Global Warming, Alar, and DDT?

Question

What does Global Warming, Alar, and DDT all have in common. What is the one distinctive difference between AGW and the other two that relates directly to their similarity?

Bonus points for guessing how many emotional, irrational and unrelated answers are posted to this question before an actual answer is. Directions for redeeming bonus points given with best answer response.

Answer 1

The industries threatened by controls in each case hired PR firms, often with the same person involved, to mount public relations campaigns to dispute the science and to confuse and delay public response to the underlying issues.

It's a very lucrative business:

http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?ei=UTF-...

Steven J. Milloy is the "junk science" commentator for FoxNews.com and runs the Web site junkscience.com, which is dedicated to debunking what Milloy labels "faulty scientific data and analysis."

Among the topics Milloy has addressed are what he believes to be false claims regarding DDT, global warming, Alar, breast implants, secondhand smoke, ozone depletion, and mad cow disease.[1]

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Junk Science: A look at Steven J. Milloy’s current affiliates and backers

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/?s=stev...

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfact...

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personf...

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2007/11...

"The first significant mention of Mr. Milloy is when he was working for a think tank known as the National Environmental Policy Institute. This think tank was originally funded using money from corporate polluters including Exxon, Bethlehem Steel, and Shell Oil. NEPI’s raison d’être was to encourage public mistrust of scientific studies that hadn’t been funded by the polluters themselves, and according to SourceWatch.org, NEPI activities were very effective."

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2007/11...

At Fox News, a Pundit for Hire

http://www.freepress.net/news/print.php?...

"Objective viewers long ago realized that Fox News has a political agenda. But, when a pundit promotes this agenda while on the take from corporations that benefit from it, then Fox News has gone one disturbing step further"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mill...

Answer 2

Common among all three is that they concern our quality of life.

Global Warming (AGW) stands out from the other two in that it has not (yet) been accepted as 'less than truthful' (note that I'm trying to be politically correct).

Some exerpts regarding Alar & DDT:

Regarding Alar:

“Elizabeth Whelan and her organization, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) worked to establish a narrative of the Alar episode as a scare. The ACSH claimed that Alar and its breakdown product UDMH had not been shown to be carcinogenic. Whelan's campaign was so effective that today, "Alar scare" is shorthand among news media and food industry professionals for an irrational, emotional public scare based on propaganda rather than facts.

The Alar scare also prompted the introduction of food libel laws in 13 states.

Regarding DDT:

Environmental activists planned to defame scientists who defended DDT. In an uncontradicted deposition in a federal lawsuit, Victor Yannacone, a founder of the Environmental Defense Fund, testified that he attended a meeting in which Roland Clement of the Audubon Society and officials of the Environmental Defense Fund decided that University of California-Berkeley professor and DDT-supporter Thomas H. Jukes was to be muzzled by attacking his credibility.

Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."

Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus' aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT.

Answer 3

They are all mostly leftist causes that were more about emotional hysterics than science.   They all  use science or more precisely abuse science.  Alar nearly nearly ruined the apple industry for a while for no good cause.  The environmentalists will always suggest the benefits of banning DDT but rarely will discuss the probable million people that died as a result of the ban due to Malaria (who knows the actual number).  A difference might be that Alar and DDT were involved with food and GW is involved with energy which has multiple applications.  Not sure what you are hinting at though.

Answer 4

AGW, Alar, & DDT are all emotional subjects where "conventional wisdom" trumped scientific facts.

These issues are all acted upon by emotions rather than thought.

To your list you can also add china syndrome, nuclear winter, killer bees, SARS, Avaian Flu, Y2K, and dozens of others no one longer remembers.

Answer 5

They're three different issues.

Alar was always a controversial issue, not a consensus position.

DDT was a real problem, with major environmental impacts.  Reducing its' widespread use OUTDOORS has fixed that.

Global warming is well established scientific fact, and we need to do something about it.

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know...  Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point.  You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

jim z - Leftists like these?

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air.  We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

"I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

Answer 6

I know this answer Alex.

What are things the main stream media blow out of proportion thus resulting in idiotic government actions which kills millions?