and progress). Embracing the wrong story can lead to much wasted time, resources, and effort. It can severely restrain human potential and progress.

Suggested reading: Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource, Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World, Bjorn Lomberg’s Skeptical Environmentalist, Greg Easterbrook’s A Moment On The Earth, James Payne’s History of Force, Stephen LeBlanc’s Constant Battles, Alston Chase’s In A Dark Wood, and the CCNet archives online.

Wendell Krossa wkrossa@shaw.ca



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The Social Responsibility of Coal

by Paul Driessen

Relying more on coal generates benefits that are too often ignored

They get little credit for their efforts, but most resource extraction, manufacturing and power generation companies strive to be “socially responsible” – by emphasizing energy efficiency, resource conservation, pollution control and worker safety in producing the raw materials, consumer products and electricity that improve, safeguard and enrich our lives.

It’s not easy, due to the nature of their business, public intolerance for any ecological impacts – and the fact that “corporate social responsibility” is often defined and used by activist groups to promote ideological agendas. Above all, activists want to engineer a “wholesale transformation” of our energy and economic system, away from hydrocarbon fuels and into “eco-friendly” renewable resources; reduce our living standards to “sustainable” levels (their definition again); and give them power over the power that sustains our modern society.

This “hard green” version of CSR largely ignores socio-economic considerations, the many benefits of fossil fuel and nuclear power, the significant land and environmental impacts of wind, solar and ethanol – and the oppressive effects of soaring energy prices on jobs and poor families.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi closed down the House of Representatives on August 1, to avoid an energy vote that Democrats would have lost, and later displayed her acumen on the subject when she opined: “natural gas is a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.” News flash: Natural gas is a fossil fuel.

An Energy Economics 101 course is clearly needed, so that members of both parties can legislate more astutely … understand why mining and burning coal is a socially responsible component of sound energy policy … and help stanch the unnecessary flow of $700 billion a year in foreign oil payments.

Energy is the master resource, the foundation for everything we eat, use and do. Sound policies ensure that energy is abundant, reliable and affordable. Restricting supplies in the face of rising global demand drives up prices and sends shockwaves through families, industries, communities and nations.

Average total energy costs for a typical American household doubled from $2,400 in 1997 to over $5,000 in 2007. Food prices also soared, while wages remained relatively stagnant. More low and middle income families have been forced to choose between heating, eating, driving, medicines and housing – with little left over for vacations, emergencies, retirement, college or charity.

Thankfully, most electricity bills rose more modestly, because half of all US electricity is generated using coal, and the price for that fossil fuel has risen far less than oil, gasoline and natural gas prices. However, in places like Florida – where coal is verboten, natural gas is promoted but drilling for it is banned, and wind and solar are all the rage – electricity prices continue to climb. Florida Power & Light must pay four times as much for photovoltaic power as for coal power, the Heartland Institute reports, and schools face budget crunches for buses and electricity.

America has centuries’ worth of coal. Our reliance on this resource has tripled since 1970 – but sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions are down 40% and 90% below 1970 levels, respectively, notes air pollution expert Joel Schwartz. New technologies and regulations will reduce coal power plant emissions even further by 2020, but even current emissions (including mercury) pose no significant risks to human health, he emphasizes.

Radical environmentalists worry and wail about speculative health risks, to justify anti-coal campaigns. But their concerns often disappear when the discussion shifts to millions of Africans who die every year from real, preventable lung and intestinal diseases that result from an absence of electricity for cooking, heating, refrigeration, safe drinking water, hospitals and decent living standards. Wind and solar will save few of those lives – and yet green pressure groups stridently oppose fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power for Africa.

US electricity consumption will continue climbing, even with conservation, because our population and technology use are increasing steadily. Meanwhile, 59 coal-fired plants were cancelled in 2007 thanks to eco-activists, who are challenging 50 more.

The US now has virtually no excess capacity, and switching to natural gas as a primary power plant fuel (and fuel for backup generators to support wind farms) means electricity prices could increase “as much as tenfold,” says energy analyst Mark Mills, especially if we continue to ban drilling. “After that we may see forced conservation, or even blackouts in rotation among business and residential customers.”

Energy shortages and price hikes could cost millions of jobs in the automotive, airline, tourism, food and beverage, textiles, paper making, plastics, chemicals, metals and manufacturing industries – especially if Congress also enacts cap-and-trade rules. Most will never be replaced by “green collar” jobs that some claim will be created by intermittent, unreliable wind and solar energy.

Switching to plug-in hybrid cars will only exacerbate the problem. They will need a well-stocked power grid to plug into, and current energy policies virtually ensure that it won’t be there.

In addition to balance of trade issues, over-reliance on imports has major national security implications, as Russia’s invasion of Georgia forcefully reminded Europe. Germany imports 40% of its natural gas from Russia, and six Eastern European countries are entirely dependent on Mr. Putin’s energy. Shackled further by their opposition to nuclear power, fear of climate change Armageddon and fixation on the Kyoto Protocols, the EU has barely protested actions by a rogue bear that has already cut off natural gas supplies to Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, to impose its will.

That should cause Congress to reflect more soberly on US dependence on oil from Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran and Russia. Coal could be converted into synthetic liquid and gas fuels, to replace the oil and gas we refuse to develop, but legal and regulatory hurdles restrict that option, too.

A key justification for these anti-energy policies is cataclysmic global warming. However, 32,000 scientists have signed the Oregon Petition, saying they see “no convincing evidence” that humans are causing climate change, or that it will be catastrophic. Climate models continue to predict chaos but, as one scientist wryly notes, faith in their predictions is as misplaced as reliance on emails from Nigeria, advising recipients that they have won the Lotto.

Global temperatures have not increased since 1998, despite steadily increasing carbon dioxide levels, and solar scientists like Pal Brekke say the sun’s formerly high activity level is leveling off or abating, which could bring falling global temperatures.

China and India are planning or building 700 coal-fired power plants; European countries plan to build 50 more in five years, to reduce dependence on Russian gas; and other nations are also increasing fossil fuel use for transportation and power generation.

Thus, no matter how much the USA reduces its energy use, driving, heating, air-conditioning and living standards – no matter how much it punishes poor families or commits economic suicide – its actions would not reduce global CO2 levels, or affect Earth’s climate.

We need to conserve, and continue improving renewable energy technologies that currently provide just 0.5% of our energy. But at this time renewables are simply too inefficient, expensive and unreliable to permit a shutdown of hydrocarbon-based systems.

Putting “social responsibility” and “environmental justice” in the hands of eco-activists and liberal Democrats is like giving a machine gun to an idiot child. We need definitions that recognize the full spectrum of societal needs, and energy policies that acknowledge life in the real world


Published with permission from Mr. Driessen.
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ESA Outrages, Part III

By Rich Kozlovich

Property owners face a daunting task against government agents and activists if there should be some type of endangered species of plant or animal on their property. Robert J. Smith wrote that these agents “routinely prevent use of their lands or property, including such activities as harvesting trees, planting crops, grazing cattle, irrigating fields, clearing brush along fence lines, discing firebreaks around homes and barns, or building a home.“ Even Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Regional Director, Sam D. Hamilton recognizes that because of the ESA effect:

“The incentives are wrong here. If I have a rare metal n my property, its value goes up. But if a rare bird occupies the land, its value disappears.”

One such example of what is wrong with ESA is the property owned by Ben Cone, Jr. Cone owns several thousand acres of pine forest in Pender County, North Carolina. Like so many who own undeveloped lands he took pride in maintaining it. They enjoy the wildlife, the outdoor experience and many times they are the ones who create habitat for all sorts of wildlife.

For almost 10 years after inheriting this property: 

“he planted special grasses for wild turkey, selectively logged 30-50 acres on a five years basis to create open areas for wildlife and conducted controlled burns to enhance foraging for quail and deer.”  

Red-cockaded woodpeckers had been on his land since the 1970’s, but since he wasn’t logging there at the time it was no big deal.  It soon became a big deal when he decided in 1991 that he would start logging his property. FWS informed him that twenty nine ….29….. red-cockaded woodpeckers in 12 colonies were living there and that was now their home. By the time they drew lines around each of these habitats they removed 1,560 acres from his control…this was now designated “critical habitat”. These 29 birds cost him 1,560 acres.

These birds spend their entire life within a few miles of the spot where they hatched and they are quite picky as to where they will live. They will only nest in the cavities of trees in mature pine forests between 60 and 70 years old, and the forest floor has to be open and free of hardwood trees or brush. It turns out that Mr. Cone actually helped to create a wonderful habitat for these birds with his responsible stewardship of the land and now he was going to be punished for it. If ever the phrase, “no good deed goes unpunished”, ever applied; it applied now.

There was only one solution….he immediately stopped his 75 to 80 year rotation plan for his forests and started clear cutting on a 40 year rotation. If they needed trees that were at least 60 years old they were going to have to find someone else’s trees because no tree on any piece of land that he still controlled were ever going to live that long.

After he clear cut 700 acres the FWS realized how stupid their actions were and (get this) offered him a deal. If he stopped cutting for four years and paid….PAID….$45,000 dollars to create a habitat for these birds on government land they would return his land to him….and he took it. What is really sad is that everyone who is aware of what goes on with all of this ESA corruption views this as a good deal. He had to pay the government $45,000 and four years of production to take back what was already his.

There is another caveat regarding this bird’s preferred living conditions. They prefer long-leaf pines; hence, landowners take predictable actions to protect their land from the predation of government officials enforcing the ESA. They simply plant trees that aren’t attractive to endangered species.

The information cited here is based on the book, Green Gone Wild, by M. David Stirling

Response to Comments II

By Rich Kozlovich

I wrote the article “Sub-Prime Pest Control” and posted it on September 20th, 2008. Gerry Weitz of Hearts Pest Management in San Diego took umbrage with my views and so I published a Response to Comments". Gerry has responded and here are his comments with my second response.

I believe my observation about you being a sincere individual is a valid one, but I fear that you are under the influence of misinformation and fallacious thinking.

Here are just a few examples I have experienced:
My very first exposure in the industry was with a man who came to my house to do a gopher fumigation in our back yard. He did not have a license to do landscape gopher work! As things turned out, I bought the company from him. I didn't realize the remifications of the practices of the former owner until I tried to expand the business and the former owner told me I couldn't report my chemical usage to the state because our gopher applications were not approved! To solve the problem I had to hire a landscape operator until I got my own landscape operator license.

There are so many egregious issues in this paragraph that If you had sent this piece of information to me privately I would have responded privately, and I would have never published it. I am really surprised at your whole approach to this issue. In Ohio we had Litulis Kilgore, another unlicensed person making illegal applications. This is known as the "Proof by Example" fallacy. Just because they used pesticides for profit doesn’t make them exterminators and it is intellectually irresponsible to use people such as this as examples for why legitimate operators should be all hot and bothered to adopt a philosophy that is antithetical to good pest control and good public health!

You may remember the Kilgore issue of about 15 years ago. He was one of those people applying methyl parathion around homes and businesses. Kilgore was only semi-literate and when asked how did he determined how much was to be used in his mix, he stated that “common sense will tell you that”. Methyl parathion is one of the most toxic liquid pesticides developed; so what was the impact on the health of the population that was so heavily exposed? What did the CDC find? In spite of the fact that the level of breakdown product from MP in the children’s urine was startling, they couldn’t find any difference in health problems between them and others of the same socio-economic group, and that also included the comparisons for the adults that hadn’t been exposed. Eventually they decided that those children who were exposed “may” have an IQ problem.

Why is it a “maybe”? Because this problem did not occur in all those exposed. Some seemed to be effected and others were not. Since IQ is highly subjective anyway, they have nothing! Believe me, if there was even the slightest potential for some malady as a result of this issue, they would have been screaming it to the heavens….but because the worst….the worst…..they can come up with is that “MAYBE” it impacts IQ for one of the most toxic materials available nothing is being said.

If any legitimate applicator in Ohio would have known about it we would have called the Ohio Department of Agriculture post haste and reported him. Under no circumstances would we have bought his business. Forgive me for being unkind, but I have to ask…did you report this man to the officials responsible for those illegal pesticide applications in your state?

Another example was finding Delta-Dust totally engulfing a kitchen countertop.

Clearly that was a misapplication, but easily remedied and I have to ask….what terrible things happened as a result? Just because someone does something stupid, doesn’t mean that it was really dangerous and that the whole rest of the world has to change. Fifty thousand people die on our highways every year. Do we need to get rid of cars because there as so many stupid drivers doing stupid things on the highways? We live in a risk versus benefit world and we base our decisions on what is the overall good.

We must remember that DDT was used to dust people all over Europe at the end of WWII with no ill effects. I have an elderly Hungarian lady as an account who calls herself one of the “DP’s” of the 1950’s who made a point of telling me that being dusted with DDT was the best thing they could have done to her and all the others who were “treated”. That procedure saved countless lives, preventing a typhus epidemic in Italy and probably over much of Europe. Although I don’t condone the misapplication you mention, I have to still ask; what terrible thing happened?

The activists and their acolytes at EPA make claims that have no basis in science or reality. A case in point is the endocrine disruption clause in the Food Quality Protection Act. The primary study that this was based on was the Tulane study which turned out to be fraudulent. They were exposed and Tulane pulled the study and the lead researcher was prohibited from applying for federal grants for five years, a punishment which I deem to be seriously flawed since he perpetrated fraud on the public with the public’s money and we are now stuck with the regulation as a result of that fraud.

As for EPA’s view of this study! Lynn Goldman, assistant administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides & Toxic Substances at the Environmental Protection Agency under Carol Browner during the Clinton administration, stated that this was the cleanest science she had seen. Hogwash….how can something be science if it hasn’t been peer reviewed…and it hadn’t. Peer review was what exposed the fraud and she has a degree in medicine….she HAS to know better, yet that didn’t prevent her and the rest of the activists at EPA from plowing ahead.

I hear of technicians who use Termidor to treat bees.

I assume that you are also meaning wasps when you say bees, and although California and New York may not allow it, Termidor is labeled for wasps in the world of the sane. http://www.cdms.net/LDat/ld3DR020.pdf

The EPA has mounds of documented evidence of pesticides in our water and evidence that it is killing off marine life. It is a known fact on our chemical labels that most pesticides are highly toxic to aquatic life. There is so much that can and is reported.

These are two separate issues. Yes the labels clearly state the dangers to marine life. However, I have serious misgivings about EPA have “mounds” of information regarding chemical pesticides causing devastation to marine life through normal and legal use. If this were true EPA would be free to eliminate these products…and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. EPA is notorious for making claims that bear no resemblance to reality and when you take out the weasel words; there isn’t much left. To say that the thinkers at EPA wallow in a sinkhole of poor reasoning is being kind.

We really should do our best to get on board with the environmental movement. As I mentioned, Hearts Pest Management is an EcoWise Certified company and there is nothing in our certification that states we can not use pesticides.  

I have no beef with any pest control program that a company wishes to use, whether they call it IPM, Green, Organic or anything else they wish to use as a promotion to attract customers. I do however have a beef with those who make false claims about pesticides, pesticide applicators and the effect they have on society and the environment. The reality is that as a direct result of pesticides we are living longer, healthier, better fed lives than ever in human history.

As far as getting on board with the green activists?

The green movement is irrational and misanthropic. Everywhere in the world where their programs hold sway dystopia is rampant. They oppose pesticides, genetically modified foods, roads, dams, hydroelectric plants, electric plants of other types, chlorine in the water, and a host of other modern conveniences that make life so much better for so many people. They want everyone to go back to the primitive, yet they all live in the modern world with its conveniences. Why don't they move to those areas of the world that are primitive? If that is paradise; why aren't they living there? Why would I want to get on board with those who have shown such a massive disregard for human life?

They constantly harp how their programs are “for the children”, but children are dying because of them to the tune of hundreds of thousands each year. Tens of thousands of children in Southeast Asia go blind each year because their diets lack sufficient vitamin A. Golden Rice is a genetically modified food that would correct this immediately. They have thrown road block after road block in front of this product to keep it off the market. If they are so concerned about the health of children in the first world; why then do they distain the health, welfare and lives of children in the third world so badly?

No reasonable government will ever elliminate the use of pesticides as it could lead to uncontrollable epidemics, but we who use pesticides should be concerned about using them in a way that develops resistance in insect species, such as we have now with cockroaches.

These are also two separate issues. I take it then that you believe that Canada has a unreasonable government? I concur, because they are actively working for the elimination of pesticides, and I don’t consider California or New York much better.

As far as resistance goes….that will occur because it is the pattern of nature. Plants cannot run, they can’t hide, they don’t have teeth, claws, tough hides covered in fur and so the only way they can defend themselves is though a barrage of chemical defenses. As pests become resistant to one of these defenses; the plants develop another. It is already programmed in each of their genetic codes.

One more point. The vast majority of chemical pesticides people will consume are naturally occurring in the food we eat and over 90% of all carcinogens we consume are naturally occurring chemicals in the food we eat. There are 11 different carcinogens in coffee. In one cup of coffee you will consume more carcinogens than from the entire amount of synthetic pesticide residue from all the food you consume in one year.

Before we have any more discussions, I must insist that you first read Paul Driessen’s book, Eco-Imperialism, Green Power, Black Death. You can find it in my home page link to “My Book Reviews” where I have provided a link to order it.

I won’t be attending National. Best wishes. RK

____________________________

Rick, thank you for reposting my comment in its' original form.

If you are going to the NPMA convention, I would be happy to discuss these issues more with you.

Here are just a few examples I have experienced: 

My very first exposure in the industry was with a man who came to my house to do a gopher fumigation in our back yard. He did not have a license to do landscape gopher work! As things turned out, I bought the company from him. I didn't realize the remifications of the practices of the former owner until I tried to expand the business and the former owner told me I couldn't report my chemical usage to the state because our gopher applications were not approved! To solve the problem I had to hire a landscape operator until I got my own landscape operator license.

Another example was finding Delta-Dust totally engulfing a kitchen countertop. I hear of technicians who use Termidor to treat bees. The EPA has mounds of documented evidence of pesticides in our water and evidence that it is killing off marine life. It is a known fact on our chemical labels that most pesticides are highly toxic to aquatic life. There is so much that can and is reported.

We really should do our best to get on board with the environmental movement. As I mentioned, Hearts Pest Management is an EcoWise Certified company and there is nothing in our certification that states we can not use pesticides. No reasonable government will ever elliminate the use of pesticides as it could lead to uncontrollable epidemics, but we who use pesticides should be concerned about using them in a way that develops resistance in insect species, such as we have now with cockroaches.

Web Sites Worth Exploring

Editor's Note:  This was an email from James Marusek to Benny Peiser at CCNet - Cambridge Conference Network, that appeared on the blog “Greenie Watch”. I asked for and received permission to reprint it by Mr. Marusek, a retired Department of the Navy Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. I have also linked his web sites, The Legacy of the Environmental Movement and IMPACT in my blog roll. I would like to thank Mr. Marusek for his consideration. RK

In the beginning of April, after almost 4 decades of service to my government, I have retired to a quiet life or at least so I thought. On the 3rd of June, a large tornado ripped through my property. Fortunately it jumped over the house but there was still significant damage requiring a major cleanup effort. (BTW,  the tornado was the plain vanilla kind, 100% natural - a normal weather phenomena, uncontaminated by mankind) There is probably a bright side to all this. I now have over a 6-year supply of firewood to heat my home and I am better fit as a result. Its a fallout of cutting up large trees and picking up and tossing the pieces, some weighing over a hundred pounds. Sometimes I feel like I have been run over by a train locomotive. So much for the quiet life!

I have heated my home solely with firewood for the past 30 years. Firewood is an unappreciated plentiful source of renewable energy and it's oldest source. The use of wood to produce heat dates back almost 250,000 years. It is interesting to note that there were 196 wood burning electricity plants in the United States as of January 2007, including 72 with 40 megawatt capacity or larger. Last year wood generated more net electricity in the U.S. than solar cells and wind turbines combined.

In my spare time I have been expanding one of my web-pages called "The Legacy of the Environmental Movement" that I introduced in April. I think it is important to understand the intent of the environmental movement over the past 3 decades and their roadmap into the future. The current global warming scare is only one piece of a much broader picture, like a single piece in a child's puzzle. From my viewpoint, it felt right to put some of this puzzle together and this web-page was my tool for accomplishing that. My original web-page has now expanded into 90 web-pages. These web-pages currently link to over 1,500 articles and books. Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information available.

Killing Malarial Mosquitos Now!

by Paul Driessen

I would like to thank Mr. Driessen for allowing me to reprint his work. RK

Not long ago, most Americans thought malaria had disappeared from Planet Earth. Few remembered that it had killed thousands every year in the United States, into the 1940s – or that it was once prevalent in New Jersey, Ohio, California and the South, as well as in Europe and even Siberia.

All but a handful knew this preventable disease was killing an African child every 30 seconds – a million every year. Almost none realized malaria was still a global problem largely because of strident environmentalist opposition to insecticides and DDT to control mosquitoes that spread the disease.

While billions were being spent on cancer and HIV/AIDS, the 2003 US Agency for International Development budget for fighting malaria was $30 million – and almost 90% of it was being spent in the Washington, DC area, on contractors, conferences, educational materials and “capacity building.”

The New York Times, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and many others took exception, arguing that DDT and modern insecticides were essential in combating malaria. The Congress of Racial Equality and Association of American Physicians and Surgeons implored President Bush to support renewed DDT use.

No other chemical in existence, they pointed out, does what DDT does, at a fraction of the cost of supposed “alternatives.” Sprayed in small amounts on the walls of mud and thatch huts, this powerful spatial repellant keeps mosquitoes from entering homes for six months or more, irritates the few that do enter so they don’t bite, kills any that land, and slashes malaria rates by 70% or more.

President Bush responded to the outrage and launched the President’s Malaria Initiative in June 2005.

Several months later, the Kill Malarial Mosquitoes Now coalition presented the President, USAID and Congress with a strongly worded declaration, signed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Desmond Tutu, Norman Borlaug and FW DeKlerk, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, and hundreds of physicians, clergy, civil rights leaders and other “people of conscience.” Malaria funds must be spent saving lives, not hosting conferences, they insisted. America must support DDT, bednets and drug therapies.
In response, Senator Tom Coburn led a bipartisan House-Senate-White House-USAID effort that increased malaria funding to over $100 million for FY-2006, with most of it to be spent on nets, drugs and sprays. President Bush pledged $1.2 billion for the PMI over a five-year period.

In October 2006, Dr. Arata Kochi announced that the World Health Organization would reinstitute DDT use for indoor household spraying, in conjunction with nets, other insecticides and combination drug therapies. “Help us protect the environment,” he urged world leaders, “while we save African babies.”

Since then, financial commitments by nations, agencies and corporations have increased exponentially, and there has been real progress in controlling malaria – as opposed to hollow claims of progress in the past.

As a follow-up to net distribution efforts, a survey by the Mali health ministry found that 51% of young children had “slept under a net the previous night.” In Kenya officials distributed 11,000,000 long-lasting, insecticide-impregnated nets. PMI director Tim Ziemer noted that two nets per family and 50-70% regular use reduced infant and under-five childhood malaria mortality by up to a third.

Homes were sprayed and millions of nets and drug therapies distributed in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Zanzibar. In several Ugandan districts, the prevalence of malaria parasites in blood samples fell from 30% to 3% after houses were sprayed with the insecticide Icon, according to former Uganda malaria manager Dr. John Rwakimari. Mozambique’s seven-year insecticide, bednet and drug treatment program reduced malaria rates by 88% among children. Zambia’s multi-pronged program has also been successful.

But enormous challenges remain.

Half of the world’s people are still at risk of getting malaria, the WHO noted in September, and the disease killed another million people in 2006. Nearly 250,000,000 people were infected, and access to treatment is still inadequate, the agency admits – without acknowledging why that is so, and how malaria could be reduced dramatically if officials would abandon their politically correct policies.

It is impossible to treat a quarter billion victims a year, especially in impoverished countries where medical facilities are primitive, at best. However, reducing patient loads is stymied by political forces that refuse to permit comprehensive strategies to control mosquitoes and prevent infection.

The operative policy is right out of the National Basketball Association: Nothing but nets. But “without continual reminders, people just stop using their nets, and malaria surges again,” says Africa Fighting Malaria board member Dr. Donald Roberts, who has studied DDT and malaria for 30 years.

“Even when every child in a village got a net, half of them were re-infected in three weeks,” Rwakimari told me. Worse, net programs focus mainly on babies, small children and pregnant women, leaving other family members unprotected “Spraying a house with DDT eliminates behavior as a consideration. It protects everyone in the house 24 hours a day.”

Eradicating malaria requires nets, insecticides and spatial repellants to keep infected mosquitoes away from healthy people, and infected people away from non-malarial mosquitoes – plus artemisinin combination therapies (ACT drugs) to eliminate plasmodium parasites from people who still get infected.

Most insecticides for killing mosquitoes are also used in agriculture, which raises resistance issues; DDT is our only long-lasting spatial repellant; and no one is doing research to find equally effective replacements.

In fact, Pesticide Action Network, World Wildlife Fund and other activists stridently oppose all spraying. They claim DDT causes testicular tumors, lactation failure in nursing mothers and reduced biodiversity. Ill-informed UN and WHO bureaucrats make the same arguments – though “the claims are not supported by real world data,” says Roberts. And these speculative to phony risks are trivial compared to malaria.

Compounding these problem are a growing inflow of substandard and counterfeit drugs, and high import duties that price quality foreign medications out of reach for many victims. In addition, too many patients stop taking their prescriptions as soon as they feel better, sell the remaining pills, and then relapse, notes University of Alabama at Birmingham medical researcher Dr. Robert Novak.

Another huge problem is the “near total absence” of monitoring and data gathering and analysis, says Novak, who also co-chairs the Integrated Malaria Management Consortium. “Except on rare occasions, the only things people are measuring are how much money is being spent, how many nets have been distributed, how much effort is being exerted. They’re not measuring reductions in disease and deaths, or analyzing whether a strategy is actually working – often because that’s harder to assess, or the results would be too embarrassing.”

Available data suggest that, used without spraying, a $10 bednet has only a 20% chance of saving a life.

We would never tolerate a 20% efficacy in saving American lives, and we shouldn’t tolerate it for African, Asian or Latin American lives either. Yet without truly comprehensive programs that combine insecticides, larvacides, spatial repellants, nets, combination drugs and careful monitoring of results – along with fully transparent programs and accountability for success or failure – even a multi-billion-dollar program will simply perpetuate malaria at levels that developed country bureaucrats deem “acceptable.”

The carnage must end. We did it in Panama, the United States, Europe and elsewhere, long ago, using methods that were primitive compared to what are available today. It’s time to demand nothing less for Africa – and for governments and people in malaria-afflicted nations to take charge of their future, stop making excuses, root out incompetence, and employ comprehensive strategies to eradicate this disease.


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