A little over 50 years ago, a book called Silent Spring was published. The book and its author, Rachel Carson, were and are widely credited as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. While Carson and her book didn’t explicitly call for the events and actions that followed the book’s publication, there’s a clearly discernible cause-and-effect relationship for one action in particular: the banning of the insecticide DDT.

The allegations regarding DDT that Carson put forth put forth included that it was a carcinogen, that it made birds’ egg shells so thin that the eggs wouldn’t survive long enough to hatch, and that it would so poison the oceans that photosynthesis would stop. The second allegation was the basis of the book’s title i.e. with all the birds dying there would be a Silent Spring.

All three of these allegations have been refuted. The first is something that no scholarly research claims any more. The second is a mixed bag, with evidence that some shell thinning does occur (but not to the extent of extinction), but it’s obviated by a better understanding of how to use the product (it’s very effective at far, far lower levels of use than before). The last one was based on “science” so egregious as to qualify as malfeasance. The researcher figured out that a concentration of 500 parts per billion would create the predicted effect. However, DDT’s solubility in seawater is only 1.2 parts per billion, meaning that the effect was physically impossible. But, it does sound really scary, and scary sells. There’s plenty of info on the Net on this topic, but here is an excellent piece by Robert Zubrin.

Despite the debunking of Carson’s claims, DDT’s use remains highly restricted today, with tragic consequences. DDT proved incredibly effective at controlling the mosquitoes that spread malaria – so much so that the United States remains malaria-free 40 years after it was banned. However, the developing nations of Africa and Asia didn’t get the opportunity to wipe out malaria with DDT. The people of those nations have had to suffer the ravages of the disease, with 200 million cases and over 600,000 deaths in 2010 alone, according to the WHO. While there’s been a downward trend in malaria deaths, thanks in part to efforts by the WHO that involve insecticide nets and other forms of mitigation, the numbers are still beyond tragic.

Thus, we have a theory built on shaky (or worse) foundations and unsupported by subsequent science led to actions that have killed tens of millions of people and adversely affected the lives of billions.

Does this sound familiar?

Consider a more recent environmental theory, the theory that human industrial emissions are building concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to levels significant enough to increase the mean temperature of the Earth. It’s a theory that had been bouncing around for a while, but became part of the zeitgeist with the release of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” written by and starring Al Gore. The movie was a raging hit for the environmental movement, popularizing and injecting the concept and the term “global warming” into our minds and, more importantly, our politics. It was also rooted in some since-disproven and -debunked “science,” notably, climatologist Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph, and in a whole lot of emotional manipulation, including photos of cute polar bears associated with a narration that proclaimed them endangered. The latter? Also debunked. Wherever one may stand on the veracity of the overall anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, Michael Mann’s graph and the polar bear scare have both been refuted. For more on these specific deconstructions (and on global warming in general), start here. For a list of “untruths” that a United Kingdom judge declared must be presented alongside the movie should it be used in classrooms, look here.

The only solution proposed for AGW by the Al Gore crowd is a brute-force limit on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Given that carbon-based fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum are the primary source of power for most of the world, and given that nuclear power (which doesn’t emit any CO2) is not even part of the conversation since the Fukushima disaster, this means that two things are going to happen should such a limit be implemented. One, electricity is going to get a lot more expensive in the First World, as power producers are forced towards solar and wind power (neither remotely as cost-efficient as coal or gas). This means that economic growth will slow, standards of living will not advance as they otherwise might (and might even degrade), and life and health expectancies won’t advance as they otherwise might. Two, electricity will not become available to the developing world as it otherwise would should carbon caps not be imposed. This is the greater tragedy of the two. Power is productivity, and productivity is what enables the poorest to rise up out of poverty and have better, longer and healthier lives. If the world is going to sacrifice the people living in the poorest nations on the altar of AGW, there had better be a very strong case that the alternative will be even more destructive. Yet rather than really challenge the science, really study the veracity of the AGW theory and put it through the intellectual hoops that good science demands, and force the theory to stand up to all questions and doubts, Al Gore and his acolytes declare that “the science is settled,” and dismiss any challenges.

It is rare to hear of people noting the enormous cost in human life, today, that the only proposed remedy to AGW will extract. It’s also a dirty little secret that more than a few true believers consider the world overpopulated, and don’t really fret about the millions of poor in Africa and Asia who have died of malaria and who will die prematurely if their nations are forced to comply with carbon caps.

My own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem. — Alexander King, cofounder of the Club of Rome, 1990

There are some who believe that the solution to this problem is for the wealthy nations of the world, who have done the bulk of “polluting” with their carbon emissions (I will leave the farcical notion that CO2 is a pollutant for another day) to transfer wealth to the poor nations as part of the overall remediation effort. This idea both ignores the enormous “leg up” that developing nations receive from not having to invent technologies for themselves and ignores the opportunity cost of taking productive capital away from those who are creating wealth with it. The wealth transfer will still adversely impact productivity, still slow the improvement of the human condition around the globe, and still result in millions of premature and avoidable deaths.

There is a lot of blood on the hands of environmental zealots. They will certainly deny it, and may offer up as their defense “things would be worse if we didn’t act.” They have and will continue to claim that science is on their side, even in the face of mountains of evidence that the DDT ban was based on bad science, and even in the face of a growing body of evidence that, at the very least, AGW is an incomplete theory that hasn’t been validated by empirical observation (i.e. the models don’t work – there has been no warming for 17 years, despite the models’ predictions that there would be and despite the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to increase).

Stubborn adherence to ideas and theories in the face of contrary evidence is not science. It’s more akin to religion or cultism, and like many others, the cult of environmentalism has its saints and prophets. I’ve mentioned only two of the most prominent herein – Rachel Carson and Al Gore. And, like many other religions and cults throughout the history of humanity, modern environmentalism demands sacrifices. The sacrifices we are openly asked to offer are those of our wealth, comfort and prosperity. The sacrifices that will actually be offered are human lives. Millions of them.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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