A few years ago, New York Times editorial page writer Tina Rosenberg explained that “today, westerners with no memory of malaria often assume it has always been only a tropical disease. But malaria was once found as far north as Boston and Montreal. Oliver Cromwell died of malaria, and Shakespeare alludes to it [as ‘ague’] in eight plays. Malaria no longer afflicts the United States, Canada and Northern Europe in part because of changes in living habits—the shift to cities, better sanitation, window screens. But another reason was DDT, sprayed from airplanes over American cities and towns while children played outside.”6
So effective is DDT that in 1970 the National Academy of Sciences announced that “to only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. In little more than two decades DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths due to malaria that would have otherwise been inevitable.”7
But in 1962, Rachel Carson, an opponent of pesticides, succeeded in spreading widespread hysteria about DDT’s effects on wildlife and especially children. In her book Silent Spring, Carson decried the broad use of DDT.8 As Reason science correspondent Ron Bailey wrote, “Carson was…an effective popularizer of the idea that children were especially vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of synthetic chemicals. ‘The situation with respect to children is even more deeply disturbing,’ she wrote. ‘A quarter century ago, cancer in children was considered a medical rarity. Today, more American school children die of cancer than from any other disease.’ In support of this claim, Carson reported that ‘twelve per cent of all deaths in children between the ages of one and fourteen are caused by cancer.’ Although it sounds alarming, Carson’s statistic is essentially meaningless unless it’s given some context, which she failed to supply. It turns out that the percentage of children dying of cancer was rising because other causes of death, such as infectious diseases, were drastically declining.”9
It is a sickening irony that Carson’s focus on children helped kill the use of DDT when malaria is the cause of death of millions of children living in undeveloped countries. In fact, nowhere in Silent Spring did Carson mention that DDT had saved tens of millions of lives, a widely known fact by 1962 but of no apparent import to her or her growing legion of adherents.10
The media gobbled up Carson’s alarmism. President John Kennedy formed an advisory committee to investigate her claims. Congress held hearings. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club brought litigation to pressure the government to ban DDT. Although DDT has never been directly linked to even one human death (Gladwell recounts incidents of test subjects literally lathering themselves with DDT),11 the EPA, which had been established in 1970, banned DDT in 1972.12 Its use worldwide soon plummeted because the United States and the United Nations’ World Health Organization would no longer provide financial support for the lifesaving chemical’s use.13
But even the manner in which the EPA banned DDT was an abuse of both the scientific and legal process. An EPA administrative law judge held several months of hearings on DDT’s environmental and health risks. In the end, Judge Edmund Sweeney found that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man…DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man…. The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”14
However, Sweeney’s ruling was rejected by EPA administrator William Doyle Ruckelshaus, who, in 1972, banned it anyway. Ruckelshaus attended none of the hearings and aides reported he had not read the hearing transcript before overruling Sweeney’s findings.15 At the time, Ruckelshaus belonged to the Audubon Society and later joined the Environmental Defense Fund, which, along with the Sierra Club, was a budding organization that brought lawsuits pressing for DDT’s ban.16
Only recently has the world community begun to revisit the benefits of DDT. In 2006, the World Health Organization announced that it would reverse years of policy and back the use of DDT as a way to control malaria outbreaks.17 Better late than never, but the ban’s human cost has been enormous. In 2002, the American Council on Science and Health reported that 300 million to 500 million people suffer from malaria each year, 90 percent occurring in Africa. It is the number one killer of children there.18 Overall, the ban has resulted in the deaths of millions.19
The EPA and its environmental-group masters conspired in a deliberate and systematic distortion of science, leading to genocide-like numbers of deaths of human beings throughout the undeveloped world. Today the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club, and scores of similar groups, raise tens of millions of dollars a year to promote their causes in Congress, the bureaucracy, and the courts, are relied on frequently by the media for expert comment, and make no apologies for the consequences of their success in banning DDT. Ruckelshaus, a Republican, rose through the executive branch and has received acclaim for his public service. He currently serves on the boards of numerous corporations and endorsed Barack Obama for president. After her death in 1964, Carson was the recipient of numerous honors and awards. Her childhood home is on the National Register of Historic Places and the home she lived in when she wrote Silent Spring was named a National Historic Landmark. There are no landmarks or memorials for those who suffered and perished from the banning of DDT. In the name of protecting wildlife and children, millions of human lives were needlessly sacrificed.
On its website, the group Earth First! declares that it “does not accept a human-centered worldview of ‘nature for people’s sake.’” It insists that “life exists for its own sake, that industrialized civilization and its philosophy are anti-Earth, anti-woman and anti-liberty…To put it simply, the Earth must come first.”20
Is not man, therefore, expendable? And if he is, is not the suppression of his liberty, the confiscation of his property, and the blunting of his progress at all times warranted where the purpose is to save the planet—or any part of it—from man himself? After all, it would seem that there can be no end to man’s offenses against nature if he is not checked at every turn.
National Park Service ecologist David M. Graber, writing in the Los Angeles Times in 1989, well articulated the perversity of this view:
We contaminated the planet with atmospheric hydrocarbons and metals beginning in the Industrial Revolution. The Atomic Age wrote another indelible signature in radioisotopes on every bit of the Earth’s surface. DDT and its kin appear even in the Antarctic ice…. I, for one, cannot wish upon either my children or the rest of Earth’s biota a tame planet, a human-managed planet, be it monstrous or—however unlikely—benign.… [I am] not interested in the utility of a particular species, or free-flowing river, or ecosystem, to mankind. They have intrinsic value, more value—to me—than another human body, or a billion of them.
Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line—at about a billion years ago, maybe half that—we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.
It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil-energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.21
If nature has “intrinsic value” then nature exists for its own sake. Consequently, man is not to be preferred over any aspect of his natural surroundings. He is no better than any other organism and much worse than most because of his destructive existence. And so it is that the Enviro-Statist abandons reason for a faith that preaches human regression and self-loathing. And he does so by claiming the moral high ground—saving man from himself and nature from man. Most individuals who are sympathetic to environmental causes are unwitting marks, responsive to the Enviro-Statist’s manipulation of science, imagery, and language. Over time, they self-surrender liberty for authority, a
bundance for scarcity, and optimism for pessimism. “Save the planet!” is the rallying cry that justifies nearly any intrusion by government into the life of the individual. The individual, after all, is expendable.
Who would have thought that the flush toilet would become controversial? It is not only an everyday convenience, which would be enough, but critical to human health. No matter. In 1992, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, outlawing the 3.5-gallon toilet and replacing it with the 1.6-gallon toilet. The purpose was to reduce the use of water. To this day, the mandated change requires users to flush the toilet more often, which hardly saves water. A government that is powerful enough to dictate the flow of water in a toilet is a very powerful government indeed. Some Enviro-Statists even advocate for dry toilets, which are basically dirt pits, especially for the undeveloped world. They claim flush toilets would be “an environmental disaster” if China and the Third World used more of them.22 Clearly the world’s poor are among the Enviro-Statist’s most victimized populations.
Today, almost 1.6 billion people use candles and kerosene lamps to light their homes, filling them with smoke and soot and risking fire. In India, where 600 million people live without electricity, Greenpeace campaigned against the incandescent lightbulb because it emits carbon dioxide (apparently forgetting the polluting effect of burning kerosene for light). The lightbulb, they said, is “a hazardous product to everyone,” and they dubbed Philips Electronics, India’s major lightbulb producer, a “climate criminal.”23
In much of the world where the Statist reigns, the nights remain dark. In 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented that “if you look at a picture from the sky of the Korean Peninsula at night, South Korea is filled with lights and energy and vitality and a booming economy. North Korea is dark.”24
Even in the United States, Congress banned incandescent bulbs, by 2014, replacing them with the costlier compact fluorescent lightbulbs—which contain highly toxic mercury.
Those without power in India and parts of Asia also suffer through sweltering heat, routinely over 100 degrees. In 2007, the New York Times wrung its hands because “the world’s atmospheric scientists are concerned that the air-condition boom sweeping across Asia could lead to more serious problems” with the ozone layer.25 The washing machine, which liberated mostly women from the arduous task of hand-washing clothes, is attacked for its consumption of energy and water and use with laundry detergent.26 Lawn mowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers, and barbecue grills are all environmental targets.27
But the technology most despised by the Enviro-Statist is the automobile because it provides the individual with a tangible means to exercise his independence through mobility. Starting with the Arab oil embargo of 1973, in which the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut oil exports to the United States for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War, the automobile has been relentlessly demonized as the enemy of the environment.
Among the government’s responses to the embargo was the imposition of Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards on automobiles in 1975. Its proponents argued that more efficient cars would cut gasoline use, thereby reducing reliance on foreign oil and pollution. But this position was always counterintuitive. More efficient cars reduce the per-mile cost of driving, enabling consumers to pay less than they otherwise would for driving more. In fact, the CAFE standards have not reduced America’s importation of oil. In 1970, the United States imported about 20 percent of its oil, compared with over 60 percent today.28 And while better fuel economy produces more emissions resulting from more driving, CAFE standards were never going to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The Heritage Foundation’s Charli E. Coon has noted that “cars and light trucks subject to fuel economy standards make up only 1.5 percent of all global man-made greenhouse gas emissions…”29
Although CAFE standards have failed to reduce gasoline consumption or significantly improve the environment, they have succeeded in killing tens of thousands of human beings. The reason: the laws of physics.
In order to meet the per-gallon fuel efficiency standards set by Congress, the automobile industry has been forced to reduce the size and weight (mass) of vehicles. Consequently, automobiles and light trucks contain more plastic and aluminum than ever before. Their human occupants are more vulnerable to injury and death from most kinds of accidents. The evidence proves the point.
In 1989, analysts at the Brookings Institution and Harvard University estimated that 2,000 to 3,900 lives are lost and 20,000 serious injuries occur each year in traffic accidents resulting from smaller, lighter cars.30 The Competitive Enterprise Institute examined 1997 traffic fatality data and concluded that CAFE standards caused between 2,600 and 4,500 deaths in 1997.31 In 1999, USA Today analyzed the statistical link between CAFE standards and traffic fatalities and reported that “46,000 people have died in crashes they would have survived in bigger, heavier cars…since 1975.”32 In 2001, a National Academy of Sciences panel reported that the downweighting and downsizing of light vehicles in the 1970s and early 1980s, partly due to CAFE standards, “probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.33
More Americans are killed and maimed each year from CAFE standards than American soldiers have been killed on the battlefield in Iraq each year. Yet what is the Enviro-Statist’s response to this carnage? In 2007, Congress mandated that each automobile manufacturer’s passenger vehicles average 35 miles per gallon by 2020, about a 40 percent increase over current standards for cars and trucks. So ingrained in society is the Enviro-Statist’s agenda that the effect of this policy on human life was of no consequence to Congress.
For the Conservative, scientific and technological advances, especially since the Industrial Revolution, have hugely benefited mankind. Running water and indoor plumbing enable fresh water to be brought into the home and dirty water to be removed through a system of aqueducts, wells, dams, and sewage treatment facilities; irrigating and fertilizing land creates more stable and plentiful food supplies; harnessing natural resources such as coal, oil, and gas makes possible the delivery of power to homes, hospitals, schools, and businesses and fuel for automobiles, trucks, and airplanes; networks of paved roads promote mobility, commerce, and assimilation; and the invention of medical devices and discovery of chemical substances extend and improve the quality of life.
The Conservative believes that in the context of the civil society, progress and modernity are essential to man’s well-being and fulfillment, despite their inevitable imperfections. He rejects the paganlike, antihuman crusade of the Enviro-Statist, which leads to callousness, conformity, and misery. The Conservative also understands that when the independence and liberty of the individual are subject to tyranny posing as righteousness, his right to acquire and retain private property will no longer have standing.
John Adams cautioned that “the moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”34
Today homeowners, farmers, and businesses are subjected to a host of government restrictions and prohibitions that reduce the use and value of their properties, including laws relating to wet-lands and endangered species. Among the most far-reaching Enviro-Statist strategies is “smart growth”—where urban planners develop comprehensive zoning initiatives that purport to bring man back into balance with the ecosystem by severely restricting private property rights. And their focus is typically “suburban sprawl.” The urban planner’s purpose is to force populations into increasingly limited, dense areas; drive cars off the roads and increase use of public transportation or bicycle and pedestrian paths; bring the home and office closer together; and establish a communal existence. This requires severely limiting alternative forms of development and growth outside certain prescribed areas.
But just how problematic is suburban sprawl or, for that matter, development genera
lly? In 2002, the Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Ronald D. Utt examined the federal government’s land use surveys and concluded, “[A]fter nearly 400 years of unmanaged development and rabbit-like population growth, somewhere between 3.4 percent and 5.2 percent of land in the continental United States has been consumed….”35
But what of the heavily urbanized states, which include several of the original colonies? Utt looked at them as well. “In both New York and Virginia, which were settled in the early 1600s, nearly 90 percent of the land is still undeveloped, while in Pennsylvania the share is over 85 percent, and in Maryland it is over 80 percent. In contrast, both New Jersey and Rhode Island’s developed shares hover at around one-third of the available land—some of the highest shares in the nation but still leaving both states with about two-thirds of their land undeveloped or in agricultural use.”36
But the Enviro-Statist has only just begun. His most noxious assault on humankind and the civil society is presented as man-made “global warming.” Amazingly, not long ago “global cooling” was all the rage, with warnings of cataclysmic destruction from flooding, famine, and upheaval.
In 1971, Dr. S. I. Rasool, a NASA scientist, insisted that “in the next 50 years, the fine dust man constantly puts into the atmosphere by fossil fuel-burning could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees.” Rasool further claimed that “if sustained over several years—five to ten—such temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.” Incidentally, in arriving at his conclusions, Rasool used, in part, a computer model created by his NASA colleague and current global warming mystic Dr. James Hansen.37