The Rural Voice, 1979-02, Page 15Opinion(ated) by Adrian Vos
Environmental fairy tales
"It would be well for all of us to remember that suspicion is far
more apt to be wrong than right, and unfair and unjust than fair.
It is a first cousin to prejudice and persecution and an unhealthy
weed that grows with them."
Dr. Francis J. Braceland and
Michael Stock, 0.P.
On the Interim Report on Nuclear Power in Ontario, Margaret
Maxey is quoted as saying; "As we condemn Detroit and auto
emissions for making the city air unbreathable, let us remember
a New York in 1900 with 150,000 horses in its streets and the
emissions they produced." She said further that today's
environmental crisis mentality and all the regulatory machinery
generated by it constitutes the first problem that needs to be
addressed: namely, how is society to exercise some historical
and scientific perspective that will result in balanced judgements
about alleged environmental hazards posed by advanced
technology?
Many times I have been asked by some self-styled
environmental purist, if I use chemicals on the fields, and when I
cheerily admit that 1 do, I often get a compassionate scrutiny and
a shake of the head as if they are saying: How in the world can
you do such a thing.
When I tell them that there is no difference between nitrogen
from the air, from manure, from legumes or from natural gas,
they stare in disbelief, for their little magazines have told them
differently. Of course I have been brainwashed by the big bad
chemical companies,
When I read their little magazines, I get the impression that
there were no chemicals used before the last war. We can readily
sympathize with those gullible people, who take for granted that
these articles are the whole truth, but I have difficulty with the
writers of the stuff. They just write off the top of their heads,
without doing any research, and when a true researcher tells
them differently, they refuse to accept his findings. Some of
these modern day prophets of doom make a living in the
spreading of these fairy tales.
One of these fairy tales is the myth that DDT is carcinogenic.
There is not a shred of evidence to support this claim anywhere.
The reasoning goes that 80 years ago there was less cancer as
there is today. Since 80 years ago there was no DDT, it follows
that DDT causes the cancer increase. That most cancer cases
involves people of 45 years or more, and that there were few
people of that age in 1900, is completely ignored. Mind that the
same reasoning goes into other substances as well, and that it is
used as an excuse to promote margarine over butter as well, in
order to prevent heart disease.
One fairy tale is that before the age of synthetic pesticides
there was no problem with insects. The farmer simply rotated his
crops and, voila, next year he had a clean field. They have never
heard of the potato beetle or the army worm?
The only pesticide used was lead arsenate, which killed
literally everything that came into contact with it. At least DDT
killed only insects and fish. The problem with DDT was that only
belatedly it was realized that over -use caused problems but
contrary to common conceptions. it doesn't kill humans or
warmblooded animals. They store DDT in fat tissues and do not
act as a nerve poison as it does in insects and invertebrates.
When a certain level is reached, it doesn't build up anymore.
After a peak level is reached all new material is immediately
excreted, so there is no danger of a slow poisoning. Today we
have the strange fact that a rather harmless insecticide, about as
poisonous as asperin, has been replaced by parathion, which is
so dangerous that a single drop in the eye can kill a person.
While the environmental movement rejoiced about a victory
when DDT got banned, farm families mourned the deaths of
hundreds of farm workers and children who have been poisoned
by the substitute.
Up until the 1950's, corn yields were about 25 bushels per
acre. Since then, thanks to the use of pesticides, it has reached
the hundred bushel per acre mark. Would the environmentalist
really be willing to pay four times as much for his food? Would
the average consumer really be willing to eat half as much meat
as he does today at four times the price? Judging by the howls of
anguish on the price of a steak by the members of the
entertainment industry in Hollywood, many of them ardent
environmentalists, methinks not.
Fortunately we can live without the use of DDT, since other
insecticides have been developed. These too run into opposition
from the purists, who stubbornly claim that a synthetic, or
factory produced chemical is different from a naturally produced
chemical. A synthetic chemical is dangerous and the same
chemical produced "organically" is not.
To use the example of DDT again, Dr. Frank Graham found
that the amount of DDT in Swedish soil exceeds the total amount
ever used in that country. This proves the point that this
chemical is present in natural form in the soil, as are most other
chemicals.
In a previous article we pointed out that plants also produce
chemicals to protect themselves. William Tucker says in
"Harper's Magazine": "Certain cacti give off herbicidal
chemicals that make it impossible to other plants to germinate in
the immediate vicinity." A birth control chemical for plants.
Others grow thorns and needles and synthesize chemicals to'
make them taste bitter, inedible and poisonous to animal and
insect. Chrisanthemums have been known since antiquity and
used by the Persians as a source of insecticides. They belong to
the group pyrethrins. However, insects build up a resistance
against any poison, so a new one has to be developed from time
to time. The plants do this too. The Dutch Elm disease wiped out
large areas of our Elm trees, but here and there there is one who
has developed a chemical to resist the fungus that killed his
relatives. That the purists are opposing humanity to do what the
plants have always done doesn't make much sense.
The opposition against the use of agricultural chemicals, food
THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1979 PG. 15