Enviro pesticide hysteria causes harm and is expensive.
A new study in JAMA reports:
Although ultralow-volume aerial spraying has proven effective in quickly curtailing widespread outbreaks of mosquito-borne infections, its use during this outbreak generated publicity over possible safety concerns. The ultralow-volume technique effectively kills infected adult mosquitoes with extremely low human exposure levels (<30 mL per acre) of minimally toxic pyrethroid insecticides approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for this purpose. Our time-series analyses of the daily incidence of hospital emergency department visits for skin rashes and acute respiratory distress over a 2-month period demonstrated the absence of any detectable increase in these conditions related to the 8-day period of aerial spraying, confirming similar conclusions of safety from prior research. Although the cost of 2 applications of aerial spraying over 875 062 acres in Dallas County was $1,636,348, the direct and indirect costs of the large number of human West Nile virus infections during this outbreak were estimated to exceed $8 million. [Emphasis added]
Gene, you’d think so, right up until you remember that in many cases “pro-environment” is actually code-speak for “anti-human.”
Consider that warmer climates are far more beneficial to human existence than cold ones, and that cold snaps are far more deadly than heat waves, statistically. Further consider that adapting to climatic changes is far more economic (and realistic) than trying to adjust the climate itself, and that the former requires cheap readily available electrical power (anathema to so-called environmentalists) while the latter involves sacrificing the lives and standard of living of the vast majority of the world in an effort doomed to failure by the laws of physics.
In the end, it’s not about people, or plants; it’s all about power.
But pyrethoid insecticides are 100% “organic” — they should be pissing happy about it.