The mass murdress Rachel Carson’s book prompted hysteria amongst so-called environmentalists who assigned the cause of blame of a higher incidence of leukemia and liver tumors in mice fed DDT than in unexposed mice the decline in populations of such wild bird species as the ospreys and peregrine falcons on the contamination by DDT of their environment. 

Actual epidemiological studies, however, found no increases in liver cancer in populations where DDT was in constant use – the  WHO investigated the 1969 mice study, and found that /i>both</i> cases and controls had developed a surprising number of tumors. It turned out that foods fed to both groups were mouldy and contained aflatoxin, a carcinogen.  (When the tests were repeated using non-contaminated foods, neither group developed tumours.)

As far as the ‘death of birds’ BS goes, declines in bird populations were documented as occurring either before DDT was present or years after DDT’s use.  The Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Counts between 1941 (pre-DDT) and 1960 show that at least 26 different kinds of birds became <i>more</i> numerous during
the period of greatest DDT usage, including an overall increase in the numbers of birds seen per observer from 1941 to 1960, (Bald eagles, the talisman species – 197 bald eagles documented in 1941,
891 in 1960.

Similar studies in Canada and the UK provided similar results.  In Canadian peregrines “reproducing normally” in the 1960s even though their tissues contained 30 times more DDT than did
the tissues of the peregrines in the alarmist studies in the US Mid West.  In the UK, the results of a three-year study published in 1969, noted that the decline of peregrine falcons in Britain
had ended in 1966 even though DDT levels were as
abundant as ever.   The study concluded that “There is no close correlation between the decline in population of predatory birds, particularly the peregrine falcon and the sparrow hawk, and the use of DDT.”

The Ban.

In 1971, in the US, authority over pesticides was transferred from the DoA to th newly EPA. In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, Federal Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that in his judgement that  “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man . . . The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wildbirds, or other wildlife . . . The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.”  Two months later EPA head William Ruckelshaus—<i>who had never attended a single day’s session in theseven months of EPA hearings, and <b>who admitted hehad not even read the transcript of the hearings</b>—</i> declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.The effects.

Amongst others:  In Sri Lanka DDT spraying had reduced malaria cases from 2.8 million in 1948 to <b>17</b> in 1963. After spraying was stopped in 1964, malaria cases began to rise again and reached
2.5 million in 1969.

In Zanzibar, the prevalence of malaria among the populace dropped from 70 percent in 1958, when DDT spraying became widespread,  to 5 percent in 1964, when DDT spraying stopped.  By 1984 it was back up to between 50 and 60 percent.

There’s lots more…

 

Deep Purple

Jacqueline du Pre – Elgar and Haydn Cello Concertos

Royal Marines Band

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Helen Shapiro

Cai Jing

Norah Jones

Huey Louis and the News

Stacey Kent

Eclectic or what?  😀

Well, sometimes they just do…

Captions anyone?

The meeja are still at it, trying to parley the Fukushima crisis into a disaster and, in the process, handing the bedwetters and neo-luddites large wodges of convenient headlines with which to frighten the masses into the abandonment of the only clean, safe and reliable power generation source which will stop the lights going out as the current generation of power plants comes to the end of its working life. The latest scare tactic is the trumpeting of the fact that the Fukushima crisis has been up-graded to level 7, the highest level on the international scale used to measure these events. ‘It’s another Chernobyl,’ they whinny hysterically, running around in ever decreasing circles and waving their hands frantically in the air. Well, it’s not, nor can it be. It is a serious situation, and I’m not trying to downplay it, but it is contained and the omens, at the moment, are all good for it’s continuing containment. The hype and spin around Fukushima downplays the devastation caused by the actual disaster, a 1,000 year earthquake followed by a 1,000 year tsunami.

She is a talkative beast at the best of times – she always answers when addressed, and she has learned that I can’t hear the top of her vocal range, so, these days, I don’t get the silent miaows that she used to try on when she was younger.

Recently, though, she has started squeaking and mewing when she is asleep. I have never seen this in a cat before, though we are, I’m sure, all familiar with dogs chasing rabbits, or maybe being chased by rabbits, depending on the whimpering, in their sleep. Anyone else seen this?

Isn’t it annoying when those two clash? This thought was brought about by a discussion in my final Romanian lesson – my contract here ends at the end of this month. I was discussing an article in a local tabloid with my teacher. The article itself was about social security in Romania and who should be entitled to it. The article listed the Government criteria which define who should be classed as ‘poor,’ and who should not. Amongst other things, if you own three cows, or pigs, 80 ducks, female turkeys, hens, geese or eating pigeons, or a video recorder, (a what?) a laptop, (but not a desktop,) a video entry-phone a hand-loom, or a coffee grinder, you should not be entitled to social security. The sentence that prompted the discussion read, ‘There are indeed some people who don’t even have a cat outside their door, then there are others who live in villages with windowless houses with little towers.’

And I have a cold. So I’m sitting at my notebook catching up with some friends by email. Quantum, (my owner,) sneaks under my feet an I don’t notice. I finish an email, reach forward to take a drink of tea, shift my foot and tread on my owner’s tail. Owner squeals and bats my ankle with a pawful of claws. I yelp and jump and hot tea splashes into my, erm, lap. I jump again, a little more energetically, my owner is still round my feet, I lose my balance, fall backwards, pour the rest of the tea over my chest, yell some more and fall to the floor. My owner has it away on her toes, I rush to the shower and spray chest and, erm, lap with cold water. After cooling down I hang my wet clothes to dry, take a comforting shower, step out of the shower stall – stand on my owner, again, slip on the tiles and finish up on my, erm, fundament on the bathroom floor.

And I still have a cold.

Assange is not a whistleblower and I wish people would stop dignifying what he has done with that sobriquet. A whistleblower is someone who works for, or with an organisation, discovers some wrongdoing, or apparent wrongdoing, and makes it known in a way appropriate to the alleged wrongdoing, and the consequences of its exposure. Most developed countries now have specific laws to protect such people and all reputable companies and organisations have Legal/HR/Security policies which both encourage and protect whistleblowers in the interests of good corporate governance – and the avoidance of severe legal penalties.

… of your point of view.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationpicturegalleries/8194297/The-clean-up-operation-in-Parliament-Square-and-Oxford-Street-after-student-protests.html

“Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world”

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

…

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

So, now you know.