By: James Sherk

1 August 2005 Responsible Creation Care II: Lessons from Past Environmental Crises

Many environmentalists believe human activity and development is morally evil. Consequently, they are predisposed to want to believe these activities also destroy the earth. If they did, that would give them the rationale needed to outlaw these activities. Historically, many environmentalists have embraced scientifically unsound arguments - intentionally or otherwise - without proper skepticism because these arguments reinforce what they already believe: that the government must dramatically curtail human activity. Thus most environmentalists embraced the acid rain, Ozone Hole, and DDT causes without the proper skepticism they should have displayed.

Christians do not share these presuppositions - we do not believe in the moral evil of human development - and so Christians should be skeptical of environmentalist claims which are motivated by profoundly non-Christian moral convictions about the evil of human activity itself. A rush to regulate human development often does nothing to care for God's creation and may interfere with other Christian responsibilities - such as our obligation to help the poor. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and similar organizations have an agenda that leads them to rush to judgment, no matter how weak the science. Christians do not share this agenda and should not promote it when it conflicts with other Christian duties.

The Acid Rain Scare
Environmentalist groups perpetually claim that human activity destroys the earth. Science rarely supports anything close to the full extent of their claims. A notable example of this phenomenon occurred two decades ago when prominent environmentalists raised the alarm about acid rain. Acid rain results when emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide combine with water in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acid, which leads to acidic precipitation. On paper it sounds plausible and devastating.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s environmentalists such as the Sierra Club raised an outcry over the threat acid rain posed to the earth. They claimed that it would poison forests and sterilize rivers and lakes. Greenpeace activists warned that because of acid rain "we are on the brink of an ecological Hiroshima."¹ They pushed for government regulation to severely curtail sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. At a cost of billions of dollars a year to industry - and thus consumers - Congress enacted legislation to cut these emissions in half.

Environmentalists did not, however, have good scientific evidence to support their claims. Congress, concerned about the effects of acid rain on the environment, also funded the $530 million National Acid Precipitation Assessment Project (NAPAP). The NAPAP study revealed that acid rain did not threaten the environment at all. It found that the median pH level of lakes in the Adirondacks, the region most heavily affected by acid rain, was 6.9, almost perfectly neutral. This made sense, since rocks and minerals are alkaline and help neutralize any acid they come in contact with. Unsurprisingly most lakes in America are in contact with … rocks and minerals.² Scientists found no evidence that acidity in the Adirondacks had risen above pre-industrial levels or that acid rain harmed forests.3 Extensive controlled experiments with crops demonstrated that not only did acidity levels ten times greater the observed levels have no harmful effects on crops, but that acid rain actually fertilized them and enhanced their growth.⁴ In short, despite sounding harmful on paper, and despite the hype of environmentalists, acid rain did next to nothing to harm the environment.

We should not forget the lessons of the acid rain scare. In reality, SO2 emissions had only a minor effect on the environment, but environmentalists rushed to judgment before the evidence came in. Because of the furor over the issue, Congress passed legislation dramatically curtailing sulfur dioxide emissions. Studies estimate that this legislation costs the economy between one and a half and three billion dollars a year.⁵ Yet in reality, there was no problem, and these resources spent reducing SO2 emissions could have been put to far better use. They could have gone towards providing health care, feeding the hungry, or helping refugees overseas. A large portion of the taxes that would have been collected on this money would have done just that. Instead, every year, these regulations destroy well over a billion dollars of wealth for little appreciable environmental gain.

Those who believe that humans are a cancer on the planet have no problem with this. Christians should. Responsible stewardship does not entail throwing away wealth God has created. When environmentalists proclaim an imminent apocalypse and call for the government to adopt expensive measures to save the earth, Christians must exercise proper skepticism. Science often rebuts the environmentalist's agenda driven claims.

The Ozone Hole
In the early 1990s, as the acid rain scare receded, the environmentalist movement latched onto another impeding ecological crisis: the Ozone Hole. Scientists had begun measuring ozone levels in the atmosphere and determined that the ozone layer thinned annually above the arctic and Antarctic. The ozone layer shields the earth from much of the ultraviolet radiation that the sun emits. If it were breaking down, that could lead to increased UV exposure, and potentially increased risks of cancer.

Environmentalists and some scientists hypothesized that Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the culprit. This chemical, used in refrigeration, was demonstrated in laboratories to break down and release chlorine when exposed to ultraviolet light. Scientists knew that chlorine causes ozone to decay. Environmentalist groups like Greenpeace quickly raised the alarm, warning that "the current ozone crisis … is not only a matter of human survival, but that of the survival of all of life."⁶ In response, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the manufacture and use of CFCs in the United States.

Congress, however, should not have listened to the environmentalists. They saw only what they expected to see, human activity devastating the earth, and leaped to the conclusion the government must ban CFCs. As the evidence came in, however, it became apparent that science did not support their claims. CFCs are extremely heavy molecules, four times heavier than air, so scientists could not plausibly explain how large numbers of CFCs were somehow rising dozens of miles above the earth's surface to the upper atmosphere, but only above the north and south poles.⁷

Nor did it make sense that the levels of manmade CFCs emitted each year could possibly account for the observed decay. Human activity only released 1.1 million tons of CFCs containing 750,000 tons of chlorine each year. Environmentalist scientists estimated that one percent of those CFCs would break down in the atmosphere and actually release chlorine. Nature normally produces vastly more chlorine than that each year. Evaporating seawater emits an estimated six hundred million tons of chlorine annually, while volcanic eruptions launch an annual average of thirty six million tons directly into the upper atmosphere. Natural chlorine emissions dwarfed those released by CFCs, and did not rip the ozone layer to shreds.⁸

Additionally, ozone is a naturally unstable molecule that breaks down rapidly and is created, among other processes, by ultraviolet radiation striking oxygen. It didn't take scientists long to realize that the ozone hole appeared in the north and south poles only in winter - when those poles tilted farthest away from the sun, and fewer ultraviolet rays struck the atmosphere, leading to the creation of less ozone than the rest of the year. This led to the annual thinning of the ozone layer.⁹ In other words, the implausible CFC story had nothing to do with the Ozone Hole - it had a completely natural explanation. Today the media and environmentalists virtually never raise concerns about Ozone Hole because there are none.

In the event, Congress did not wait for the science to come in, but banned CFCs. This thrilled environmentalists, but came with a heavy price tag. Manufacturers knew how to produce large quantities of CFCs inexpensively, but substitute compounds cost far more to synthesize. Moreover, Americans had to replace or retrofit $135 billion worth of air conditioning and refrigeration equipment.¹⁰ This provides another historical example of why Christians should examine environmentalist scientific claims cautiously and carefully. Their belief in humanity as a cancer on the planet predisposes them to see disasters where there are none. They pressured the government into forcing individuals and corporations to waste billions of dollars to solve a problem that existed only in their minds. That $135 billion could have been put to many better uses than replacing a harmless chemical that had no effect on the ozone layer. Christian stewardship does not involve wasting valuable resources to end nonexistent crises.

DDT
Many historians believe the modern environmentalist movement began in 1962 when Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring." In that book she warned that the pesticide DDT was wreaking ecological havoc on America. Particularly, she claimed that DDT caused cancer and led to a thinning of bird's eggshells. As DDT levels in the environment rose, she stated, eggshells would thin so much that they would crack when female birds incubated them, killing the chicks. This would lead to the devastation of bird populations across the country. Unless something was done, Carson predicted future generations of Americans would grow up to silent springs without the music of songbirds. The public reacted strongly, and the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT use in America in 1972, while putting diplomatic and financial pressure to bear on foreign countries to induce them to stop using the compound.¹¹ Environmentalists often regard this as one of their first great achievements.

They should not. Scientific research subsequently demonstrated that Carson had dramatically overstated the case against DDT. Scientists could find no reliable evidence that DDT exposure increased cancer rates.¹² Human volunteers who ingested 35 milligrams of DDT a day for two years experienced no ill effects, carcinogenic or otherwise.¹³ Initial experiments demonstrated that DDT thinned the eggshells of captive chickens and quail. However, scientists later determined that the researches fed those birds diets containing only one-fifth the calcium they normally consume. Feeding the birds regular amounts of calcium eliminated the thinning effect.

Researchers could only substantiate a link between DDT and eggshell thinning in raptors.¹⁴ Even with birds of prey, however, scientists observed no correlation between DDT use and population levels. Peregrine falcon populations had started declining in the United States well before farmers began using DDT as an insecticide.¹⁵ Hawk and Eagle populations actually rose in the United States during the time DDT entered widespread agricultural use.¹⁶ At one site in Pennsylvania hawk counts rose from 9,300 in 1946 before DDT entered widespread use to 29,700 in 1968, after over a decade of heavy agricultural use of DDT.¹⁷

These facts did not stop environmentalists. Despite lacking solid evidence that DDT harmed anything other than insects, environmentalists leaped to the conclusion they already knew was true: human activity wreaks ecological havoc. Their activism caused the government to ban an inexpensive and essentially harmless chemical.

That is no credit to the environmentalist movement. But the human consequences of America's DDT ban were far worse. Malaria, a mosquito born parasite that kills one to two percent of the individuals who contract it, seriously afflicts much of the third world. In the 1950s and 1960s public health agencies around the world began using DDT to kill the mosquitoes that transmit the disease, to dramatic effect. Malaria deaths in India fell from 800,000 a year to almost none after the government instituted programs that sprayed small amounts of DDT inside the walls of homes to kill mosquitoes.¹⁸ In South Africa annual malaria cases fell by ninety percent, while Chile and several Caribbean nations completely eliminated the disease.¹⁹

After America banned DDT, however, it began pressuring foreign governments to also stop using the insecticide, and cut funding for programs using the chemical. In 1977 environmental groups successfully sued to prevent the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from exporting DDT, preventing some nations from obtaining any. In 1986 Secretary of State George Schultz instructed American embassies that "the U. S. cannot, repeat cannot, participate in programs using any of the following: (1) lindane, (2) BHC, (3) DDT, or (4) dieldrin."20 More recently, USAID pressured the Bolivian government to stop using DDT, and Bolivia complied.21 Because of environmentalist pressure, America caused many developing nations to stop using DDT in their anti-malarial campaigns, turning to more expensive and less effective substitutes.

Many of these countries then saw huge increases in malarial infections and deaths. Latin America, for example, stopped DDT use in the 1980s and malaria infections rapidly rose by a million cases a year. Only Ecuador, the one Latin American country to continue using DDT, saw no increase in malaria rates.²² In 1996, in part due to environmentalist pressure, South Africa stopped using DDT in its anti-malarial campaigns. Over four years malaria cases rose by a factor of ten, from 6,000 to over 60,000 reported infections a year. In 2000, faced with a malaria epidemic, the South African government resumed DDT spraying, and malaria cases fell by eighty percent by the end of 2001. ²³

Source: South African Department of Health, National Malaria Update (SA Dept of Health, 2003, Pretoria)

Despite these facts environmentalists continue to push for a permanent ban on DDT. The World Wildlife Fund urged the United Nations to enact a global ban on DDT use in the late 1990s.²⁴ Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the U.N. rejected those suggestions, permitting DDT use in anti-malarial efforts.²⁵ However, this exception was too lenient for the WWF, which is still "calling for a global phaseout and eventual ban on DDT production and use."²⁶

Yet because of the environmentalist campaign, many developing nations have abandoned the use of DDT, resulting in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of needless deaths.* Countless lives around the world would have been saved had environmentalists not leaped to conclusions, had they not embraced every shred of evidence that DDT was inflicting devastating ecological damage before waiting for the facts to come in. But they did not. Needless to say, Christians should not overlook the human toll wrought by the environmental movement's rush to judgment. Nor should they ignore the fact that even today, when the evidence is in, and the only legal use for DDT is to reduce mosquito transmitted diseases, many prominent environmentalist organizations still want to prohibit DDT use around the world. Environmentalists have an agenda. They want to curtail human activity and development, and view mankind as not a steward of, but a cancer on, the planet. Christians should not forget this fact when they listen to environmentalists proclaiming an imminent ecological apocalypse.

Conclusions
God has given Christians a profound responsibility as stewards of His creation. However, that does not mean God opposes human activity, or that Christians should consider the act of developing the earth intrinsically evil. Environmentalists often disagree, and this leads them to embrace unsound scientific positions without proper consideration because they already believe them to be true. In the past they have warned that DDT, acid rain, and the ozone hole threaten life as we know it. Sound science has refuted all those claims. Nonetheless, before it did so environmentalists pushed for expensive legislation to solve these nonexistent problems, legislation that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and wasted valuable resources that society could have put to better use. Stewardship of the earth does not mean Christians should jump at shadows or rush to regulate on the basis of tentative evidence. Christians should recognize the flawed presuppositions many environmental activists work from and examine the underlying science when environmentalists claim yet another form of human activity threatens life on earth. Christians have a responsibility to care for God's creation, but we must do so intelligently.

** It should be noted that not all nations stopped using DDT because of environmentalist pressure. Some did so because widespread agricultural use f the insecticide lead to the mosquitoes developing a resistance DDT, rendering DDT based anti-malarial campaigns ineffective. Sri Lanka switched to alternative pesticides in the early 1970s, before America banned DDT, for this reason.²⁷ Mexico switched to substitute chemicals for similar reasons in the 1990s.²⁸ However, many nations stopped using DDT because of outside pressure, despite its continued effectiveness. For example, mosquitoes in South America have not developed widespread resistance to DDT, but because of international pressure, much of South America has ceased using the compound.²⁹

(1) Quoting ERIK CLAUDI, GREENPEACE, BIND 1: REGNBUENS KRIGERE [GREENPEACE: THE RAINBOW WARRIORS] 249 (1988)

(2) "Acid Rain: Causes, Effects, and Control," Regulation Magazine, Volume 13, Number 1, Winter 1990, by J. Laurence Kulp, former professor of geochemistry at Columbia University and director of research of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program. Found online at: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg13n1-kulp.html

(3) Environmentalism: The Triumph of Politics, Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - September 1993, by Doug Bandow. Found online at http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=2779.

(4) "Acid Rain: Causes, Effects, and Control," Regulation Magazine, Volume 13, Number 1, Winter 1990, by J. Laurence Kulp, former professor of geochemistry at Columbia University and director of research of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program. Found online at: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg13n1-kulp.html

(5) White, Keith, Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc., and Van Horn Consulting. 1995. The
Emission Allowance Market and Electric Utility SO2 Compliance in a Competitive and
Uncertain Future, prepared for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), TR-105490,
Palo Alto, Calif. (Final Report: September).

(6) GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL : STATEMENT TO THE 8th MEETING OF THE PARTIES TO THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL, delivered by John Mate. Available online at http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/costa/speech/index.html

(7) "The Holes in the Ozone Scare: The Scientific Evidence That the Sky Isn't Falling," by Rogelio A. Maduro and Ralf Schauerhammer, ©1992, 31st Century Science Associates

(8) Ibid

(9) Ibid

(10) "The High Cost of Cool," Ben Lieberman, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, June 1994.

(11) Extract from the American Council on Science and Health publication "Facts Versus Fears" - Edition 3, June 1998. © American Council on Science and Health. Found online at: http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C06/C06Links/www.altgreen.com.au/Chemicals/ddt.html

(12) Ibid

(13) (*) "DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud," Dr J Gordon Edwards, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol 9, No. 3 Fall 2004. Available online at http://www.fightingmalaria.org/pdfs/Edwards%20-%20DDT%20Fraud.pdf

(14) INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME ON CHEMICAL SAFETY, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CRITERIA 83, DDT AND ITS DERIVATIVES - ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS. Section 6.2. The United Nations Environment Program and the World Health Organization. Found online at: http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc83.htm#SectionNumber:6.2

(15) Rice JN. Peregrine Falcon Populations. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press; 1969:155-164.

(16) Extract from the American Council on Science and Health publication "Facts Versus Fears" - Edition 3, June 1998. © American Council on Science and Health. Found online at: http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C06/C06Links/www.altgreen.com.au/Chemicals/ddt.html

(17) Summaries of Hawk Mountain migrations of raptors: 1934 to 1970 Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association Newsletters

(18) "What the World Needs Now is DDT," Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times, April 11th, 2004. Found online at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/ontheside/news/ddt_nytimes0404.pdf

(19) "Considerations for the Use of DDT in Malaria Control," By Roger Bate, Richard Tren, Jasson Urbach, and Jennifer Zambone, October 2004 issue of Health Policy and Development, The American Enterprise Institute. Found online at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21353,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

(20) "DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud," Dr J Gordon Edwards, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol 9, No. 3 Fall 2004. Available online at http://www.fightingmalaria.org/pdfs/Edwards%20-%20DDT%20Fraud.pdf

(21) "Malaria and the DDT story," Richard Tren and Roger Bate, The Institute of Economic Affairs, © 2001. Available online at: http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication26pdf?.pdf

(22) "What the World Needs Now is DDT," Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times, April 11th, 2004. Found online at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/ontheside/news/ddt_nytimes0404.pdf. See also "DDT, Global Strategies, and a Malaria Control Crisis in South America," Donald R. Roberts, Larry L. Laughlin, Paul Hsheih, and Llewellyn J. Legters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 3, No. 3, July - September 1997. Available Online at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol3no3/roberts.htm

(23) "Considerations for the Use of DDT in Malaria Control," By Roger Bate, Richard Tren, Jasson Urbach, Jennifer Zambone. American Enterprise Institute short publications. October 8, 2004. Found online at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21353,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

(24) Press Release, the World Wildlife Fund, "WWF Calls for Early Phaseout of Dangerous Chemicals As Historic Treaty Talks Begin for 100+ Nations" JUNE 29, 1998. Available online at: http://www.commondreams.org/pressreleases/June98/062998b.htm

(25) The Malaria Foundation International DDT page, found online at http://www.malaria.org/DDTpage.html

(26) WWF's efforts to phase out DDT. The World Wildlife Fund home page. Online at http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/toxics/our_solutions/ddt_work.cfm

(27) Malaria: Principles and Paractice of Malariology edited by Wernsdorfer and McGregor (1988) Chapter 45 "The recent history of malaria control and eradication. by Gramiccia and Beales pages 1366-1367.

(28) "Malaria and the DDT story," Richard Tren and Roger Bate, The Institute of Economic Affairs, © 2001. Available online at: http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication26pdf?.pdf Page 54.

(29) "DDT, Global Strategies, and a Malaria Control Crisis in South America," Donald R. Roberts, Larry L. Laughlin, Paul Hsheih, and Llewellyn J. Legters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 3, No. 3, July - September 1997. Available Online at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol3no3/roberts.htm