Today, Google's famous "doodle" recognizes and honors Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring" and considered the spiritual, if not literal, progenitor of the modern environmental movement. A screed against pesticides and their effect on the environment, "Silent Spring" was the launching pad for the worldwide ban of DDT, a pesticide used to control mosquito populations.
Carson's book outlined what she considered to be a campaign of misinformation from the chemical companies behind pesticides, tacklingsupposed detrimental side effects and how they outweighed the benefits. Using anecdotal information, Carson's book sought to instill fear of the consequences of pesticide in general and DDT in particular. As one New York Times reviewer wrote at the time, Carson aimed to "scare the living daylights out of us and, in large measure, succeeds. Her work tingles with anger, outrage and protest."
The bans on DDT resulting from that tingle have had far-reaching effects. As many as 800,000 children under the age of five die every year from preventable malaria due to uncontrolled mosquito populations, according to Forbes. Preventable because DDT is safe for humans and for food, contrary to the assertions of "Silent Spring". As one entomologist explains:
This implication that DDT is horribly deadly is completely false. Human volunteers have ingested as much as 35 milligrams of it a day for nearly two years and suffered no adverse effects. Millions of people have lived with DDT intimately during the mosquito spray programs and nobody even got sick as a result."
The World Health Organization estimates there are between 300 and 500 million cases of malaria each year, with about one million deaths, and that approximately 3.3 BILLION people are at increased risk of malaria. That is approximately half of Earth's population. That malaria is spread by mosquitoes. DDT kills those mosquitoes more thoroughly, more effectively, and over a longer period of time than other measure. The math does itself.
And this is only the disease death toll. The secondary death toll from increased poverty brings the number even higher. Forbes points out that "some of the world’s poorest countries an astonishing 40 percent poorer than had there been more effective mosquito control."
How many birds have been saved as a result of Rachel Carson's hysteria? Maybe some. How many men, women, and children have died, and continue to die because of it? That number grows too fast to keep up with. Hundreds of millions perhaps. It is environmentalism's death pact: that man should die so bugs may live.
Carson indeed embodies the spirit of the modern environmental hysteric and crusader: anecdotal science, alarmism, and no concern for consequence. Truly the most familiar characteristics of today's green movement.
Yesterday, the United States celebrated Memorial Day. Google had no doodle for it. The millions dead from malaria get no doodle either. Way to go, Google. You sure know how to choose who to memorialize.