The Best Intentions

More examples of unintended consequences from good intentions... Forbes editor Rich Karlgaard writes about the ripple effect caused by Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, which launched the modern environmental movement and led to a ban on the pesticide DDT. DDT was accused of making eagles' eggshells so fragile that they broke prematurely. But the termination of the use of DDT to control mosquito populations also led to a substantial increase in human deaths from malaria, which had mostly been kept under control to that point. According to the CDC, malaria now kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year (at least one million deaths total each year). Many of these deaths could have been prevented through widespread spraying of DDT. Clearly those who banned the substance were concerned with health and safety, but the effects ended up being disastrous for Subsaharan Africa. On a smaller scale, but with a similar outcome of working against the very issue they are trying to solve, are Al Gore's series of Live Earth concerts around the world in July. They are intended to raise awareness about global warming, but as far as I can tell, the only thing that will come out of them is a whole lotta greenhouse gases (though whether that's a catastrophic problem is a separate issue). Yes, the event has a "green policy" for how they will try to minimize the environmental impact. But when you're talking about nine concerts with 150 acts performing to at least half a million concert-goers and another couple of billion in the audience via various broadcast media, that's a lot of trains, planes and automobiles, not to mention the electricity being used. I'm sure the concerts will be fantastic, and people will feel good about themselves that they are "doing something," but I'm skeptical about sustained behavior change coming from people who are finally made aware of global warming because they went to the concert. If they are going to have any impact, the messages coming from the concert need to avoid screaming about how we're all going to die and focus on just a few easy, concrete actions people can take. But perhaps having people stay home and make their own acoustic music would go further toward actually reducing carbon levels (though I don't think anyone around here wants to hear me belting out "Roxanne"). Technorati Tags: ddt, rachel carson, silent spring, forbes, live earth, al gore, global warming