Original Message: ----------------- From: Robert G. Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 21:44:47 -0500 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Re Cost of conservation
On 5/4/2007 7:53:47 PM, Ronn! Blankenship ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > At 01:42 PM Friday 5/4/2007, Martin Lewis wrote: > >On 5/4/07, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Indeed, Gautam made a good argument here that environmental > > > policy > and > > > environmentalist claims is a major contributor to the death of 1 > > > million/year due to malaria. The US used DDT as part of its > elimination of > > > malaria. No human deaths were attributed to DDT. Instead, > > > there was > an > > > extremely strong correlation that, in all likelihood, was due to > > > the > DDT > > > use, between this use and the drop in the death rate. > > > > <snip> > > > > I can't quite tell, what is your exact claim about DDT here? > > > > Martin > > > Using it saves human lives. Banning it cost human lives. Banning > it > says that obviously the eggs of a few raptors in California are more > valuable than the lives of myriads of little black human babies in > sub-Saharan Africa. > >I don't think it is a binary question at all. >DDT, like many other chemicals can be used safely (WRT wildlife *and* >humans) if it is used judiciously and not just dumped on the landscape >as a general pesticide. That's a very reasonable position. I would agree with it, pesticides should be used judiciously. But, banning is fairly binary, which is the problem that I was adressing. The POP coalition misrepresents the science in their arguement to eliminate DDT. My fear is that they are not lying; they are letting their politics influence their evaluation of the scientific evidence. Who does that remind us of? :-( >It seems to me that the real problem is the greed of the chemical >industry, they promote ariel spraying of pesticides and other unsecure >methods. Except that the alternatives to DDT are more expensive, harder to duplicate, and are not commodities. That tends to favor bigger profits for the bigger companies. >A secondary problem is the desire of farmers to protect a greater >share of their yield from pests. Both of these examples reveal a mindset that >unjudiciously causes large amounts of useful chemicals to leak into areas (of the >biosphere) that are owned by others and/or are beyond human control. That does happen. In the US, I'd guess that most of the problems are legacies...which can cost companies billions to rectify. For example, our favorite whipping boy, Haliburton, accidently took on many billions in asbestos costs when they acquired Dresser Industries. They didn't cause the problems themselves, but they bought the cost of remediation when they bought Dresser. They lost billions on that deal.....probably enough to have bankrupted Dresser. In short, the cost of preventing contamination has the be huge for the risk of lawsuits to be worth it for a company.....or the company has to be small enough so that the risk rewards of bankrupcy vs. getting by with it is acceptable. Elsewhere, such as China, the problem remains serious....since the government is closely tied to the polluting industries. I'd still guess that smog is a more serious problem there, but other toxic chemicals are a problem. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com What can On Demand Business Solutions do for you? http://link.mail2web.com/Business/SharePoint _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
