Bryan Leyland: Things you know that ain't so - environmentalists have brought huge benefits in health and welfare

"Things you know that ain't so - environmentalists have brought huge benefits in health and welfare"

It is commonly believed that, overall, the environmental movement has had positive effects for health and welfare. The reality is that many of their beliefs and actions have had seriously negative effects.

Probably their worst crime is the banning of DDT. In “Silent Spring"  Rachel Carson claimed that DDT was seriously damaging populations of eagles and other birds by weakening their eggshells and it could also cause cancer. The American Council on Science and Health – and many other academic sources – strongly dispute both of these claims. Nevertheless, there was a worldwide push to ban DDT. The scientists in the World Health Organisation opposed it and said that, at the most, they should ban the use of DDT outside as its use inside was hugely beneficial and not dangerous. Their advice was ignored and the World Heath Organisation banned DDT – and only lifted the ban a few years ago. But the belief and the regulations persist and the harm continues.

DDT is, by far, the most effective and safest way of dealing with mosquitoes. In many countries its use eliminated malaria. Other methods of dealing with mosquitoes have been much less effective and malaria is now becoming more and more difficult to treat. As a result of the ban between 20 and 100 million people have died unnecessarily from malaria, dengue and chikungunya. The last two are becoming endemic in the Pacific and many tourists are now nervous of going there because of these diseases.

Their opposition to genetically modified organisms is disgraceful. “The researchers couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals. 'The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops,' the scientists concluded.” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/10/14/2000-reasons-why-gmos-are-safe-to-eat-and-environmentally-sustainable/)

But groups like Greenpeace are “opposed to the environmental release of GMOs and their use in our food.” They have been startlingly successful, and in particular, in their campaign against golden rice that “contains beta-carotene, the source of vitamin A. Millions of people in Asia and Africa don't get enough of this vital nutrient, so this rice has become the symbol of an idea: that genetically engineered crops can be a tool to improve the lives of the poor.” It has major health benefits including reducing the risk of blindness. In Southeast Asia, children are often weaned on rice gruel and if they don't get any beta-carotene and vitamin A during a period they can be harmed for the rest of their lives. Greenpeace, it seems, supports condemning these people to a miserable life.

Many environmentalists – Including Greenpeace – also oppose nuclear power. They continue to argue that it is extremely dangerous despite the fact that the records show that it is, by far, the safest major form of power generation. Maybe 100 times safer than hydropower and certainly safer than wind and solar power. They also cling to the belief that low levels of radiation are dangerous – in spite of the evidence to the contrary. This belief led to thousands of people being forcibly evacuated from Fukushima area even though radiation levels were well within safe limits and the UN have stated categorically that no-one has - or will - die of radiation sickness. More than 1000 people died as result of this forced evacuation – many from suicide driven by the disturbance to their lives and the miserable conditions they were in. The same thing happened at Chernobyl. But how many environmentalists would reject radiation treatment if they had cancer? Yet it subjects surrounding healthy tissue to radiation levels that would kill them rapidly if their whole body was exposed to it. Yet it doesn’t trigger cancer in the surrounding tissue. (www.radiationandreason.com)

Most environmentalists oppose fossil fuel fired power generation because of their belief that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming. They completely ignore the fact that the world has not warmed for the last 18 years and this proves that carbon dioxide does not cause dangerous warming. It is probably the biggest hoax in the history of the world.

As a result of the environmentalists opposition to cheap and safe methods of power generation many people in the developing world have been deprived of a power supply –  or suffer frequent shortages – and people in the Western world have had to pay much much more for their electricity because of the need to subsidise expensive and practically useless wind and solar power that environmentalists also strongly support. They also suffer from “energy poverty” and this, for sure, has led to many dying of cold in the winter because they can no longer afford heating. The environmentalists seem to believe that all this misery and death is justified by the need to save the world from non-existent dangerous global warming.

It could be argued that the environmentalists desire to save the environment regardless of the consequences on people has made them the biggest mass murderers of all time. Bigger than Hitler, or Stalin or Chairman Mao.

They cannot even claim to have cleaned up the poisonous atmosphere in London in the 1950-60s – the switch to natural gas did that!