Environmentalism has been around for a long time. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to emphasize conservationism. Since then, the environmental movement has gained a lot of followers, and a lot of power.

And I have to wonder: How can such a large number of well meaning citizens get something so wrong, so often? Environmentalists keep plugging away at the American people, telling them to stop using this or stop doing that, because in one way or another, they are damaging the planet.

Looking back, you see a list of actions and trail of tragic, unintended consequences.

Take DDT. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was made for no reason. German chemist Othmar Zeidler put it together way back in 1874 and then shelved it. Sixty-five years later, in 1939, Dr. Paul Müller made it on his own and found that it was very effective at killing some insects. He patented it in the United States, England and Switzerland. He later won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on DDT.

The chemical was a God-send. Merck & Company produced 500 gallons in 1943 and delivered it to Italy to squash the typhus epidemic. It was being spread by lice. Also in 1943, the U.S. Army started issuing 10 percent DDT dust to its soldiers. This was to fight head, body and crab lice.

In 1955, a “Global Malaria Eradication Campaign” was started by the Eighth World Health Assembly. DDT was a major component of this campaign. It was used to limit the mosquito population. By 1967, DDT, used in conjunction with anti-malarial medication, nearly eradicated malaria from all the developed countries where it was endemic.

In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy said:

In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable.

Then entered the environmentalists.

Several claims were made against DDT. The book Silent Spring said it cause liver cancer. Our Stolen Future said it caused breast cancer. However, science said it didn’t. In 1985, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said:

No correlation at the population level can be demonstrated between exposures to DDT and the incidence of cancer at any site. It is concluded that DDT has had no significant impact on human cancer patterns and is unlikely to be an important carcinogen for man at previous exposure levels, within the statistical limitations of the data.

And according to the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, primates that were given 33,000 times the estimated human exposure in 1969 and 1972 was :

“inconclusive with respect to a carcinogenic effect of DDT in nonhuman primates.”

Environmentalists also said DDT thinned the egg shells of birds exposed to the chemical. Again, science says different. Experiments done with doses far higher than birds would experience in the wild showed no conclusive evidence of thinned shells. Ironically, a 1969 study done by the Journal of Wildlife Management, showed that “shells 7 percent thicker after two years on DDT diet…”

Environmentalists blamed the population decline of the bald eagle on DDT also. Ignored was the fact that bald eagles were reportedly close to extinction in 1921. They also ignored the over $100,00 in bounties the state of Alaska paid for bald eagles. And finally, every dead bald eagle found between 1961-1977 (266 birds) was reviewed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists. DDT was not found to be the cause of death.

Actually, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists had captive bald ealges they were feeding DDT. They fed them the chemical for 112 days. The results? “DDT residues encountered by eagles in the environment would not adversely affect eagles or their eggs.”

DDT was also blamed for the decline of other birds, but with similar scientific findings. Why then was the chemical a target, and why was it banned?

According to the October 5, 1969 issue of the Seattle Times,

The environmental movement used DDT as a means to increase their power. Charles Wurster, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, commented, “If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before.. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT.”

The Environmental Defense Fund was against the use of DDT. And the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the time, William Ruckelshaus, was a member of the EDF. Ruckelshaus, the man who finally banned DDT 1972, wrote letters requesting donations for the EDF on his personal stationary.

But before being an advocate of prohibiting DDT, Ruckelshaus was a fan. On August 31, 1970, Ruckelshaus was an assitant attoney general. In a U.S. Court of Appeals, he said:

“DDT has an amazing an exemplary record of safe use, does not cause a toxic response in man or other animals, and is not harmful. Carcinogenic claims regarding DDT are unproven speculation.”

Judge Edmund Sweeney was the EPA hearing examiner for lengthy, comprehensive hearings on DDT from 1971-1972. He found that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man… DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man… The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”

Although he did not attend an hour of the seven months worth of hearings, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus overruled Judge Sweeney and put DDT out of action in 1972. Ruckelshaus aides said he did not even read the transcripts from the hearings. He refused to release the evidence he used to justify his actions and told the USDA, when they tried to get the materials through the Freedom of Information Act, that they were “internal memos.”

The banning of DDT has had some terrible unintended consequences. The median WHO estimate there are no 300 million to 500 million cases of malaria each year globally. That adds up to close to 14 billion cases since DDT was banned in 1972. Out of those, nearly 100 million have died. In Africa, it is estimated that a child dies from malaria every thirty seconds.

But the egg shells there are in great shape.

* * *

At the same time they are organizing the eventual deaths of 100,000,000 people, these brainiacs hatched another great plan. It seems there was an excess of tires in the 50s and 60s. These piles of tires were fire hazards and eye sores, but what are you going to do with them all?

Easy. You dump them in the ocean.

In the spring of 1972, hundreds of eager environmentalists climbed aboard hundreds of boats filled with tires and made their way to a point off the coast of Florida. There, the Goodyear Blimps dropped a golden tire into the ocean. It was the first of a million or more tires dumped there. That golden tire was a symbol of the glorious future this artificial reef was suppose to secure. There would be no recycling of tires. They would just be used to create habitats in the ocean for all our aquatic friends. According to a county report at the time, the tire reef would be “A potential grouper haven” But, there were some unintended consequences.

Today, there is no artificial reef. Instead, there is 35 acres of ocean floor covered by radials. And they are killing the natural reefs. The tires roll around under water, subject to the natural movement of the ocean. They roll into the reefs and damage them. Close to two million tires are now playing wrecking ball to the reefs. And the government gets to pay for the clean-up. That translates to: you and I get to pay for the clean up.

Coastal America, described in the Washington Post as “a partnership of federal agencies, state and local governments and private groups” is trying to get military salvage teams to use tire retrieval as training. It is expect to take three years and to cost $3 million to $5 million dollars. So plan on spending at least five years and $10 million to clean up this environmentalist environmental disaster.

***

In 1975, the Congress felt they had to do something in response to the 1973 oil embargo. So, the enacted the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. The idea here is that car manufacturers have to have an an average fuel economy for all the cars it produces. A higher mile per gallon average would then lead to less gasoline consumed and less dependance on foreign oil. Environmentalists claimed that this would improve air quality also.

But, there were some unintended consequences.

To meet this requirement, manufacturers have to make cars that get very high gas mileage. To get those averages, the cars have to be small and light. According to a 1999 USA TODAY analysis of crash data and estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, about 46,000 people have died in crashes that they would have survived if they had been traveling in bigger, heavier cars. This is from the creation of the standards in 1975 to 1999. I have not been able to find any newer studies. So, for every mile per gallon gained, the standard has killed 7,700 people.

At least the air is cleaner, right? Not so much.

According to a 1992 report from the National Research Council (NRC) in a 1992 report on automobile fuel economy, “Fuel economy improvements will not directly affect vehicle emissions.” The report also suggests that because of the increased usage of plastics and composites, we are looking at a new set of environmental concerns.

But at least we are less dependent of foreign oil.

***

Now the environmentalists are telling us that biofuels are the savior of the planet. Ethanol is being subsidized by the government and ethanol plants are springing up in the Midwest. But what happens when we start using corn for gas instead of food? There are some unintended consequences.

Mexico has seen the price of corn tortillas triple and quadruple in some places, leading President Felipe Calderón to limit the price on tortillas. While that may sound like no big deal, you need to understand that Mexicans get 40% of their protein from tortillas. It is a very important part of the Mexican diet. Amanda Gálvez, a National Autonomous University of Mexico nutrition expert, claims that because of tortillas, Mexican children have a very low incidence of rickets, a bone disease caused by calcium deficiency that is common in developing countries.

Food prices in America are up also. International Monetary Fund says the price of food increased by 10% in 2006, mainly due to the increased price of corn, wheat and soybeans. Corn is a major part of the diet for cattle, chicken and hog farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the supply of food produce in America will fall by one billion pounds this year. The main reason for this is the high price of feed. Generally, the food supply increases by 2% a year.

And ethanol isn’t really a good solution to begin with. According to ABC News:

…emissions from ethanol-fueled cars are no cleaner for the environment. According to atmospheric scientist Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University, a switch to ethanol won’t do anything to address climate change and ethanol fumes may actually be worse for public health than the fumes from gas-powered vehicles.

Emissions from ethanol-fueled cars contain more of the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, Jacobson said, and the vehicles will also boost atmospheric levels of ozone, a major component of smog, which will weaken people’s immune systems and cause lung damage.

According to the same minds that brought us these horrifying dangers to humanity and equally, if not more, horrifying solutions, the greatest threat to humanity now is global warming. I cannot see how we can trust the environmental movement with yet another Chicken Little global issue, let alone turn the problem solving responsibilities over to them. The earth may be warming, but so are Neptune and Mars. The ice sheets are melting…and are revealing silver mines and Viking farms. There is even doubt that CO2, the villain of this story, is even the culprit. The Sun may have a hand in this.

The truth is that the environmentalists are using the same tactics they have always won with: smear anyone who disagrees with them and get the politicians in their pockets. Pardon me if I doubt the current call to tax carbon, join Kyoto or drive a Prius. I think I’ll take my chances inhaling DDT.

Related posts:

• The Law of Unintended Consequences Cannot be Repealed
• New Yorkers Decry Cereal Prices, Fill Cars Up with Ethanol
• Rolling Stone: “Ethanol Hurts the Environment And Is One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles”
• Corn Prices High…Government Passes Subsidies for Corn
• Rudy Pimps Ethanol Like a Truther Pimps “Loose Change”