keccers
@keccers.eth
I learned from the author of the BTC Standard we might have prematurely banned DDT and Silent Spring is specious We clearly do pretty horrible things to the environment. It’s sad one of the biggest environmentalist victories may be based on fabrications as it discredits all future attempts The “right” level of human intervention in the environment is a tough tension to grapple with https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-truth-about-ddt-and-silent-spring
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Joshua Hyde (he/him)
@jrh3k5.eth
"Stopping birds from singing"? It was banned because it was linked to causing a decline in bird populations, due to it causing eggs to be structurally insecure. Even the EPA, as recently as this past February, reaffirmed the linkage to declining bird populations: Now, the question of what to prioritize - human life versus bird populations - is a worthwhile question to answer, but I find the assertion in the tweet to be, at a minimum, misrepresentative.
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keccers
@keccers.eth
Kind of frustrating to get this reply because you clearly didn’t read or look at anything I shared beyond the pictures, but are so confident that it is wrong nonetheless
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Joshua Hyde (he/him)
@jrh3k5.eth
I apologize for jumping the gun; I had, wrongly, assumed that the link embedded in the tweet was a link to an article focused solely on the toll of DDT banning on African countries and didn't appreciate that it was a deeper dive into the history of use. At a glance, the claim that the initial evidence driving the ban was spurious is plausible. I don't know how to square the claims that bird populations were increasing, as this seems to run contrary to what other sources I've been able to find, and I do not have the knowledge to be able to verify which source is mistaken.
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keccers
@keccers.eth
Perhaps the most compelling source to me is the study created specifically in response to the fears created by Silent Spring “And the annual data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey from 1966 (the year the survey was launched, in response to the public fear Carson had created about the effects of DDT on birds) through the end of the 1970s shows no obvious pattern of overall increasing bird populations as would be expected to follow the 1972 banning of DDT if it were truly harming bird populations.” http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/
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