The Sorry Legacy of the Environmental Movement

The Washington Post had a piece praising Rachel Carson, the author of A Silent Spring, the book which launched the environmental movement and prompted governments worldwide to ban DDT, a chemical which was highly effective at erradicating malaria-bearing mosquitos but had some environmental side effects. Rich Karlgaard at Forbes took a look at the Carson legacy and the Post story and found them wanting:

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let's stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Every year, 800,000 small children die from malaria, a disease once nearly eradicated. Ponder that.

But at least there's plenty of birds in the Spring...