Truffula Tuft

Rachel Carson, DDT and Bats

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson has been one of my heros for a long time. An early prophet of the environmental movement, her book Silent Spring (published just a few weeks after I was born in 1962) made the problems with pesticides public for the first time. As a result DDT was banned in the US. That this is a good thing should be a no-brainer, right? But apparently she is still being vilified for it 40 years later. The reason given - malaria kills millions of people annually worldwide. Because DDT has been used against the mosquitos that spread malaria, some say it's her fault that people are still dying from it. This is not only spurious, it's based on ignorance and possibly corrupt science.

I had no idea there was a controversy about it until I found this on enviro blog, Celsias:

Rachel Carson - is she friend, or foe?

There has long been a debate over the effects of Rachel Carson’s work Silent Spring, and that debate came to a head recently when a U.S. Senator effectively blocked a resolution to honor Carson on what would have been her 100th birthday:

"A Republican Senator known for his criticism of various environmental causes is single-handedly holding up two bills in the US Senate that would honor the life of Rachel Carson, author of the well-known book Silent Spring, RAW STORY has learned. The bills were introduced by a bipartisan group of Senators from Carson’s home-states of Pennsylvania and Maryland on the occasion of the centennial of her birthday on May 27. “This week, Dr. Coburn blocked two bills intended to honor Rachel Carson on the 100th anniversary of her birth (one bill to name a post office after her in PA, and a resolution honoring her),” said a press release at Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) website." - Raw Story

My initial thought was: “Why on earth would someone block an attempt to honor someone posthumously, unless that person was someone heinous, like maybe Hitler or Stalin?” What I found was shocking. The Senator apparently subscribes to a theory that actually does compare Carson to Hitler and other brutal dictators....

read the rest here.

Rachel Carson never advocated a total ban on DDT. Instead she pointed out that the indiscriminate spraying of the time was not only poisoning birds and fish and people, it was making the target insects and the diseases they carry even stronger:

"No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. "

Human exposure to DDT has long been linked with low birth weight babies and harmful reproductive effects. The politicians leading the crusade to undermine Carson’s legacy are also aggressively disputing other significant scientific evidence in the news lately. Can you guess what it is? That car and coal power plant emissions contribute to climate change! HA! That should tell you something about who's paying their bills.

For more about why Senator Coburn's claims have no scientific weight, see Who’s Promoting DDT in the PANNA (Pesticide Action Network North America) newsletter.

It's far too easy for corporate mouthpieces to make incorrect scientific statements and get away with it. It's outrageous that the NY Times is publishing stories like this one What the World Needs Now Is DDT. I do not claim to be an expert in any way on this subject but I do know that the world does not need more DDT.

I wonder how restoring the bat and dragonfly populations might help fight malaria? They love to eat mosquitos - one Little Brown Bat can eat 200 in one night. How about finding better ways to get clean drinking water to the people at risk? I know there are many solutions that don't mutate the insect into an even stronger and deadlier threat, while poisoning rivers, animals and people.

peace,
Jennifer

90% Emissions Reduction Project: Gasoline, pt. 2

I forgot something in my gasoline calculations yesterday - airline flights and rental cars. Oops. We flew to Asheville, NC last year for a family reunion. Then we rented a car and drove to Florida to see other family members. Here are my updated calculations:

2,298 mi + 2710 mi = 5008 (Los Angeles to Asheville/Ft. Lauderdale to Los Angeles) x .017 mpg (according to Google answers/MetaFilter) = 85.13 x 3 people = 255.40 additional gallons of gasoline for the family
yikes!

Rental car drive from Asheville to Ft. Lauderdale: 743 miles at mpg 28
= 26.53 gallons of gas

612.54 (yesterdays calculations) + 255.40 + 26.53 = 894.47 total gallons of gasoline

894.47 divided by 3 people = 298.15 or 59.63% of the average American

Wow, vacations really impact your emissions! Something to consider when planning your summer.

peace,
Jennifer

90% Emissions Reduction Project: Gasoline

The Riot for Austerity project officially started on June 1. The goal that participants have set for themselves is to cut their emissions by 90% of what the average person in the US consumes - the approximate amount people in the rich world need to reduce by in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

I doubt I'll make the 90% goal but I think it's really useful to see where we are now in relation to the average family and track how small and large changes will impact it.

I'm a little behind as I haven't even figured out all my baselines yet but I'll try to compute them one at a time, starting today with gasoline.

The average American uses 500 gallons of gasoline per person per year. A 90 percent reduction would be only 50 gallons per person per year.

I've been keeping a record in a little notebook in my car for the last year and a half, to keep track of how much gasoline I buy/miles I drive. This was handy for figuring out our baseline. I figured out Paul's use by looking at some old repair bills. Many mechanics write the odometer readings on their invoice, so by tracking the changes by date, up to today, I was able to calculate how far he's driven in the last year. I used his educated guess about the mpgs (29).

Whenever we all go somewhere together, we use my car, a Subaru station wagon that gets 26 mpg. Paul uses his 89 Camry (which has over 200K miles on it and is pretty beat) only to drive to his massge therapy job and sometimes to do errands if I'm using the wagon.

The total gallons of gasoline we used in the cars last year was 584.83.

We used public transit only about once a month (usually to go to peace marches, or the Aquarium). I'm figuring a total of 200 Metro miles divided by 100 mpg (allotted by 90% folks) = 2 gallons.

We carpooled a lot in other people's cars, and I'm at a loss to figure out how to calculate that very acurately. So I'm going to guess at it this way:

We carpooled about 2x per month = 24 x per year
24 x average 30 miles each time = 720 miles
720 divided by 28 mpg (guessing) = 25.71 gallons o' gas

Now since there are usually 5 or more people travelling when we carpool maybe we should get a little break on the mpgs? But for now I'll just add it to the total.

584.83 + 2 + 25.71 = 612.54 divided by 3 people = 204.18 or 40.83% of the average. Not too bad, especially considering "Nobody walks in LA"

A note about public transit - LA transportation authorities in their infinite wisdom are raising the price of the day pass on the Metro from 3.00 to 5.00 in July! This means for me to travel with a couple of kids on a field trip will cost 15.00. I can drive to the Aquarium, emitting lots of CO2 and using fossil fuels as I sit in traffic on the 405 for significantly less money than that. This sucks.

Initial ideas for reducing gasoline use - ride bikes more (tune up the bikes, get a basket on my bike), even more carpooling, walk more (replace the folding cart that I used to use for carrying home groceries until it got stolen off my porch).

If you'd like to join the 90% project or just keep track of how others are doing it I recommend joining the Yahoo Group. It's full of wise and friendly people sharing their stories.

peace,
Jennifer