Talking rubbish about DDT

“to cry crocodile tears over the genuine problems of the third world while doing nothing to ameliorate them, simply to fight a domestic political battle”: Crooked Timber itself summed up in one neat phrase. Congratulations on taking your first step towards self-awareness.

I’m so glad that someone here pointed me to his stuff on DDT several months ago – before then I had thought there was some truth to this claim. I’m sure there are some labor and environmental policies that are causing some harm to people in the third world by making some cheap and easy means of development slightly less cheap and easy. But nothing so serious as this. And of course, nothing so serious as the farm subsidies in Europe and the US.

Why?

The “lessons” of this story are:
(a) Government regulation harms people.
(b) Chemicals only have beneficial effects.
(c) Environmentalists would rather people died, so their ideas are repugnant.
(d) Chemical manufacturers are heroes.
(e) Free markets solve all problems.

These lessons are presented in an easily repeated story form, like urban legends, which is how a great portion of the populace gets its information. Remember how successful “welfare queens driving cadillacs” was?

I’d bet that if you follow the money, you’d find the usual suspects who profit from “Better living through chemistry” and general pro-corporation, anti-government sentiments. The story probably originated in a less directed form, and through retelling has evolved into something that the right-wing echo chamber has appropriated and disseminated with funding from the usual suspects.

Some sociologist of science should really have a look at the American Right’s attitude towards science. Specifically, they should look at why seemingly religious/fundamentalist people should continually bang on about how they love science, technology etc., but at the same time seem to have little or no grasp of the scientific method, and seem to feel they can ‘pick and choose’ facts as and when they feel fit. They are all guilty of this, it seems to me. Even Christopher Hitchens, an atheist, a secularist, and a defender of the Englightenment project, attacks the Lancet study (despite having no training in statistics, despite having never carried out a study of this sort, despite never having, apparently, even read the Kaplan article he claims to be quoting). There is no mystery why. Most of the Right seem to have persuaded themselves (to all intents and purposes) that ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted’, and that things should only be stated to be true if they support the ideology of George Bush and that anything that might undermine (for example) the Iraq war is by definition false.

(What are Hitchen’s views on global warming? One wonders).

After all, as the Bible says “All things are lawful to me, but not all things are expedient”.

However it also seems to me that we can go further. Glenn Reynonlds for example, who is perfectly happy to dish the dirt on global warming and DDT, nevertheless would be the first to proclaim his love of science and has even gone into print praising the loonbat Kurzweill, and the battier ideas of Eric Drexler.

I think the solution here is in Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The dictum is silly (it depends on who is doing the distinguishing) but I think many on the Right (who are almost all media academics, students of political science, journalists etc. and not actually scientists) seem to think that science (or rather technology) really is a kind of magic. Note especially that Kurzweil’s theories in particular have a sort of mystical/religious tinge similar to those of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: again this seems to indicate a cross over between ‘scientific’ (or technological) views and those of religion.

In the same way, given that the Right seems to view ‘science’ (technology) as merely a modern version of magic carpets and genies in lamps, scientific discoveries that speak to us of limits or things we CAN’T do, must literally seem unscientific to them. Any attempt to regulate, or even ban things discovered by ‘science’ must seem to them to be little less than blasphemy.

In the 14th century who would have argued for the banning of magic carpets as a risk to the public (or to birds)? Not Glenn Reynolds, that’s for sure.

Moreover the key point about science: that if a study holds up you just HAVE TO accept it’s true, whether you like it or not, is alien to their worldview.

I think as well that their worship of ‘science’ (really technology) is bound up with an incredibly crude “Right Hegelian” notion of progress, with an equally crude hatred and fear of anything that strikes them as being ‘reactionary’ (or barbaric, or backward or…..).

For example note (again in Hitchens) the extravagant praise of dumb smart bombs, and the equally vicious attacks on the fuzzie wuzzies’ insurgents’ use of beheading as a method of execution. By the way the pro-warriors bang on about this, you would think it was the method of execution and not the actual execution itself that was the problem.

I also think that the use of the internet by Bin Laden et al seems to really piss them off: it must confuse them. “But we are the civilised, technologically advanced ones! Who taught the barbarian hordes Islamists to use our invention!”

In the text linked to is the following statement:

“The graph on the left shows that malaria did skyrocket in India in the 70s. But not because they cut back on DDT spraying because of pressure from environmentalists. The graph shows that they didn’t cut back on DDT, but dramatically increased its use.”

However, at least in regard to what is printed on the graph, this is a non-sequitur. The graph does not show time, it only shows quantity of ddt versus malaria incidence. Thus the last sentence “..didn’t cut back…but dramtically increased…” simply is not inferrable from the graph to the extent it implies sequential actions. For all we know, maximum usage of ddt and incidence of cases might have been at a peak in 1969, 1974, or 1977.

Moreover, it can be foolish to view relationships between a problem and its solution. Suppose that there were an outbreak of rabies in Wisconsin. Health authortities would push to have all animals vaccinated. The result, if graphed, would be something similar to the DDT graph. As the number of cases of rabies increased, the consumption of rabies vaccine would similarly increase.

Nor does the graph provide a reliable indicator of the effects of government action on supply. If for some reason vaccine were limited to 1/2 what was desirable, the graph might appear similar because it provides no idea of what desired usage to combat the epidemic would be.

Ah DDT, the gift that keeps on giving. Check up on endocrine disruption, if you think DDT is good. And also if you want to know what it’s done to you (all of you) and your children.

DDT, by the way, is still operative in this country, both in breakdown forms still alive and well in the soil and in its use in the manufacture of other pesticides. Boil DDT in sulfuric acid and you have a wonderful and legal pesticide that is sold her in America.

It is also on the food imported into the country. Chow down everyone, because you don’t own the rights to what the chemical industry pushes down your throat every single day.

…As for why the story specifically revolves around DDT, I think that’s an easy one to answer: DDT has a high profile as a Bad Chemical because of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which really was a seminal work in the history of environmentalism. That makes it a political target.

Many people who are generally inclined toward environmentalism have a vague sort of idea that DDT used to cause a lot of harm but that all stopped because they banned it after Silent Spring. This story is oversimplified and wrong in some details, but many people don’t know it, which gives the counter-story the advantage of surprise: by poking holes in the naive pseudo-environmentalist version in just the right way, you can give the appearance that Rachel Carson had feet of clay and therefore environmentalism is founded on a lie.

Science doesn’t work by this kind of founding-figure attack, and neither should policy, but it’s a powerful kind of story. I see it the same phenomenon all the time in crackpot attacks on the theory of relativity: the cranks will go after Einstein, the 1919 eclipse and the Michelson-Morley experiment, ignoring much of what’s happened since then. Similarly, creationists and alternative-medicine advocates like to talk about mythical deathbed recantations of Darwin and Pasteur, as if that were even relevant to the science.

The right-wingers like to praise DDT for the same reason that they like to praise torture; both shock and horrify liberals.

Scientifically, widespread use of DDT, even were it harmless to other living organisms than mosquitoes, is not a great idea: pests and bacteria develop resistance to broadcast, indiscriminately used pesticides and antibiotics.

Not really Lambert’s area, and he has enough to do, but somebody needs to start up a regular and viscious debunking of the farm subsidies are killing all those poor people crap that passes for conventional wisdom in the U.S. Dean Baker is good on this, but he also has many other fish to fry.

David, abb1

The whole “farm subsidies are killing poor people” claim (which personally I’m somewhat sceptical about) and the ‘free trade’ idol don’t have much to do with each other (despite some pundits claiming otherwise).

In fact, standard economic theory, the kind lends support to free trade, says that if your trading partners are subsiziding their product you should, well, let them, because you benefit. You just produce something else and take advantage of low prices. This is contra the “dumping fallacy”. So from point of view of the importing nations, free trade theory says “who cares”.

However what I think people who support the ‘subsidies=death’ claim are implicitly thinking of is terms of trade effects. So yeah it could be bad. But again, I’m generally sceptical because in most cases term of trade effects aren’t that big and because, since I’ve never seen any serious study about it.

I don’t know what the facts are, but the NYT editorial page is a big proponent of the notion that European subsidies for their farmers are a huge blow to African farmers. I’m not sure how exactly the harm is supposedly inflicted. If the subsidies were ended, would poor African farmers be producing food for Europeans, pulling themselves out of poverty that way? Or is food from Europe being shipped down there and driving African farmers out of business? Anyone here know?

When I was in school,over thirty years ago, the DOW chemical company sent a man to do a presentation on the benign qualities of DDT . In front of the whole assembled student body this poor bastard ate whole spoonfulls of the stuff,as a way to reassure us and sell us on the idea of chemicals helping mankind. Subsidized US (and Euro)grain is dumped on world markets at prices third world farmers cannot compete with. Ill find us a study.A scientific study.

Donald,

My understanding of that argument is this, though I may well be wrong: French government guarantees high prices for ag product to French farmers. They accomplish this by buying up ag product until the price reaches the target level (by artificially inflating demand). They gotta do something with all the product they bought so they sell it on the world market. This drives the world price of food down, hurting farmers in the Third World (this is the terms of trade effect).
Of course for this policy to work it is necessary to impose severe restrictions on imports of ag product into France, or no Frenchman would buy expensive price supported French food, but instead would go with the cheaper African food. So there’s an extra cost to African farmers – being denied access to the French (European) market.
So the answer to your questions would be “both”.

And speaking of confusing usage of terminology in economics here we have another example; “subsidy”. There’s the kind of subsidy where a government gives a producer some amount of money per each unit that she produces (supply curve out, price down, quantity up). And then there’s the kind of subsidy as described above where government buys up stuff (demand curve out, price up, quantity up – though all the increase in q is government) to increase the price for producers. The two quite different effects (and then you throw in international trade in and it gets really messy) but in many discussions people end up arguing about whether removing subsidies will up the price or down the price, without realizing that it depends on what kind of subsidy you’re talking about.
Saw some confusion on this at Unfogged awhile back.

In my humble opinion, DDT could have been an extremely effective public health tool. But agribusiness couldn’t keep their hands off it. And when any pesticide is used on such an enormous scale, major problems (biomagnification in the food chain, pesticide resistance, etc.) are inevitable. If DDT was strictly used for disease control, we could have continued its use without major consequences.

Big business: 1.
Public health: 0.

It’s perfectly sensible for any community (including nation-states) to subsidize and protect their local producers.

Is it? At whose expense? Why, then, are there not a dozen subsidy and tariff barriers between London and Birmingham? Why has nobody thought of this before – no industry need ever fail again! We could have kept the coal mines, steel mills and linen industry open!

Here’s an interesting blog post about protecting the shoe market in Kenya.

Radak,

If subsidies in general (not just farm subsidies) don’t hurt countries other than the one putting the sussidies in place, why do other countries fight so strongly against them? Is it just that their governments are captured so much by domestic business? That can’t be all of it, surely. (It surely is some, though.) Similarly, though I agree that domestic problems explain a large portion as to why, say, countries in Africa haven’t been able to exploit US subsidies, it seems more than a bit beholdent to abstract theory to think it explains all. (Certainly not even all experts on trade theory think so- in the Trade regulation class I took the authors of our texts, Alan Sykes and Jackson, seemed to think that subsidies hurt not only the imposing state but the others.) And, my understanding is that the argument against farm subsidies isn’t that it allows US products to be dumped on the world (thought that might be right) but that it keeps African countries from being able to export to the US. (The same with, say, steel subsidies.)

Dear stephen, you seem to have missed this post.

The proprietors of Arts and Letter Daily seem to have a unhealthy interest in conservative-mag stories relating to the goodness DDT and the non-existence of global warming.

Matt,

You ask, If subsidies in general (not just farm subsidies) don’t hurt countries other than the one putting the subsidies in place, why do other countries fight so strongly against them? Is it just that their governments are captured so much by domestic business? (#32)

This phenomenon is well known in economics. The people harmed are more aware of the harm than those benefited are aware of the benefits. It is not just domestic business interests, but domestic interests in general. In other words, being able to buy European grain for $.10 a pound, rather than native grain at $.15 a pound, is good for everyone who buys grain; however, it is very bad for the native farmers who now can’t make a living farming.

In more geekish terms, free trade benefits the economy on balance, but it has distributional effects. Since utility curves are risk-averse and logarithmic (having X more helps less than having X less hurts, and having 10X as much is not 10X better), the perceived utility effects often run in different directions than the actual economic effects.

“This would have been a reasonable description of the Common Agricultural Policy up until about 1999. However, it’s no longer accurate at all”

Sure, like I said I might be wrong and I was just trying to present/understand the side of the argument that I don’t even support.

“What they do is guarantee an income for farmers, usually based on the land they own”

So is it just a cash handout? That’s definetly a much better way of subsidizing somone than monkeying around with prices indirectly.

It’s perfectly sensible for any community (including nation-states) to support and protect their local consumers.

…by not subsidizing and protecting the damn producers.

It sure is. But that’s not challenging any annoying dogma, any stupid common wisdom – so what’s the point?

I didn’t mean to put forward any wisdom. To say “it’s perfectly OK to do this” is not the same as saying “this is the only way”.

Clearly, idolatry of the ‘free trade’ is wide-spread, but I’m not aware of any powerful protectionist preconception occupying the public mind at this time.

I have always heard that Tom Delay is behind the pro-DDT stance. That as an ex-exterminator who lost money with the anti-DDT movement, he wanted to get back at the EPA and the environmentalists. I don’t know the truth to these accusations – just that he is extremely anti EPA and any science that doesn’t put money in his pockets.

True, but there’re plenty of idiots who’ll do it for free, ’cause they are ‘conservative’.