Rachel Carson, DDT, and her mixed legacy...

Was Rachel Carson wrong?

Yes and no. Rachel Carson was not totally wrong (nor did she call for the outright banning of DDT).  DDT did impact certain birds, especially raptures such as hawks and eagles, and caused their numbers to decline significantly. That we now have bald eagles in abundance again is due to a combination of protection and discontinued use of DDT in the United States.

The decline of effective mosquito control in the developing world (and banning DDT contributed to that decline), however, have doomed millions to malaria and other mosquito borne diseases.  Some have questioned whether home DDT spraying in Africa itself is harmful, but given the choice of over 800,000 deaths a year in Africa (mostly children), if it was my children and family I would go with the spraying.

As Michael Crichton noted on the banning of DDT in parts of Africa: "We knew better and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn."  While her science was questionable, this all cannot be blamed directly on Rachel Carson, she died in 1964 and she made clear in testimony that there was a moral basis for controlling disease carrying mosquitoes (her argument was DDT was over sprayed in agricultural applications in the United States, which was correct). But her subsequent supporters (Al Gore wrote the introduction to the republishing of Silent Spring) definitely have culpability.  As Crichton noted:

"I am thoroughly sick of politicized so-called facts that simply aren't true. It isn't that these 'facts' are exaggerations of an underlying truth. Nor is it that certain organisations are spinning their case... in the strongest way. Not at all — what more and more groups are doing is putting out lies, pure and simple. Falsehoods that they know to be false. This trend began with the DDT campaign and persists to this day."

Crichton notes: Westerners (Environmentalists) don't care about third world people dying. Their religion is more important that people's lives.  

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

Environmentalists care a lot more about eagles than Africans...unless of course the eagles get in the way.

Update:

Weasel Zippers responds to Google's noting of Rachel Carson's birthday...
Blogmocracy has more...

I’LL BELIEVE IT’S A CRISIS WHEN THE PEOPLE WHO TELL ME IT’S A CRISIS START ACTING LIKE IT’S A... http://t.co/3NRLHeLT7Y via @instapundit
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) May 29, 2014