To This Day

What's wrong with the world today is that people don't care about the truth.

A good example started in the 1940's and continues to this very day. Overuse of DDT was questioned and triple-checked and that was fine until the lie was told, until someone used the plight of of our precious national bird as the step up they needed to become a Force in our politics, one which rose with the downfall of DDT and has not itself fallen since.

Environmentalists tell the lie even to this day. Most of them don't believe it's a lie, I think. I think they took a popular truth at its word because it had been repeated so many times over so many years by so many people that it must be true, that so many people could not be wrong, that no one would demonize something unless the threat was much worse than its absence, which allows the deaths of so many souls in places they would never see.

Did you know that people in poor countries die because rich countries like the United States of America give food and water and shelter but refuse to use DDT? Thousands of people die every day from malaria, just one of the many deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes. Did you know that we don't have to drench the air in chemical pesticide to save lives beyond our borders? A little dusted onto the walls of each home would do the trick. A little painted on each doorframe and the shadow of death would pass over the houses of families and millions of faces we have never even seen.

Why not? Because a few people repeated some popular beliefs based on contrived statistics? Because the people that parroted them never questioned the facts?

We need to step outside of our comfort zones. Be curious. Ask the obvious, and then question the obvious answer (What really reduced the eagle population to a handful?). Be a little more critical (Who or what could be hurt out of the people and things I have never even considered?). Define what you believe, and question the validity of your own beliefs (When does the balance of importance between humans and wildlife tip the other way?). Question your sources (Is this group ardently pro/anti environmentalist, and does that change their answers?). Ask real people real questions ("How does this benefit you?"). Consider some motives (Why would someone fight so hard for something that kills so many human beings?).

To this day a lie persists where truths might have prevailed, and no one cares. Maybe the environmentalists would have been right, but we'll never know because to this day their descendants perpetuate and protect a lie.

You can either assume that truth is subjective or that it doesn't matter and wonder at the inevitable consequences of your actions, or assume that truth is real and that it matters, and meet them as they come.



“If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT.”
    - as quoted in the Seattle Times by Charles Wurster, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund

Title shamelessly pilfered from the To This Day project, which confronts a bigger issue that kills arguably less people but cripples infinitely more.
    -http://tothisdayproject.com/