We're well on our way to the

Silent Spring. It's June in Minnesota, people, and I have been bitten by one lousy mosquito. One stupid mosquito that had no inkling that I'd try to slap it. It's been raining cats and dogs, but the mosquitoes have checked out. I killed the bastard BTW.

Actually, it's not pesticides. Certainly not DDT, which, I've been convinced, the world needs more of and was only banned because of Rachel Carson's catastrophic, anti-human hyperventilations. (Can you tell I've been reading Lileks? I'm referring to the style, not the subject; he was talking about popsicles when I left him.) If it weren't for Minnesota's Own Norman Borlaug, the banning of DDT would have caused a collapse in human population. That means dead babies and poor people, people, and anybody out of favor with the ruling elite. [High pitched bleeding-heart liberal (BHL) voice, "Oh, no! Our ruling elite would only allow rich fat cats to die!"]

All that from a weather report. And, as you can imagine, he wasn't talking about any of that either.

The mosquitoes (spell-checker says I'm spelling that right, of course it wanted to make 'hyperventilations' into 'hyperfine' [what?!] and 'Carson's' into 'caressing') were killed twice by late frosts. Having May turn rainy was a blessing. I haven't wasted a nickel watering my lawn. An undeserved blessing from God, just like being born in America. But that's a whole nuther tirade. I'll get to that, I've been stewing on it for quite a while.

So. I'm against banning DDT. That must mean that I'm for polluting and poisoning and littering the Earth and all God's creatures.

Nope. I just believe that a complete ban on DDT was an overreaction. Here's the EPA's take:

Ruckelshaus said he was convinced that the continued massive use of DDT posed unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health.

No use isn't necessarily the proper response to massive use.

DDT was developed as the first of the modern insecticides early in World War II. It was initially used with great effect to combat malaria, typhus, and the other insect-borne human diseases among both military and civilian populations.

A persistent, broad-spectrum compound often termed the "miracle" pesticide, DDT came into wide agricultural and commercial usage in this country in the late 1940s. During the past 30 years, approximately 675,000 tons have been applied domestically. The peak year for use in the United States was 1959 when nearly 80 million pounds were applied. From that high point, usage declined steadily to about 13 million pounds in 1971, most of it applied to cotton.

The decline was attributed to a number of factors including increased insect resistance, development of more effective alternative pesticides, growing public and user concern over adverse environmental side effects--and governmental restriction on DDT use since 1969.

It sounds, as usual, as if the bureaucrats stuck their noses in so they could take credit after society had already solved the problem. Here's information on DDT's toxicity. I don't know how objective they are.