Originally appeared in the magazine ' 22 '
What happens when an ideology and propaganda well-intended they get out of control? There may be situations where certain approaches inspired by concern for the environment have disastrous results? What is the significance of these cases? Can the excess of zeal and propaganda of environmental public policies inspired by this propaganda lead to humanitarian catastrophe? What is the relevance of these situations for the way we evaluate ecological movement? Let's look at two such cases and see what they tell us.
Malaria and DDT
The first case refers to the increasing number of deaths of malaria in African countries because of policies inspired by the environmentalist lobby to ban DDT (Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane), one of the most effective and cheap pesticides against malaria. The data are clear: according to figures provided by the World Health Organization, 40 percent of the world's population is exposed to the risk of malaria, especially the population of poor countries, 500 million people are infected and 1 million die annually, of which 75% are African children under 5 years. This considering that DDT, widely used, and managed to eradicate malaria in developed countries and had impressive successes in the other. It was public consfintita efficiency: Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Mueller 1948 win Nobel Prize in medicine for that role of DDT against insects discover that spread malaria (this pesticide had been synthesized since the end of the 19th century). Sri Lanka convincingly illustrates the beneficial function of the DDT. In 1964 sprayerea begins with DDT and, in a time frame of 10 years, the number of infected people drops from 3 million to 7,500. And death due to malaria is eliminated completely. In 1964, Sri Lanka had only 17 cases of malaria. The same happens in India. In 1945, nearly 1 million people have died of malaria. After the introduction of DDT, their number drops to a few thousand in the 1960s.
In 1962, Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring's work, one of the most popular works against the use of DDT. The author is an influential character in the rise of ecological movement, being a sort of Michael Moore of the years ' 60 and a prophet of this movement. It advances the idea that DDT kills birds (and lists about 90 species of birds affected) and increases the incidence of cancer in children. The idea was that through the use of DDT we will have a world without birds, without their song, hence the title of the book dramatic and alarmist. In addition, she thinks, the mosquitoes were immune to this pesticide. We now know that these conclusions are not supported by scientific research, however. However, DDT is banned as a result of propaganda campaign first in rich States (for example, in the United States is prohibited by Environmental Agency in 1972), and gradually, as a result of the environmentalist lobby, is forbidden and in Africa.
Uganda, Mozambique, Zambia, etc. are countries where DDT was banned. They don't use DDT because they are dependent on foreign aid, which may be influenced by environmental organizations. For example, in Mozambique, 80% of the funds for health are coming from foreign aid. As a result, must give up the use of DDT if donors are asking for it. Powerful lobbying organizations like Environmental Defense Fund, can block donations towards African countries at any moment. African countries, saying these organizations must use surrogates of DDT. Easy to say, hard to do! Alternatives are more expensive for these poor countries, nor are so effective. Environmental organizations not to blackmail you in all cases. There are exceptions. South Africa, a country relatively immune to foreign aid, has resumed the use of DDT, with remarkable results.
Trade restrictions are another factor that discourages the use of DDT: the EU has threatened African States that will not allow imports of agricultural products if use of DDT is widespread in these countries. The ban on import of DDT to contribute themes and isterii in the West by the poor countries via their intellectuals who have studied in the West.
The result is that expected. In 2005, in Uganda, 50,000 children have died from malaria. These dead and can only contribute to without slowing economic growth in the affected countries. Because there's a close correlation between malaria and GDP growth. That, although some environmentalists believe the opposite, on the idea that malaria victims are mainly children, meaning that citizens who are not "productive".
In the context of the Stockholm Convention in 2001, environmental organizations have not managed to obtain a ban on the use of DDT worldwide, although Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Physicians for Social Responsibility and other 300 lobbysti groups have tried to impose it. However, the mere implementation of the DDT on a blacklist was enough because this pesticide production to drop considerably.
The primary outcome of environmental propaganda against DDT was that millions of people died of malaria in the last decades. And the supreme irony is that the insects that spread malaria kill birds which are said that are threatened by DDT.
Biofuels and their saving
Through saving of biofuels, environmentalists suggest that they can achieve two objectives. On the one hand, they struggle with global warming and delay the end of the world. Because biofuels emit less CO2 into the atmosphere than conventional fossil fuels: oil, coal, etc. On the other hand, ensure energetic independence, for example, is reduced dependence on U.S. imported oil from the Middle East. Subventionarii biofuels policy is now at fashion both in the EU and in the us. Let's take the case of ethanol, a biofuel is being subsidized in the u.s. aggressive. Ethanol is made from corn or sugar and is therefore advantage that emits less CO2 than fossil fuels. One of the lessons of his Milton Friedman was that you have to judge a policy isn't bad, but after the results. In this case, an initial result of subventionarii production of biofuels has been increasing food prices globally. Thus, according to a study of World Bank published by The Guardian (which was circulated in media and Romanian), food prices rose by 140 percent between 2002 and February 2008 due to the production of biofuels. Significant agricultural surfaces and resources have gone towards the production of biofuels, food market, so distorsionand because it has reduced the supply of food. Under the law of supply and demand, was normal, predictable food prices to surge if dropped. This study contradicts the us Government's analysis, which approximate a growth only by 3% due to biofuels and see as the cause of the increase of food prices increasing demand from China and India. Amid food crisis occurred in street demonstrations as States Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Philippines, etc. A result of these measures neanticipat initiators well intentioned. It is self understood that first affected by increasing food prices are poor, because they spend the largest portion of income on food. This is an unpleasant-looking for a move left the NHS, the left waving the classic concern and concern for the poor. In the future, along with strengthening the fight with global warming, it's easy to predict price growth of energy, as well as protest against population growth.
What is even more interesting is that ethanol did not serve the purpose for which the environmentalist was promoted. It is true that the same amount of ethanol emits one-third less CO2 than gasoline. But, if we take into account the costs involved in the production, distribution and transportation of ethanol, but also the fact that we need a quart and a half of ethanol to produce the same energy as one of gasoline, we come to the conclusion that ethanol emits more CO2 into the atmosphere than gasoline. According to a study quoted by Iain Murray, ethanol uses 29% more energy from fossil fuels in its production, rather than replace. In other words, the costs exceed the benefits. Policies that will substitute energy from fossil fuels with renewable energy through biofuels saving are a failure.
The second generation of biofuels biofuels from cellulose-announced-inherits the sins of the former (for example, will distort the market, because farmers will go where they are subsidies, as in the case of ethanol made from corn), plus the disadvantage that the technology needed to produce energy on a large scale is not accessible. Beyond any quantitative analysis, we can simply ask the sound for an environmentalist idea of cut forests for fuel? Were not sure an ally forests in grappling with global warming?
Saving not only brings with it increasing taxes and food prices increase. She discourages getting a better product, because the manufacturer has a subsidized insurance market, making it less willing to innovate and investigate. Thing valid for all brands of green energy. As the State grows, entrepreneurs are investing more in lobby and in corruption than in getting the best products. The advent of alternative is franata and the possibility for innovation to be confiscated by the State, on the grounds that the energy industry is strategic. So the inventor will have to share with the other functionarimea out there and the benefits of innovation.
In the case of biofuels, there are therefore negative effects, unintended and unanticipated consequences, even if the intentions of these policies-for example, save the planet-they were noble. Not always the intention matters!
Conclusions
What we say above about environmentalism? A public policy cannot ignore its unintended consequences. Banning DDT leads to the deaths of millions of children, something perhaps more important than the protection of the birds of the Prairie. Saving biofuels create famine and is not an effective tool to fight global warming. In addition, it reduces the production of inventiveness in alternative energies. For every public policy must detect and evaluate hidden costs. Otherwise, the cure may be worse than the disease. Thus we see a fundamental deficiency of environmental discourse: too much emotion and propaganda and too little critical thinking and pragmatism. But we ask: is not just that the recipe for success of the left?
