Environmentalists want to ruin space and space observations

Dave Typinski wrote:
Chris L Peterson wrote:
You brought up DDT earlier, and it provides a good example. There was no
failure of public policy in that case. The substance was widely used for
some time, and a few studies suggested it could have environmental harm.
But the studies were inconclusive (and somewhat suspect, as they tended
to come from sources that found environmental harm in everything). So
DDT continued to be used. Eventually, solid studies demonstrated the
actual environmental harm, and the pesticide was highly regulated.

It should be noted that the regulation itself caused harm. How many
hundreds of thousands--or millions--of people in Africa died of
malaria over the last 30 years because we enlightened first and new
worlders decided DDT was Officially Bad?

Comparatively few. DDT was still used in some third world countries but
was losing efficacy. It is astonishingly well tolerated by mammals but
deadly to insects and not good for avian raptors which is why it was
ultimately withdrawn. It had largely lost its effectiveness towards the
end because of misuse.

The same thing happened with asbestos, although in that case it didn't
cost lives, but a serious amount of wasted time, money, and effort.

Try telling that to all the poor devils with mesothelioma and asbestosis
who worked with blue asbestos and are dying a very nasty death. The US
parent company employed Kroll to minimise their UK payout to all the
people they injured and managed to wait for plenty of them to die before
settling. Kroll and their slimy lawyers got paid as much as all the UK
victims put together. Some of the claims lawyers worked pro bono on this
case so they are more than a little annoyed. See for example:

http://www.thompsons.law.co.uk/ntext...-paid-full.htm
http://www.johnbattle-mp.org.uk/asbestos/pr099.html

A lot of people have died very nasty deaths from blue asbestos. The
other types are not as bad.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:36:23 -0400, Dave Typinski
wrote:

Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:44:45 -0400, Dave Typinski
wrote:

It should be noted that the regulation itself caused harm. How many
hundreds of thousands--or millions--of people in Africa died of
malaria over the last 30 years because we enlightened first and new
worlders decided DDT was Officially Bad?

That's a bit of an urban myth. DDT was never banned in Africa, and
continues to be used to this day. However, all over the world,
mosquitoes were becoming immune to DDT, largely because it was used
incorrectly. ...
Today, DDT is being used much more effectively in Africa and Asia than
it was during its early use, and apparently with little or no
environmental damage.

Well, whaddaya know. Thanks for the correction, Chris!

Perhaps in the US, a lot of the argument for banning DDT
was because of the claimed thinning of the shells of the Bald
Eagle (and possibly other birds), along with some indication
that it was being used so much the bugs were becoming immune.

Using it only indoors, or only outdoors, would not seem
to matter as far as bugs go, but it might make a difference in
how much goes into the environment.

I don't like to use any bug poison, but spiders can cause
days of burning and itching. :-)

For Box Elder Bugs and cockroaches, I use a 25 percent
solution of the liquid detergent used to wash dishes by hand,
spray it on them, and they die quicker than using any poison.

"$27 TRILLION to pay for Kyoto" wrote:
By putting mile-wide "solar collectors" into space that would convert
sunlight into microwaves to beam power to Earth. In addition to being
just another hyper-expensive (read: cost ineffective) scam, they are
going to ruin astronomical observations for many observatories on
Earth.

Or not. If they ever get around to building these things, they'll need to
be in geostationary orbits above areas of high power demand - e.g. large
cities. By some happy coincidence, large cities are generally thought of as
absolutely horrible places to put serious observatories.

Why don't these pony-tail wearing freaks just get REAL jobs?

Wait, which pony-tail wearing freaks are we talking about? Looking around
the control room, the instrument operator and support scientist both have
pony-tails...

--
Dan Birchall, Night Operation Assistant, Subaru Telescope, NAOJ
Views I express are my own and may not reflect those of my employer.