Al Gore, Rachel Carson, and an Inconvenient Truth

"Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Visions of Rachel Carson no doubt danced in Al Gore's head as he sauntered down the red carpet at Cannes to present his global warming horror movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

He's enamored with her.

From the 1998 PBS Frontline report, "Fooling with Mother Nature":

On the walls of the US vice president's office, you might expect to see framed photos of political giants past and present. Amidst his collection, however, Al Gore cherishes a picture of a biologist from Western Pennsylvania - Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring." Why does an unassuming scientist lay claim to this space? "For me personally," says Gore in his introduction to the 1992 edition of her book, "Silent Spring had a profound impact ... Indeed, Rachel Carson was one of the reasons that I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues ... Carson has had as much or more effect on me than any, and perhaps than all of them together."

Yes, Gore wants to be the Rachel Carson of the new millenium, maybe more than he wanted to be President of the United States.

That's probably doubtful, but it can't be denied that Gore seems to be displaying far more passion for the environment than he was able to muster for the 2000 presidential campaign.

All the accounts that I've read of his speeches on global warming cite his passion and intensity, his desire to save the world. What a guy!

I think he wants that to be his legacy -- Al Gore, savior of the planet.

In today's New York Times, Al Gore's companion book to his documentary is
reviewed.



(Excerpts)

[W]ith the emerging consensus on global warming today, Mr. Gore's passionate warnings about climate change seem increasingly prescient. He has revived the slide presentation about global warming that he first began giving in 1990 and taken that slide show on the road, and he has now turned that presentation into a book and a documentary film, both called "An Inconvenient Truth."

Yes, Gore exudes passion.

..."An Inconvenient Truth" is lucid, harrowing and bluntly effective.

...As for the volume's copious photos, they too serve to underscore important points. We see Mount Kilimanjaro in the process of losing its famous snows over three and a half decades, and Glacier National Park its glaciers in a similar period of time.

...Mr. Gore does a cogent job of explaining how global warming can disrupt delicate ecological balances, resulting in the spread of pests (like the pine beetle, whose migration used to be slowed by colder winters), increases in the range of disease vectors (including mosquitoes, ticks and fleas), and the extinction of a growing number of species.

...Mr. Gore, who once wrote an introduction to an edition of Rachel Carson's classic "Silent Spring" (the 1962 book that not only alerted readers to the dangers of pesticides, but is also credited with spurring the modern environmental movement), isn't a scientist like Carson and doesn't possess her literary gifts; he writes, rather, as a popularizer of other people's research and ideas. But in this multimedia day of shorter attention spans and high-profile authors, "An Inconvenient Truth" (the book and the movie) could play a similar role in galvanizing public opinion about a real and present danger. It could goad the public into reading more scholarly books on the subject, and it might even push awareness of global warming to a real tipping point — and beyond.

Of course, Gore's 325 page book receives a favorable write up. Still, it bugs me that Rachel Carson continues to maintain hero status among environmentalists.

The Times reviewer calls her a scientist, but fails to mention the bad science she relied on to spur the modern environmental movement.

How convenient!

So many of Carson's claims have been refuted.

Read a sampling of the debunking of Silent Spring.

Why The Insecticide DDT Should Never Have Been Banned

Killing People - The banning of DDT and radical environmentalists

Malaria Foundation International

The Lies of Rachel Carson

Bring Back DDT, and Science With It!

The latter is a 2002 piece by Marjorie Mazel Hecht. It provides a concise overview of Carson's illegitimate assertions and the consequences of the hysteria that she launched.

The 1972 U.S. ban on DDT is responsible for a genocide 10 times larger than that for which we sent Nazis to the gallows at Nuremberg. It is also responsible for a menticide which has already condemned one entire generation to a dark age of anti-science ignorance, and is now infecting a new one.

The lies and hysteria spread to defend the DDT ban are typical of the irrationalist, anti-science wave which has virtually destroyed rational forms of discourse in our society. If you want to save science—and human lives—the fight to bring back DDT, now being championed by that very electable candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., had better be at the top of your agenda.

Sixty million people have died needlessly of malaria, since the imposition of the 1972 ban on DDT, and hundreds of millions more have suffered from this debilitating disease. The majority of those affected are children. Of the 300 to 500 million new cases of malaria each year, 200 to 300 million are children, and malaria now kills one child every 30 seconds. Ninety percent of the reported cases of malaria are in Africa, and 40 percent of the world’s population, inhabitants of tropical countries, are threatened by the increasing incidence of malaria.

...The campaign to ban DDT got its start with the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962. Carson’s popular book was a fraud. She played on people’s emotions, and to do so, she selected and falsified data from scientific studies... .

Does that sound a bit extreme?

Are you thinking that I'm citing sources that lack credibility?

Do you need a source that you can identify as enlightened, sophisticated, and acceptable to the liberal mindset?

OK.

Read "What the World Needs Now Is DDT."

It's by Tina Rosenberg and was published in The New York Times on April 11, 2004.

It appears that Rachel Carson, Al Gore's inspiration, sparked a movement that cost millions of lives.

The point is one should be wary of Gore's claims of "truth."

His passion for sounding warnings about global warming must be tempered by sound science, and his message must not be blindly accepted as gospel.

Policy decisions on the environment can't be made based on Al Gore's "documentary" at Cannes or his volume soon to be hitting bookstore shelves.

The fact is Gore's hero had a role in millions of preventable deaths from malaria.

That reveals that the environmental movement is capable of producing catastrophes rather than preventing them.

I believe that we are stewards of God's creation and must care for the earth. I believe that we are called to protect the environment and not abuse the gift that it is. However, that goal cannot take precedence over caring for human life.

I suppose one could say: Carson lied, millions died.

Perhaps Gore's next film, if there is a next film, could be on the scourge of malaria, and how an environmental movement run amok cost precious lives.