Access To A New World of Information

The Pillars of IPM

2011-03-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

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The Pillars of IPM was originally written as a thirty page white paper which dug far more deeply into this subject, and I had at least ten more pages to go. The problem I had was readability. It was getting too complicated. If someone from the industry read what I was saying they could have followed where I was going. For someone outside of the industry to follow would have been substantially more difficult. Therefore I decided to go this route and expand on the articles listed here as things change, or add more articles as need be.

Since things change so fast in our industry, I feel this is a better way of keeping these articles as up to date as possible. The factual information presented here is irrefutable, and I believe the logic is at the very least thought provoking. The red titles are links to the complete articles.

Best wishes to all! RK

The Pillars of IPM, Part I
By Rich Kozlovich

The pillars that hold up the structure of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in structural pest control are arrogance, deceit, deception, ideology, lies, ignorance, bullying scare tactics and its foundation is the Precautionary Principle; the latest bulwark of junk science.

The Precautionary Principle, which is outlined in this manner; “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically”, places a demand on industry that is simply irrational. Commonly known as the “better safe than sorry” principle it imposed this value; “If you can’t prove its safe you can’t use it.” Who could be against that? So then what is so irrational about it?

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The Pillars of IPM, Part II
By Rich Kozlovich

What is IPM? What actually is Integrated Pest Management? That is a constant bone of contention in the structural pest control industry, the universities and the anti-pesticide movement.

IPM started out as an agricultural concept which was first outlined in an obscure agricultural magazine called Hilgardia in 1959. In agriculture there is no problem defining IPM. They knew they couldn’t eradicate all of the pests in fields no matter how many times the fields were treated. Therefore, instead of over spraying and only getting marginally better results; which didn’t justify the added costs; it was decided to develop threshold limits that would apply before making pesticide applications. Therefore the logical foundation for IPM is based on threshold limits. ....Let me say this unequivocally, emphatically and absolutely. There is no logical or scientific foundation for such thing as IPM in structural pest control.

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The Pillars of IPM, Part III
By Rich Kozlovich

Why IPM?“We all know what IPM is" or; "we all know what Green means." Really? The reality is that there is “no universally accepted definition of the IPM and Green phenomena in structural pest control; there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them.” – Paraphrased statement by Stanley G,. Payne in the book Dictionnaire historique des fascisms et du nazisme as cited and quoted in the book Liberal Fascism..........

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The Pillars of IPM, Part IV
By Rich Kozlovich

Predictions and scares thrown up by the environmental movement has become conventional wisdom by repetition; yet have proven false time after time. That is the trouble with conventional wisdom. It still has to face the march of time before it becomes traditional wisdom. Unfortunately, these latest philosophical philosophies of the day have so very often left devastation in their wake in so many countries around the world.

From Malthus to Paul Ehrlich (look them up) they almost have a monopoly on being wrong. So then, why do we so readily accept their scare mongering? The goal for those who wish to implement IPM as a separate, practical pest control concept is the elimination of pesticides. I seem to have to repeat this over and over because so many claim this isn’t true, which makes me wonder what planet they are living on. If we are to eliminate all of these products that have been so effective and beneficial to mankind we had better ask three questions. (I am paraphrasing these questions from comments made by Thomas Sowell. RK).......

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Who Are We and How Did We Get Here?
By Rich Kozlovich

Much of this article is based on the book, “The Rat Catcher’s Child” by Dr. Robert Snetsinger, and whole paragraphs are replicated here. The Rat Catcher’s Child is currently published by the publishing company of Pest Control Technology magazine. I heartily recommend ordering this book. I have barely touched the surface on the amount of information and insights available in "The Rat Catcher's Child". It is impossible for anyone in structural pest control to understand where we are and how we got here without reading this book…or talking to me.

Professional structural pest control is the art, science, technology and business that protects the health and comfort of mankind, and preserves his property from harm and destruction by insects, rodents, birds, weeds, wood destroying fungi and related pests.

At one time pest control was “science”! You would mix this with that and apply it according to directions and things died. That has all changed! Pest control has now become more art than science, even though we know more about pests and their biology than ever in all the history of our industry. This requires a great deal of personal knowledge and initiative. They attempt to call this Integrated Pest Management, but it is still just pest control.

Mankind has always been aware of the need to maintain good health and have a sense of well being. Pest Control, as one of the health related professions and traces its origins into antiquity. The Egyptians' used magic spells as a pest control technique in order to protect the mummies of their kings from poisonous snakes. They believed that some snakes spoke the Semitic language of the Canaanites and included the magic spells in inscriptions on two sides of the sarcophagus in an effort to ward them off. In these times pest control and was the domain of diviners, witchdoctors, priests and other practicers of magic. Pest control and related professions eventually emerged from the realms of magic and religion, but the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) of the day consisted of spears and spells………………We are replacing science with mysticism when we work to "become one with the biosphere" as the green movements demand. EPA has been a virtual lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations from its inception. It is clear to anyone who wishes to see that the EPA was born in corruption and operates behind a curtain of lies, just like the Wizard of Oz. Where will all of this take us? I believe that bed bugs are the tip of the iceberg, for no society can avoid the consequences of its way of living. We cannot continue in this direction without serious consequences. Mankind must alter his environment in order to survive. Even those ignorant ancients with their magic spells recognized this as a basic truth. They at least had an excuse; they were ignorant. (The title in red is a link to the rest of the article)

There is No Such Thing as IPM in Structural Pest Control, byRich Kozlovich

Recently I received an e-mail from Pest Control Technology Magazine about a conference in Orlando Florida this December. One of the speakers, Jeff Tucker, is going to speak on the subject, Structural Integrated Pest Management. Why can't we get this? There no universally accepted definitions of the IPM and Green phenomena in structural pest control; there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them. The pillars that hold up the structure of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in structural pest control are arrogance, deceit, deception, ideology, lies, ignorance, scare tactics and its foundation is the Precautionary Principle; the bulwark of junk science; and it is paid for by tax payers money and promoted by an incompetent radical government agency; the Environmental Protection Agency.

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My Bed Bug Series

2011-01-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

For entirely too long I have seen far too much misinformation from the media and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about bed bugs and what should be done about them. Unfortunately many poeple who should know better who have been involved directly or indirectly with the pest control industry are jumping on this foolish bandwagon.

We win the battle of facts; we always have. They win the battle of emotion; they always have. In order to win the war we must win the battle of facts and emotion.

This series is to help dispel all the wrong headedness, junk science and flawed green philosophy that we are fed daily. If there ever was an issue that clearly outlines how the EPA is a political animal versus the scientific agency they claim to to; this is it!

Bedbug Summit: Activity as a Substitute For Accomplishment

By, Rich Kozlovich

In the 1800’s there was no greater showman than P.T. Barnum. His flair for the extravagant dazzled the crowds. His museum in New York City was a “combination of zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and freak show. Barnum noticed that people were lingering too long at his exhibits. He posted signs indicating "This Way to the Egress". Not knowing that "Egress" was another word for "Exit", people followed the signs to what they assumed was a fascinating exhibit...and ended up outside”. If they weren’t done seeing what they wanted to see….they had to pay again.

I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head at the thought of those who are directly responsible for this plague of bedbugs now wanting to find a solution through this big public relations fest. What better way to deflect attention away from the real perpetrators of this mess, themselves. P.T. Barnum would have been truly impressed with this trompe l'oeil!

Butterfield Bill: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part II
By Rich Kozlovich

On April 14th and 15th of this year the EPA hosted something that they called the Bedbug Summit, which “drew almost 300 state and federal regulatory, public health, and housing officials, academics, landlords/property managers, pest professionals, and other key stakeholders”

On April 19th, 2009 I published a critique of EPA’s “Bedbug Summit”, called Bedbug Summit: Activity As A Substitute For Accomplishment, which clearly outlined what could only be called a great public relations deception and a farce. That is, if your goal is the control of bedbugs. If the goal was to misdirect, deceive and justify the creation of a massive, costly and ineffectual multilayered bureaucracy and promote ineffectual pest control programs such as IPM, then it was a smashing success. Quite frankly, it disturbed me to realize that for some reason I didn’t connect the dots at the time between this and the Butterfield bill. I know…I know…there is no such thing as a conspiracy.

Second EPA Bed Bug Summit: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part III

By Rich Kozlovich

Since I am heavily involved in my industry’s affairs I was asked if I was going to this latest EPA Summit. I said I wouldn’t waste my time and money because I already knew it was nothing but a bunch of claptrap. I have read a number of reports and had conversations with those who went; nothing that I have read or heard has changed my view.

Grant Awards to Support Bed Bug Education: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part IV

By Rich Kozlovich

Bed bugs have been with mankind for as long as mankind has existed. Records about bed bugs are available that go back 4000 years to ancient Egypt, and archeologists have artifacts that show they are “identical to the present day pest.” Since they took the time to talk about them in ancient Egypt I think that we can reasonably assume that they didn’t like them any more than we do today. Historians have noted that manuals for their elimination have existed for centuries. In 1730 there was “A Treaties of Buggs” where the author recommended a “liquor” for their destruction.

In 1777, "The Compleat Vermin-Killer," recommended "to fill the cracks of the bed with gunpowder and light it on fire." Sounds silly I know, but people do silly things when they are desperate. An Ohio man set his apartment building on fire because he attempted to rid his apartment of bed bugs using alcohol while smoking a cigarette. Somehow I don’t think burning down houses is the answer we want.

Bedbugs; The Real Answer!

By Rich Kozlovich

What is the reality of bedbugs? We have them! We don’t want them! The numbers keep getting larger! They are spreading farther afield! The tools left to society don’t kill them! There are species of bedbug that are even more resistant to pesticides than the rest!

The average homeowner is faced with over the counter pesticides that don’t work or IPM or green pest control programs that are either largely ineffectual or prohibitively expensive when they work. The same is true of new technology, such as heat which absolutely works. The reality of bedbugs is this; chemistry was the answer in 1946 and it will be the answer in 2010! And it must be the answer. Why?

Bedbugs and Reality; Part II

By Rich Kozlovich

Renee Corea has been in the forefront of New York City’s battle against bedbugs and is part of their Bed Bug Task Force. I first became aware of her web site, New York vs Bed Bugs ,some months back when she highlighted two articles I did on the subject in her post of May 24, 2009, called, Blaming EPA is not the answer either.

Pest Control – Back to the Future!

By Rich Kozlovich

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C. S. Lewis

Recently I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is outraged that we are attempting to bring propoxur back for bed bug control. He is also outraged at those who are working to do this, which also includes me by the way. I asked why?

We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!

By Rich Kozlovich

This week CBS interviewed and filmed Lonnie Alonso and his son Brian of Columbus Pest Control in Columbus, Ohio while doing a bed bug job in some poor suffering woman’s home; a home that looked perfectly clean and well cared for. That is the thing with bed bugs. They don’t discriminate in any way. They will infest anyone’s home and they don’t care how dirty or clean your home is and they don’t care how rich or poor you are. You are food to them.

There is a rub though; those with the financial wherewithal can afford to get rid of them. It is the people at the bottom of the economic structure that are suffering the most because they are left largely defenseless. They are also spreading them everywhere they go, and those who can afford it will find that they are being re-infested, along with the Empire State Building, Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch and a host of other businesses, including hotels…and that was just in New York City.

The American Dream Didn’t Include Bed Bugs. Part I: The Problem

By Rich Kozlovich

In recent months the bed bug issue has reached headline proportions on the national scene. National television news networks have featured the story, magazines have highlighted the problem nationally and newspapers have focused on local infestations that seem to be out of control and growing. It is almost like one of those overnight movie star sensations who won an award only to find out that he has been in the entertainment business for fifteen years. We, the pest control industry, have known this day was coming for some time, and in point of fact I know one old timer who ominously stated over ten years ago that bed bugs would be back.

The American Dream Didn’t Include Bed Bugs. Part II: The Consequences

By Rich Kozlovich

Since 1962 when Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring came out the world of pest control and pesticides have been turned upside down. As the years went by people seemed to believe that living a pest free life was a right; it was all part of the American Dream and pesticides had nothing to do with it. Instead of society believing that pesticides are life savers, society has come to believe that pesticides are doing all sort of terrible and unknown things. That in spite of the fact that people are living longer and healthier lives

The American Dream Didn’t Include Bed Bugs. Part III: The Solution

By Rich Kozlovich

As this national plague of bed bugs continues to grow I find that I am more and more surprised at the reactions of so many. Especially those in the bureaucracies, government and most importantly in pest control. I intend to explore all of the views from each group. I think you will find this examination interesting and frustrating.

My views however are somewhat straightforward. We need effective chemistry that is inexpensive, available to the public and easy to use if we are to rid the nation of this plague. That was the answer in 1946 and that will have to be the answer in 2010 or 2011 or 2102 or there will be no answer.

Four Criteria To End Bed Bug Plague

By Rich Kozlovich

I really find it interesting to see those who normally would be foaming at the mouth about the evils of pesticides discuss this rising plague of bed bugs on their television shows, with clear trepidation as to what should be done. The View some time back had someone from Bed Bug Central showing what to look for and what they could possibly use to protect themselves. Although they now knew that putting encasement covers over the mattress and box springs was a good thing, you could tell from their manner that they knew that this wasn’t “the” answer and that in the real world, with the regulatory realities we have to deal with…..there is no answer.

My mother is 86, so when this bedbug plague first broke out I asked her if she had them in her youth and what they did before DDT. She said that they washed everything in the house thoroughly and took everything outside and washed everything, including the springs, frames and mattresses at least twice a year. I asked if that worked and she laughed and said for a while it was better. And that is the real point. They never got rid of them entirely!

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Cancer

2011-01-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

Cancer scares have resonated throughout society since the 1950's with little or no back ground or follow up information that would allow for the general public to judge these matters for themselves. This page will attempt to expand the available information to everyone's benefit.

ACSH Petitions EPA to Stop Declaring Chemicals "Carcinogens" Based on Rodent Tests Alone
PRESS RELEASE - Publication Date: August 23, 2005

New York, NY -- August 23, 2005. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) today petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to eliminate "junk science" from the process by which it determines whether a substance is likely to cause cancer in humans.

This was the first update the ASCH petitiion to EPA

EPA to Defend Itself from ACSH
December 1, 2005

November 21 was the deadline for a response from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ACSH's lawsuit, filed by the Washington Legal Foundation. Ninety days earlier, we had requested an explanation for the discrepancy -- ostensibly forbidden by the Information Quality Act -- between EPA's regulations and the scientific information available to them. Specifically, they know full well that not everything they label a "carcinogen" truly is one in the sense of posing a threat to humans (rodents, given doses so high as to be meaningless for assessing human health risks, are a different story).

Here is the second update.

The EPA Stonewalls ACSH: What Would Happen If We Tried This on Them? January 24, 2006

We tried to respectfully petition the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revisit their outmoded methods of assigning carcinogen risk to various chemicals in the environment, and their response, despite laws mandating their response within a set time period, was essentially: "Your message is very important to us -- please call back later."

Here is the third and final update.

We Should Expect More From the EPA
March 21, 2006
by Elizabeth M. Whelan

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is right about one thing: the public should hold it accountable for how its programs work. The EPA said as much last month in a press release announcing its participation in ExpectMore.gov, which "provides the public with candid, easy to understand assessments of federal programs," including approximately forty-three from EPA. So why did this huge, wasteful federal agency stonewall a small, information-seeking consumer advocacy organization and flout the law in the process?

Finally, in early March, two weeks before their final self-imposed deadline, EPA replied with a dodge, claiming that their Risk Assessment Guidelines are not statements of scientific fact -- and thus not covered by the IQA -- but merely statements of EPA policy. One might have hoped that science and policy would go together at the world's most powerful regulatory agency. WLF is appealing on behalf of ACSH, filing a request for reconsideration with the EPA

ACSH Holiday Dinner Menu

No human diet can be free of naturally occurring chemicals that are rodent carcinogens. Of the chemicals that people eat, 99.99% are natural." — Bruce Ames, Ph.D. and Lois Swirsky Gold, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
Menu analysis prepared by ACSH staff, directors, and scientific advisors, with technical assistance from Dr. Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition, and Dr. Leonard Flynn, scientific consultant.

Jumping Ship From the Rats
By Gilbert Ross, M.D.

We won! That is, the forces of science-based public health policy seem to have won -- if not the war, at least a major battle. At long last, federal risk assessors and regulators have come around to the view that administering chemicals to rodents in super-high doses does not reliably predict human risk -- of cancer, or anything else -- and that a better method needs to be employed, if we are to avoid more unnecessary bans, anti-chemical media hysteria, and activist crusades.

High dose animal tests on one rodent species don't reliably predict cancer risk in another rodent type, much less in humans. The same tests for "carcinogens" that are used to condemn synthetic chemicals also give false positive findings for a whole spectrum of natural substances that we safely eat, breathe, and drink every day.

Breast cancer may be sexually transmitted
By Judy Skatssoon

Breast cancer could be sexually transmitted, says a researcher who has found the same virus that causes cervical cancer in breast cancer tumours from Australian women. Emeritus Professor James Lawson of the University of New South Wales and colleagues have found the same form of the human papillomavirus (HPV) associated with cervical cancer in almost half the breast tumour samples they tested.

Cancer Clusters: Findings Vs Feelings
Medscape General Medicine [TM], David Robinson - Executive Summary

The issue of cancer clusters, which has been in the spotlight recently, is plagued by a wide disparity between public perceptions and scientific findings. Movies like Erin Brockovich have led the public to think that industrial pollution in the environment is causing local "cancer clusters" where cancer cases are more prevalent due to cancer-causing chemicals.

Feds Scare Public With Cancer 'Causes'
By Steven Milloy

The federal "cancer scare" machine this week labeled sunlight, birth control pills, hormone replacement therapy, wood dust and 12 other substances as "known" to cause cancer in humans. These additions bring to 228 the total number of substances supposedly "known" or "reasonably anticipated" to cause cancer. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says the National Toxicology Program's biennial report on carcinogens "helps all of us ensure that the American public is made aware of potential cancer hazards." What the American public should be made aware of is the certain absurdity of the NTP's cancer labeling scheme.

Nevada Cancer Scare Is Tree-Ring Circus
By Steven Milloy

Public health officials know better than to fret over reports of higher cancer rates in particular geographic locations. Such "cancer clusters" virtually always turn out to be the result of pure chance. But that hasn’t stopped others from whipping up worry over a leukemia cluster in the small town of Fallon, Nev.

Thirteen children have contracted leukemia since 1997 in Fallon, a farming and military community 60 miles east of Reno. Only two cases occurred in the prior 20 years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry investigated and last month held town meetings in Fallon to announce their findings.

Neither agency could identify a cause of the cancer cluster — not an unexpected result.
The CDC previously investigated and reported on 108 cancer clusters between 1961 and 1990. None could be linked with environmental causes. Because cancer clusters are now viewed as chance occurrences, state public health departments view cluster investigations as wild goose chases. They’ve even adopted procedures to avoid wasting precious resources on pointless investigations.

Mouse-Trapped: The Regulatory Juggernaut of Rodent Cancer-Testing
By Elizabeth Whelan

There is absolutely no scientific evidence that human exposure to rodent carcinogens poses a risk of human cancer.

Superstitions — closely held beliefs lacking any scientific support — have been around for ages. They promise empowerment: if you take some pre-emptive action (avoid broken mirrors, black cats, or ladders) you can dodge dire consequences. True, there is no evidence that such actions protect you, but just in case, you take a few extra steps to avoid the ladder. After all, you never know.

Superstitions prevail in our high-tech era. Take for example the common practice of using the results of high-dose rodent cancer tests to predict which substances might cause human cancer.

THE GREAT POTATO CHIP SCARE
By Steven Milloy

Swedish scientists reported this week that eating potato chips may expose you to dangerously high amounts of the supposedly cancer-causing substance acrylamide.
Not to worry, though. You'd choke on the chips before you croaked from the chemical.
Stockholm University researchers claim to have shown that baking or frying carbohydrate-rich foods, such as potatoes and cereals, formed acrylamide, a substance classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a "probable human carcinogen." "I have been in this field for 30 years and I have never seen anything like this before," said Leif Busk, head of research for Sweden's National Food Administration. "The discovery ... is new knowledge. It may now be possible to explain some of the cases of cancer caused by food ... Frying at high temperatures or for a long time should be avoided," Busk added.

Cancer TrendsThe True Causes of Cancer
By Angela Logomasini

Environmental activists have long claimed that man-made chemicals are causing rampant cancer rates that could be addressed only by government regulation. Accordingly, lawmakers have passed laws directing government agencies to study environmental causes of cancer, estimate the number of lives allegedly lost, and devise regulations to reduce death rates. However, lawmakers should be aware of some key problems with how this system has worked in practice. First, the claim that chemical pollution is a major cancer cause is wrong. Second, agencies have relied on faulty scientific methods that grossly overestimate potential cancer deaths from chemicals and potential lives saved by regulation. As a result, regulatory policy tends to divert billions of dollars from other life-saving uses or from other efforts to improve quality of life to pay for unproductive regulations.

A Cancer Non-Epidemic (from the New York Post)
By Jeff Stier, Esq.

In recent decades, many have claimed that cancer is rising because of increased use of human made chemicals. But if chemicals were a source of health problems, one might expect that as chemical use increased around the world, there would be a measurable adverse effect on life expectancy, cancer rates, or other illnesses. Yet in developed nations, where chemical use has greatly increased, people are living longer, healthier lives.

We have an epidemic of disbelief about cancer in this country -- but it's the opposite of what you probably expect. Cancer death rates have been falling for years, and now are falling even faster. Yet it's still stories about allegedly ignored cancer threats that grab our attention.

If death rates were rising, the situation would (rightly) be front-page news. But the new report by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Cancer Society notes that the rate of decline in U.S. cancer deaths has doubled. And that story got buried (A18 in The New York Times, nowhere in the Wall Street Journal).

Most people will have forgotten the good news by the next time an activist group talks up "the cancer epidemic."

Now for the Good News
By Indur M. Goklany

Mankind has never been healthier, wealthier or freer. Surprised? Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today.

Leaders & Success: Bruce Ames
By Michael Fumento

"Don't smoke and eat your fruits and veggies." If you ask Bruce Ames, that simple, folksy remedy is the best way to avoid cancer. So why is this 63-year-old professor of biology at the University of California, Berkeley, so controversial? Ames burst on the national scientific scene in the early 1970s with the development of a method, generally dubbed the Ames Test or the Ames Mutagenicity Test, to determine what chemicals caused a certain bacteria to mutate. This, in turn, could be used to help determine what chemicals cause cancer. …. Prodded by a tiny handful of doctors, such as Samuel Epstein of the University of Illinois at Chicago, by a media looking for headlines, and by celebrity spokespeople such as Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep, Americans, Ames says, are engaged in a veritable witch hunt against synthetically produced chemicals and the companies that make them…. And not only is there no cancer epidemic, says Ames, but the tests that purport to implicate synthetic chemicals as causes of human cancer in fact do no such thing.

Dose Matters in Fighting Chronic Disease
By John Weisburger, Ph.D., M.D.(hc)

I have researched the mechanisms of cancer causation, the ultimate goal of such activity being a sound basis for cancer prevention. Regrettably, many environmentalists, while allegedly having the same goal, know few of the facts bearing on this important issue -- in particular, they ignore the fact that substances that would be harmful in large doses may be harmless in tiny enough doses. This fact has implications for fighting cancer and chronic disease, since the environmentalists routinely treat even a single molecule of a banned substance as if it were a threat. My colleague and friend Gary M. Williams, now at New York Medical College, and I have published papers in this area. (See, for example: Weisburger JH, Williams GM (2000), The distinction between genotoxic and epigenetic carcinogens and implication for cancer risk. Toxicol. Sci 57:4-5).

Toilet Bowl Cancer Scare Deserves A Good Flush

By Steven J. Milloy

Do the deodorant toilet bowl blocks used in public restrooms cause cancer? “Chemical compounds in household products like mothballs and air fresheners can cause cancer by blocking the normal process of cell suicide,” reported University of Colorado researchers this week. The chemical compounds at issue are naphthalene, which is used in mothballs, and para-dichlorobenze (PDCB), which is used in deodorant toilet bowl blocks and other air fresheners. The study spawned worrisome headlines from the United Press International (“Mystery of carcinogenic mothballs solved”) and “[Colorado University] sniffs out cancer link in mothballs”). “This study shows why mothballs and some air freshener products may be harmful to humans,” said study author Ding Xue. “Understanding how carcinogenic compounds can trigger tumor growth is important for federal regulatory agencies that deal with human exposure to hazardous chemicals,” Xue added.

Since consumers use more than one million pounds of naphthalene and PDCB annually, should this new study cause worry? First, the researchers did not study whether the chemicals actually caused cancer in humans. Instead, they studied the effects of the chemicals on nematodes – worms, that is. When the worms were exposed to the chemicals, cells that normally would have died, instead survived, according to the researchers.

One day we're told that something will help us live to 150, the next that it causes cancer in white mice

By Jeremy Clarke

Is sunshine good for you? For years, scientists have warned us that to lie in the sun all day without sunscreen is more or less fatal. But new research is telling us that we can come out from under our beach umbrellas and sombreros because 95 per cent of our intake of vitamin D comes from sunshine. And vitamin D is essential for absorbing calcium, keeping bones healthy, and protecting against serious diseases such as osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes and multiple sclerosis…. Dr Hiley is angered by the way that the homeopathic industry exacerbates and then plays on men's fear of prostate cancer to sell its products. "They'll announce, for example, that prostate cancer kills 400,000 a year, when that figure would, in reality, be the combined US and UK fatalities in the past decade. The actual UK figure is 32,000 diagnoses and 10,000 deaths. In a sense, the increasing incidence of prostate cancer is a kind of success because it means people are living to a greater age than before."

Annual Report to the Nation Finds Cancer Death Rates Continue to Drop; Lower Cancer Rates Observed in U.S. Latino Populations
A new report from the nation's leading cancer organizations finds that Americans' risk of dying from cancer continues to drop, maintaining a trend that began in the early 1990s. However, the rate of new cancers remains stable. The "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2003, Featuring Cancer among U.S. Hispanic/Latino Populations" is published in the October 15, 2006, issue of Cancer*.

The report includes comprehensive data on trends over the past several decades for all major cancers. It shows that the long-term decline in overall cancer death rates continued through 2003 for all races and both sexes combined. The declines were greater among men (1.6 percent per year from 1993 through 2003) than women (0.8 percent per year from 1992 through 2003).

Science in the Media Sausage Grinder
By John Luik

Recent weeks have offered a rich harvest of new "health" threats with splashy headlines warning us about the supposed dangers from processed meats, hair dyes, and tanning parlors. While all of these stories are all a little odd, perhaps the oddest is the one about how meat increases the risk of stomach cancer. This story was featured on the networks and in several major papers. One news outlet even went so far as to tell its readers just how much bacon they could eat before being at risk for cancer! What makes the meat and stomach cancer story odd from the get-go is the fact that compared to the rest of the world, North America has one of the lowest rates of stomach cancer incidence and mortality in the world at 10 per 100,000. The highest rates are found in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe. And the pattern of declining incidence found here is repeated throughout much of the Western world. But the really peculiar thing about the meat and stomach cancer scare is how fundamentally at odds the news reports were from the actual science.

Asthma

2011-01-02T08:12:00.001-08:00

All too often we come to believe things simply because they are repeated over and over again without rebuttal. This page is designed to expose the reader to commentaries which will help dispel the myths surrounding the many claims about what causes asthma, especially in children, including pesticides.

Overlooking the Obvious: Cigarette Smoke and Asthma

Holcomb B. Noble's article discussing the heavy burden of asthma faced by poor, largely minority children in New York City (News article, July 27, 1999) neglects to mention a prime trigger of children's asthma: cigarette smoke. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is known to increase severity of asthma symptoms, and to impair recovery following hospitalization of asthmatic children.

Science Panel Rejects EPA Plan to Make Air Standards Even Stricter

Cindy F. Kleiman, MPH, Coordinator of Toxicology Projects for ACSH, stated that "the EPA has ignored a claim by one of the researchers that it is premature to single out a specific air pollution component, such as fine particulates, as being responsible for mortality. Nor is there consistent evidence to support EPA's claim that lowering of the ozone standard is needed to protect asthmatics. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control has not implicated outdoor ozone as a primary factor in recent increases in asthma occurrence."

The Increasing Rate of Asthma in the U.S

Back in July 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new air quality standards to tighten ozone and particulate matter (soot) pollution to provide “additional protection for children and asthmatics.” This regulation, however, is ill–directed and a misuse of public health funds.

Vitamins Linked to Asthma; Activist Groups Silent

We noted in May that antioxidant vitamins may sometimes be harmful for the heart. In June, we reported that vitamin C use was linked to arthritis. Now, a study published in the July issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, tells us that multi-vitamin use within the first six months of life is associated with a higher risk for asthma in black infants. It also found that vitamin use at age three was associated with an increased risk for food allergies.

EPA's Pollution-Asthma Theory Is Full Of Bugs

Specifically, they have invoked rising child asthma rates. But while their claims are emotionally gripping, their arguments are scientifically bankrupt. ……….But don't hold your breath (as it were) waiting for a government or activist-group campaign against cockroaches. The EPA doesn't have jurisdiction over bugs. And after all, groups like the Chemical Manufacturers' Association make nicer – and bigger – targets.

The Mysterious Asthma Increase

Asthma is on the rise, and the experts are not sure why. Outdoor air pollution is the most politically popular culprit but is unlikely to be the cause, while more plausible explanations have thus far received scant attention. The latest study from the Public Health Policy Advisory Board (PHPAB), a not-for-profit public health advocacy group, underscores the many uncertainties regarding this increasingly common disease. Nonetheless, Asthma: Epidemic Increase Cause Unknown, is important reading in that it spells out what needs to be learned before this epidemic can be effectively addressed.

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History of Environmentalism

2011-01-02T04:34:00.000-08:00

This section will explore the history of the environmental movement; from its origins in paganism to its neo-pagan fascist form today; and the goals it hopes to attain. I hope you will enjoy this excursion.

...

Markham's Environmental Organizations in Modern Germany
By William Walter Kay

Intro

Professor Markham’s nine-year project, Environmental Organizations in Modern Germany, is another inside job. Markham thanks Professor Wiesenthal for opening doors to the German environmental movement and to the Green Party. He also thanks: two officials from the German Nature Protection League, the former President of the German League for Environment and Nature Protection, and the faculty at Wageningen University’s Environmental Policy Group. While writing this book Markham was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service and the Wageningen Institute for Environment and Climate Research. He spent weeks at Neubrandenburg’s Study Archive for Environmental History and Bonn’s Federal Nature Protection Library. He interviewed two dozen German enviro-organization leaders and he watched a lot of German TV. As ever with enviro-scholars, Professor Markham knoweth not what he hath wrought.

Highlights:

Germany is driving the Climate Change campaign.

Many major international enviro-organizations (Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Birdlife International, etc.) are controlled by their German chapters.

Several militant leaders of Germany’s confrontational early-1980s environmentalist protests were, a decade later, running government ministries.

While Germany’s big enviro-organizations masquerade as citizens’ crusades, they are in fact top-down bureaucracies full of cynical well-paid careerists who work in tandem with state and corporate elites.

Only 40 (forty) persons within Greenpeace-Germany’s half million members may vote for the board of directors. WWF-Germany has a self-perpetuating board and zero internal democracy.

The League for Homeland and Environment, League for Nature Protection, and League for Environment and Nature Protection have intertwined histories, memberships, and goals. They were reactionaries before, and raving Nazis during, the Third Reich. Collectively they now have one million supporters spread over 4,000 local clubs. These are “mainstream” German enviro-organizations.

Although it came as a revelation to Professor Markham, beneath the surface of Germany’s 9,000 “mainstream” enviro-organizations lurks a huge sub-movement that can only be described as Neo-Nazi. Markham concludes this sub-movement retains the potential to take over the entire movement.

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Petropoulos - Royals and the Reich

By William Kay

An important feature environmentalism shares with fascism is the centrality, within each movement, of the European aristocracy. However, while aristocrats flaunt their environmental credentials, they conceal their past involvement with fascism. This is why Jonathon Petropoulos’ Royals and the Reich (Oxford, 2006) is so useful.

Highlights:

270 German princes and princesses were Nazi Party members. A sampling of 312 “old aristocratic” families found 3,592 Party members. Every noble family east of the Elbe River had at least one member in the Party. A third of Nazi-aristocrats joined the Party before Hitler became Chancellor; a majority supported the Nazis, or like groups, before this date. Nobles were the most fascistic of any demographically identifiable cohort. Royal Hohenzollern princes were high-profile Nazi campaigners during the Nazis’ struggle for power. Aristocrats occupied thousands of top government posts during the Third Reich.

King Edward VIII was a Nazi. He was definitely guilty of treason and possibly guilty of attempted regicide. Edward did not abdicate in order to marry Wallis Simpson. He was forced from the throne by PM Baldwin because Edward was heading up a Nazi fifth column in the UK. George V, George VI, the Duke of Kent and scores of British aristocrats promoted “appeasement.” This “peace movement” was an effort to steer Britain into the Axis.

Western Europe’s aristocracy, including most German princes, survived World War II. They retained, even supplemented, their land holdings. Over the past few decades they have engineered a remarkable renaissance.

The founding philosopher of the deep green movement was a Nazi
Most of the Green thinkers of Nazism are now forgotten but Heidegger is still honored -- as is his authoritarian proclivities

One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, foundational to the academic left and deep ecology of the greens, was committed to Nazism.

The green Nazi/deep ecology connection in the life and works of Martin Heidegger have been routinely given a pass over the years by many western scholars who love his existential philosophy.

Green, brown and bloody all over
Nazism and ecology? The Nazi party as a green movement? At first glance such analogies seem ridiculous, absurd, outrageous. In 1985, historian Anna Bramwell published a book in which she claimed outright that the Nazi party was a "green party." She focused on Richard Walther Darre, the agricultural minister of Nazi Germany, and his "Blut und Boden" ("blood and soil") ideology. Darre, wrote Bramwell, was the head of the "green" faction of the Nazi party, which greatly influenced the thinking of leading Nazis, among them Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Bramwell called Darre the "father of the greens" for his support of organic agriculture, restrictions on the use of mechanized farming methods, and so on. In its time, if I am not mistaken, the book was quite esoteric. (This is an attempt to show that Nazi Germany was "not" a green government. If a government imposes green regulations on its society....it is a green government. The fact that they abandoned it because of the war is immaterial. RK)

Fascist Ecology:
The "Green Wing" of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents
Peter Staudenmaier

"We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought." 1

In our zeal to condemn the status quo, radicals often carelessly toss about epithets like "fascist" and "ecofascist," thus contributing to a sort of conceptual inflation that in no way furthers effective social critique. In such a situation, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are still virulent strains of fascism in our political culture which, however marginal, demand our attention. One of the least recognized or understood of these strains is the phenomenon one might call "actually existing ecofascism," that is, the preoccupation of authentically fascist movements with environmentalist concerns. In order to grasp the peculiar intensity and endurance of this affiliation, we would do well to examine more closely its most notorious historical incarnation, the so-called "green wing" of German National Socialism.

Hitler: green guru
By Australian columnist Andrew Bolt

The big risk in making films about Hitler isn't that you make the Nazi dictator look too nice. It's the very opposite, as we saw this week with Channel 7's hit mini-series, Hitler: The Rise of Evil. The real danger is making Hitler seem plainly crazy and evil - leaving viewers unable to understand why such a man won so much support from so many people, and not only Germans. We need instead to know what led people to admire Hitler, rather than to see him for what he was: an enemy of freedom. We need to know this, because some of the same cultural forces that helped Hitler -- such as the green movement -- are among us again today.

Of course I'm not saying that green activists are closet Nazis. Nor do I think Australians will ever pull on jackboots, torch Parliament House and fling liberal politicians into concentration camps. Still . . .

Dominick's German Environmental Movement 1871 to 1971
By William Walter Kay

Intro

This is a critical condensation of Raymond H. Dominick III’s The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers, 1871-1971. Highlights:

In 1918 Prussia’s Government Nature-care Center sought a directory of major German Nature-protection organizations (ones with notable achievements). They came up with 264 organizations. The Center’s bibliography of German Nature-protection publications listed 10,000 titles. The German conservation movement counted 100,000 active participants and was led by hundreds of aristocrats.

German forestry, ornithology and ecology academies were created in the 19th century as auxiliaries of the conservation movement. The German conservation movement was overwhelmingly and durably aligned with Nazism. The Third Reich was a flamboyantly green regime.........Most arguments used by environmentalists today were articulated by conservationists during the reign of the Kaisers. Many conservation organizations operating in 1918 continue to operate. The line from 19th century Nature-protection to modern environmentalism is without gaps or reversals of direction.

The first “acid rain” scare was in 1864..........

The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492
by William M. Denevan
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706

Abstract. The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness, -a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.- There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wildlife disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settlements were ubiquitous. With Indian depopulation in the wake of Old World disease, the environment recovered in many areas. A good argument can be made that the human presence was less visible in 1750 than it was in 1492.

Uekoetter’s “Green and Brown” Condensed and Critiqued

Intro By William Walter Kay

Culture wars like real wars have direct hits, collateral damage, and friendly fire. Professor Uekoetter’s The Green and the Brown: a History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is an example of friendly fire. The book was written to contain damage caused by growing awareness that Nazism is the forbearer of German environmentalism but it is yet another trove of facts affirming the Nazi-environmentalist connection. German conservationism, and its attendant tendencies and sentiments, was not a distinct social movement separable from German fascism. Parallel to the Gestapo’s nightmarish dragnet ran a green reign of terror of intrusive eco-activism. German conservationism survived World War II. What follows is a critical condensation of Green and Brown.

Environmentalism 400 BC

By William Walter Kay
Decent word-pictures of environmentalism won’t be had from those embroiled in the coil over the latest eco-imbroglio. Viewed macroscopically, environmentalism is usurping state power. Entirely for self-aggrandizement, an oligarchic party is imposing a policy platform. Environmentalism isn’t about mutant tadpoles or melting icebergs. It’s about economic containment. It’s an oligarchy bringing uppity capitalists to heel. This is a repeat performance. The classic rendition was given at Athens, 400 BC.

Environmentalism's Appropriation of Christianity

By William Walter Kay

"The ecological reformation of Christianity," according to one scholar, "may be one of the most significant, though least noted events of this age." (1) The environmental movement has conducted a 50 year campaign to appropriate the world's Christian Churches. This is a top-down affair involving the recruitment of key clerics, theologians, Archbishops, Patriarchs and Popes. The stakes are huge. Churches claim 2 billion followers and assets worth trillions (US$). The reformation is partly complete. While Churches now promote Ecology they have yet to convert most Christians into green consumers, activists and voters.

Nazi Oaks Book Review

By Bruce Walker
It is odd, really more like eerie, how similar many of the fetishes of dead totalitarian systems of the last century are to the curiosities of modern leftism. The Nazi war on tobacco, for example, mirrors modern jihads against smoking, which invariably portray tobacco companies as evil. Mussolini, the leader of Fascism, prided himself on not smoking or drinking, just as Hitler, the leader of Nazism did, who was also a vegetarian. (Winston Churchill, by contrast, drank, smoked, and ate copiously.)

Nazis bragged early about putting into the horrors of concentration camps those who committed cruelty to animals. Fascists in Italy also pointed out to the world that their system of totalitarianism was solicitous of the welfare of animals. There was, in Italy, a “Fascist Society for the Protection of Animals” and the Fascists took early steps to preserve endangered animal species.

One overlooked area in which Nazism and modern leftism converge is the worship of nature, the expansion of a gentle and loving appreciation of divinely created beauty into an obsession bordering on religious fanaticism. Mark Musser, in his new book, Nazi Oaks, Advantage Inspirational, not only explores the historical development of radical environmentalism within the Nazi movement but he explains how this totalitarianism is grounded in a violent rejection of the historical Judeo-Christian worldview, which views nature as a blessing created for man by God. The Old Testament, as Musser explains, has an historical and a metaphysical prelude to problems which we associate with modern and thoughtful secularism.

Why gov't, media, corporations, celebs embrace 'green' scam
By Christopher Grey
The science behind global warming and other apocalyptic visions already has been debunked or at least seriously called into question. Of course hundreds of millions people still believe it with a religious fervor that can range from being amusing to really scary.

Sometimes it even seems environmentalism is hostile to the concept of humans on Earth – even while it promotes itself as the only way to sustain this planet for human inhabitants. This raises an interesting question. Why are so many people so devoted to a set of beliefs not based on facts and not based on any higher power such as a more traditional concept of God?

Jacoby's Hidden History of American Conservation (2010)

By William Walter Kay

American environmentalism existed in a clearly recognizable form in the 1860s. The movement, then known as conservationism, became a dominant political force in the 1885 to 1915 era. Some salient features from that era:

• The overwhelming, and explicit, consensus of conservationists was that wilderness could be protected only by imposing martial law.

• Conservationist zealot Army Captain George Anderson incarcerated suspected wilderness wrongdoers in solitary confinement cages; keeping them on bread and water diets for over month at a time. He freely admitted there was no legal basis for such punishment.

• New York conservationists pulled off an exquisite climate change hoax in their successful campaign to enclose the massive Adirondack Forest Preserve.

• Senior conservationist William Hornaday, declared the town of Gardiner, Montana should be “wiped off the map.” He claimed there were 1,000 towns in the West in a similar “degenerate state, bordering on barbarism” because their inhabitants were “afflicted with a desire to do as they please with the natural resources of that region.”

• William Rockefeller bought most of the land in and around the Adirondack town of Brandon, New York. He razed the houses, planted trees in their stead and for this was hailed as the “Maker of Wilderness” by Collier’s magazine.

• Arizona’s Havasupai tribe were given a tiny reservation completely surrounded by a federal forest reserve and later were banned from the forest reserve.

………..Every environmental history has its obligatory fascist wink. Jacoby’s parting words are: “Americans have often pursued environmental quality at the expense of social justice. One would like to imagine that the two goals are complimentary and that the only way to achieve a healthy environment is through a truly democratic society. But for now, these two objectives remain separate guiding stars in a dark night sky, and we can only wonder if they lead us to the same hoped-for destination.”

Can Global Warming Alarmists Stand the Test of Time?
By James Marusek

Over the centuries, mankind has experienced tremendous rainfalls and massive floods, monster hurricanes and typhoons, destructive tornadoes, parched-earth droughts, strong gales, flash floods, great snowfalls and killer blizzards, lightning storms sent down from the heavens, blind dense fogs, freezing rain, sleet, great hail, and bone-chilling cold and even an occasional mud storm or two and in-between, periods of warm sunshine and tranquility. And WE ARE STILL HERE. We are perhaps a little battered and bruised from the wear. But there is nothing new in the weather to fear because we have been there before. We have learned to cope. We have developed knowledge, skills and tools to reduce the effects of weather extremes.

Today, every time a heat wave or a great flood occurs (such as those in Russia and Pakistan this year), voices arise claiming this is more proof of man-made global warming. I wonder to myself if these voices are intentionally ignorant of historical weather extremes or just dishonest.

Early meteorologist and historians have documented weather for many centuries. Recently, I have compiled several of these accounts into “A Chronological Listing of Early Weather Events” and published this document on his Impact website. This chronology covers the years 0 to 1900 A.D. (When downloading the file, please be a little patient. This is a master resource and the 6.5 MB file may take a few minutes to access.)

Why is a chronological listing of weather events of value? If one wishes to peer into the future, then a firm grasp of the past events is a key to that gateway. This is intrinsically true for the scientific underpinnings of weather and climate.

The Nazi Father of Global Warming Apocalypse

We often think about environmentalism as a left-wing ideology. However, the mass-organized environmentalism can only be invariantly identified as a totalitarian ideology; whether it is left-wing or right-wing is somewhat flexible.

In the article The Roots of Environmentalism, I have discussed some aspects of the environmentalist obsession of the German Nazis. An hour ago, Ron de Haan just posted a link to a fascinating article by Mark Musser written for the American Thinker, The Nazi Origins of Apocalyptic Global Warming Theory. The first book that defended the idea of a catastrophe caused by carbon dioxide was written by Gunther Schwab, an Austrian Nazi and environmentalist.

The Nazi Origins of Apocalyptic Global Warming Theory

By Mark Musser

One of the primary pioneering theorists on apocalyptic global warming is Guenther Schwab (1902-2006), an Austrian Nazi. In 1958, Schwab wrote a fictional novel built off of Goethe’s (1749-1832) Faustian religious play entitled “Dance with the Devil”. While a few scientists since the late 1800’s had contemplated the possibility of minor global warming coming from industrial pollution, Schwab used Goethe's dramatic approach to convert the theory into an apocalyptic crisis. The book outlines many looming environmental emergencies, including anthropogenic global warming. Guenther Schwab's very popular novel was an apocalyptic game changer. By the early 1970's, it had been translated into several languages and had sold over a million copies.

At one point in his novel, Schwab opines on the fragile relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Assuming the planet has only about 100 years remaining, Schwab frets over the continuing rise of carbon dioxide that "will absorb and hold fast the warmth given out by the earth. This will cause the climate to become milder and the Polar ice will begin to thaw. As a result, there will be a rise in the level of the ocean and whole continents will be flooded."......

Human Sacrifice on the Altar of Gaia
June 2008
By Anne Barbeau Gardiner
In the past thirty years, scientist James Lovelock, Fellow of the Royal Society in England and originator of the Gaia Theory, has published several books on Gaia. It was around 1970 that Lovelock first came up with the name "Gaia" for the Earth (he usually puts a capital E on Earth). In his latest outing, The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back -- and How We Can Still Save Humanity, he assures us several times that he uses the name as a metaphor. But it turns out that for him a metaphor is not just a rhetorical device: He finds Gaia a "useful metaphor" because the present ecological crisis "requires us to know the true nature of the Earth and imagine it as the largest living thing in the solar system." Here the metaphor Gaia turns out to be the way to know the true nature of the planet. Then Lovelock invites us to a change of "heart and mind" so that we may "instinctively sense" Gaia as a living planet. How can we instinctively sense a metaphor? Evidently, Gaia is for him far more than a trope. While he admits that the name offends the "scientifically correct," he declares that he is "unrepentant" about using it because this metaphor is a "path to the primitive feelings of the unconscious part of our minds." That's the part he thinks we can use to contact Gaia.

Is Green Another Word For Pagan?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Wendell Krossa
Anne Gardiner presents a good summary of some of the pagan mythology behind modern environmental thought. Alston Chase similarly traces something of the mythological roots of this movement in his book In A Dark Wood.

Gardiner also expresses the great battle for human minds and freedom that this environmental movement is shaping up to be. It is becoming the defining issue of our time- the environmentalist assault on human freedom. Some have suggested that it could become a totalitarianism that would outdo totalitarianisms of the past because it wants to legislate human behavior in constraining detail that other movements did not engage. And it demands a reversal of the human enterprise (and humanity itself) on a scale that few other movements envisioned.

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DDT

2011-01-01T04:21:00.000-08:00

All too often we will read articles which will make comments regarding the detrimental effect that DDT has had on the environment and society. It has been known that this information is false since Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. The links on this page are designed to dispel all of those falsehoods.

100 things you should know about DDT

Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote "Dr. DeWitt's now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched." DeWitt's 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion.

Bald-Eagle/DDT Lies Still Flying High

Pennsylvania officials just announced success with their program to re-establish the state's bald eagle population. But it's a shame that such welcome news is being tainted by oft-repeated myths about the great bird's near extinction. In its July 4 article reporting that the number of bald eagle pairs in Pennsylvania had increased from 3 in 1983 to 100 for the first time in over a century, the Associated Press reached into its file of bald eagle folklore and reported, "DDT poisoned the birds, killing some adults and making the eggs of those that survived thin. The thin eggs dramatically reduced the chances of eaglets surviving to adulthood. DDT was banned in 1972. The next year, the Endangered Species Act passed and the bald eagles began their dramatic recovery”.

The Spring is Silent on DDT
Let there be no doubt that the war on malaria has failed. It is estimated that 800,000 children in Africa die from the disease every year, and as many as three million people altogether every year.”

Pesticides and the West Nile Virus: An Examination of Environmentalist Claims

Ever since the mosquito-transmitted West Nile Virus appeared in New York City during 1999, environmental activists have been fighting efforts to keep the disease under control. Not only have they battled against any spraying for adult mosquitoes, they have also fought methods to manage mosquito larvae. These groups maintain that the control methods are more dangerous than the diseases they seek to control. In the case of spraying, activists say that the chemicals imperil public health and can kill or harm wildlife. These groups claim further that other methods, such as the use of biological agents to kill mosquito larvae, disrupt the balance of nature and thereby threaten non-target species. Finally, while maintaining that spraying can devastate non-target organisms such as butterflies and aquatic life, many groups claim that mosquito control efforts have little or no impact on mosquito populations."

What do the people who face this disaster think about DDT?
Here is the heart breaking reality!

Mr President, DDT will end malaria

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

Killing Malarial Mosquitos Now!

by Paul Driessen
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.

DDT - Scientist who warned against DDT ban dies

By Steven Milloy
Millions in the third world die from malaria every year in large part because of a virtual ban on the controversial insecticide DDT; the removal of the unwarranted stigma from DDT and the saving of many future lives is now nearer at hand than it has been in the last 30 years thanks to the efforts of Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, who passed away on July 19 at the age of 85.

Though Dr. Edwards is best known to the general public as the author of the now-classic 1961 book "A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park," his work as an entomologist and professor at San Jose State University may prove to be his most important legacy.

Dr. Edwards led the opposition to environmental extremist efforts to ban DDT in the wake of Rachel Carson's infamous 1962 book "Silent Spring." The testimony of Dr. Edwards and others during Environmental Protection Agency hearings in 1971 on whether to ban the insecticide led to an EPA administrative law judge ruling that, "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man. The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.

Sick and Deadly Disease Control Programs
By Paul Driessen

Too many of them perpetuate disease and cost lives. If an accident kills wildlife or people, punishment is meted out and restitution made. A host of regulators, lawyers, judges, activists, journalists, and politicians help bring the wrongdoers to justice.

But when it comes to policies and programs that sicken and kill millions of parents and children a year, these ethics cops and eco warriors are not just silent. They refuse to hold government agencies and activist groups to the same honesty and accountability standards they apply to for-profit companies. They even oppose programs that would reduce disease and save lives.

More than two billion people worldwide are at risk of getting malaria, and 350-500 million contract it every year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease kills up to a million African children annually, making it the continent's greatest executioner of children under age five.In Uganda alone, a nation of 30 million people, 60 million cases of malaria caused 110,000 deaths in 2005. In its Apac District, a person is likely to be bitten 1,560 times a year by mosquitoes infected with malaria parasites. The disease also perpetuates poverty (sick people can't work) and increases deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diarrhea, and malnutrition.

US Scientist Says Banning DDT Unwise

A US scientist last week warned that malaria rates are rising in developing countries that have eliminated the use of DDT. Many developing countries have been pressured to cease using the pesticide because of environmental concerns. Tropical disease expert Donald Roberts is also part of the Save Children from Malaria Campaign, which promotes use of DDT to control malaria in developing countries. He said the chemical can be used safely if sprayed in small amounts inside homes to repel mosquitoes which carry the disease.

DDT : Myths And Realities
DR. TIRTHANKAR BASU

Zelder received a Ph.D degree from University of Strassburg for the synthesis of DDT, Muller was awarded the 1948 Nobel prize for discovering its insecticidal properties. Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, former Director, Monks Wood Experimental Station, UK, in his lecture during golden jubilee year of DDT discovery celebration concluded; “There is one major use for which, there is at present, no alternative chemical for killing adult mosquitoes placing a residual deposit of DDT on the inside walls of house. This causes minimum or no environmental contamination with the maximum effect on the mosquito population. I hope that this use will be continued and extended.”

This next article is a must read article

The Rise, Fall, Rise, and Imminent Fall of DDT
by Roger Bate

DDT is probably the single most valuable chemical ever synthesized to prevent disease. It has been used continually in public health programs over the past sixty years and has saved millions from diseases like malaria, typhus, and yellow fever. Despite a public backlash in the 1960s, mainstream scientific and public health communities continue to recognize its utility and safety. DDT's delisting for various uses in the United States in 1972 was a political, not a scientific, judgment. After decades of extensive study and use, DDT has not been proven to be harmful to humans. But by 1997, its future looked bleak. Environmentalists were pushing for it to be banned worldwide, and its most articulate champion, the South African Department of Health, stopped using it. Surprisingly, DDT recovered its reputation, and in 2006 the World Health Organization (WHO) championed it again. But celebrations have been short-lived. The momentum to increase DDT use has stalled for lack of increased political and financial support.

The Lies of Rachel Carson
by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards

A well-known entomologist documents some of the misstatements in Carson’s Silent Spring, the 1962 book that poisoned public opinion against DDT and other pesticides.

In 1962, when Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring, I was delighted. I belonged to several environmental-type organizations, had no feelings of respect for industry or big business, had one of my own books published by the Sierra Club, and I had written articles for The Indiana Waltonian, Audubon Magazine, and other environmental magazines….I eagerly read the condensed version of Silent Spring in the New Yorker magazine and bought a copy of the book as soon as I could find it in the stores. As I read the first several chapters I noticed many statements that I realized were false; however, one can overlook such things when they are produced by one’s cohorts, and I did just that.

As I neared the middle of the book, the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts and was also deliberately wording many sentences in such a way as to make them imply certain things without actually saying them. She was carefully omitting everything that failed to support her thesis that pesticides were bad, that industry was bad, and that any scientists who did not support her views were bad. I then took notice of her bibliography and realized that it was filled with references from very unscientific sources. Also, each reference was cited separately each time it appeared in the book, thus producing an impressive array of “references” even though not many different sources were actually cited. I began to lose confidence in Rachel Carson, even though I thought that as an environmentalist I really should continue to support her.

An Invaluable Insecticide
By Roger Bate

DDT has come under fire from large corporations and environmentalists. But it is saving lives in Southern Africa. Uganda’s High Court recently ordered the health ministry to stop spraying the insecticide DDT in the northern part of the country. Until there is a final ruling on a lawsuit brought by nine companies (including those supplying British American Tobacco), no life-saving DDT can be sprayed. The companies allege that their exports of organic produce, including tobacco, might be harmed if they became contaminated with traces of DDT. Given that more than 300 Ugandan children die each day from malaria, delaying the indoor spraying of DDT will surely cost lives.

In part, the Court’s decision reflects environmentalist hostility to DDT, which has made many African officials unduly skittish about using the chemical. European governments have issued mixed messages, privately advising against DDT use and publicly saying they will boycott produce imports if traces of the chemical are too high. Only those governments and companies courageous and rich enough to ignore Western environmental pressure—notably those of Southern Africa—are using significant and useful amounts of DDT.

The Killer Elite
By Paul Driessen
Anti-pesticide activists perpetuate diseases that kill millions
Summary: Malaria is a disease that kills three times more African children than AIDS. Hundreds of millions are infected and up to two million die annually. But as the body count continues to mount, environmental activists and international aid agencies continue a deadly campaign against DDT.

Bring Back DDT, and Science With It
by Marjorie Mazel Hecht

The 1972 U.S. ban on DDT is responsible for a genocide 10 times larger than that for which we sent Nazis to the gallows at Nuremberg. It is also responsible for a menticide which has already condemned one entire generation to a dark age of anti-science ignorance, and is now infecting a new one.

Sixty million people have died needlessly of malaria, since the imposition of the 1972 ban on DDT, and hundreds of millions more have suffered from this debilitating disease. The majority of those affected are children. Of the 300 to 500 million new cases of malaria each year, 200 to 300 million are children, and malaria now kills one child every 30 seconds. Ninety percent of the reported cases of malaria are in Africa, and 40 percent of the world’s population, inhabitants of tropical countries, are threatened by the increasing incidence of malaria.

Malaria atonement and forgiveness
By Paul Driessen

Anti-DDT, anti-energy groups have much to atone for. During the Days of Repentance, Jews ponder their sins of the past year. Today, Yom Kippur, is their final opportunity to make amends and alter the judgment that God will enter in his books, as the sun sets. This Day of Atonement, however, can assure forgiveness only for sins between people and God. To atone for sins against other persons, we must first seek reconciliation with those we have wronged, demonstrate repentance, and right the wrongs or make restitution.

In this politicized age, many people have their own lists of folks who "ought to be seeking forgiveness." I'm on several – including Greenpeace's roster of "climate criminals.

DDT: Behind the Scare Stories
By Michael R. Fox Ph.D.

On Aug. 21, 2007, in the Hawaii Reporter, a Mr. Todd Shelly took issue -- When Ideology Trumps Science: Michael R. Fox Takes on DDT and Birds with earlier materials I’d written about DDT and related subjects. Curiously and inappropriately, he applies his personal template of politics to his versions of me and the issues of DDT.

It is a simplistic template that requires the belief that Democrats are good; Republicans are bad, end of story. His template failed him immediately since in the case of DDT, one of the major players supporting the DDT ban was William D. Ruckelshaus, the first Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a liberal Republican. He also was appointed by President Nixon. Scientific fraud is not limited to the political left, although Ruckelshaus was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and showed great deference to them

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For more links to articles dealing with all the issues surrounding the ban on DDT, please go to the Ohio Pest Management Association’s web site page, Insight on the Issues, or Steve Milloy’s Debunk-O-Saurus DDT page

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