![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Dec. 11th, 2003 12:57 pmSo, the U.N. tells us that global warming killed 150,000 people in the year 2000. And what's more, that toll could double in only 30 years.
Sounds like we need environmentalists to save lives, doesn't it? But then again...
According to UCLA's Department of Epidemiology, malaria kills 1.5 to 2.7 million people every year. Most of these deaths are children -- on average, a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. In addition, 120 million cases of malaria are reported annually, and the actual number of cases is estimated to be 4-5 times higher than reported -- thus, malaria sickens as many as 250 people for each one it kills. The loss to global health and productivity is staggering.
So what can be done about this problem? Well, actually, we used to do something about it. In the 1940s, a worldwide mosquito eradication program was begun (malaria is spread entirely by mosquitos -- no mosquitos, no malaria). In India, malaria deaths dropped from a million in 1945 to a few thousand in 1960. In Greece, malaria cases dropped from 1-2 million cases per year to zero over the same period. In Sri Lanka, they dropped from 2.8 million cases in 1948, to 17 in 1964. By the 1960s, malaria was on its way to eradication -- it was estimated that by 1980, malaria would have gone the way of polio and smallpox -- a former plague reduced to nothingness, defeated by the hand of man.
Malaria is now back up to pre-1940s levels. What happened? In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, blaming the insecticide DDT for killing birds and various other environmental and health issues. In response to the sentiment drummed up by the environmental movement, DDT was banned -- at this point, the ban on DDT is practically worldwide, since the United States and Western Europe have made a DDT ban a condition of treaties with most of the world.
Well, it turns out that DDT probably really does kill birds, but none of the other supposed adverse effects from it panned out (it poses no threat to humans, or water supplies, or other animals). However, it's still banned. The problem is that DDT is the best insecticide ever developed. Today, you can get something half as effective if you pay 10 times as much -- that is, if you pay 10 times more than the poor, developing countries where malaria is a problem can afford.
So now, instead of malaria being eradicated, we have sixty million dead in the last thirty years. That puts the environmental movement above even Joseph Stalin for sheer numbers of deaths caused. Hopefully the birds appreciate it.
Sounds like we need environmentalists to save lives, doesn't it? But then again...
According to UCLA's Department of Epidemiology, malaria kills 1.5 to 2.7 million people every year. Most of these deaths are children -- on average, a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. In addition, 120 million cases of malaria are reported annually, and the actual number of cases is estimated to be 4-5 times higher than reported -- thus, malaria sickens as many as 250 people for each one it kills. The loss to global health and productivity is staggering.
So what can be done about this problem? Well, actually, we used to do something about it. In the 1940s, a worldwide mosquito eradication program was begun (malaria is spread entirely by mosquitos -- no mosquitos, no malaria). In India, malaria deaths dropped from a million in 1945 to a few thousand in 1960. In Greece, malaria cases dropped from 1-2 million cases per year to zero over the same period. In Sri Lanka, they dropped from 2.8 million cases in 1948, to 17 in 1964. By the 1960s, malaria was on its way to eradication -- it was estimated that by 1980, malaria would have gone the way of polio and smallpox -- a former plague reduced to nothingness, defeated by the hand of man.
Malaria is now back up to pre-1940s levels. What happened? In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, blaming the insecticide DDT for killing birds and various other environmental and health issues. In response to the sentiment drummed up by the environmental movement, DDT was banned -- at this point, the ban on DDT is practically worldwide, since the United States and Western Europe have made a DDT ban a condition of treaties with most of the world.
Well, it turns out that DDT probably really does kill birds, but none of the other supposed adverse effects from it panned out (it poses no threat to humans, or water supplies, or other animals). However, it's still banned. The problem is that DDT is the best insecticide ever developed. Today, you can get something half as effective if you pay 10 times as much -- that is, if you pay 10 times more than the poor, developing countries where malaria is a problem can afford.
So now, instead of malaria being eradicated, we have sixty million dead in the last thirty years. That puts the environmental movement above even Joseph Stalin for sheer numbers of deaths caused. Hopefully the birds appreciate it.
