1,270 views

Watch
- Search Videos
  
  Advanced search »
- Submit a New Video
Discuss
About
- Try clicking on the various channels to see videos posted to that channel - if you're into music you can click the Music channel to get more music sifts - go on and explore! Use the "hotness" when you have opened the channel link to get videos that have gotten a lot of votes, or use "newness" to have a look at the new sifts.
  When browsing sifts you like, have a look at the Related Posts list to see other related videos, click the tags under the video title to see more sifts tagged with the same tags or have a look at other sifts from the same user in the More Posts By list. If the sifted video is in a play list, have a look at the play list to see other interesting videos the Sift users have linked together.
  Enter the Sift Lounge to chat with online sifters about anything and everything, or read interesting posts in the Sift Talk forum.
  The Top New Videos list is always full of interesting, current videos. It is always recommended that you have a look through the Top New Videos, but also have a look at these:
  - Upcoming Unsifted Videos - active video submissions that neither are published to the front page nor archived to the submitter's personal queue
- Have you seen a really funny, surprising, scary, interesting, cute or in any other way extra good quality video?
  Post and share it here - VideoSift is the best video aggregator on the Web, where we share, discuss, promote, and interact with the best videos out there on the web. Post it here, and share it with the large community of video-interested users. And - you are guaranteed to find more very good videos here already!
  Mind you, we only share videos you discover that someone else has made; if you "self link," by posting a video you have made, have posted or have interests in, you risk the ban hammer - read the posting guidelines before posting. The sift is NOT for promoting your own videos - it is for sharing videos others have made.
  Submit a Video Now »
Login

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

submitted by JesseoftheNorth

1 decade 4 years 7 months 3 weeks ago

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist for the US Bureau of Fisheries that first pointed out the dangerous effects of DDT and other synthetic pesticides on the environment and wildlife. Her best-selling book Silent Spring raised public awareness of the impacts man-made chemicals have on ecology and ultimately led to the banning of DDT and to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

4 Comments

*books *controversy

Adding video to channels (Books, Controversy) - requested by calvados.

Moving this video to JesseoftheNorth's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

While indiscriminate spraying of DDT is obviously stupid and dangerous, the rise in worldwide malaria rates in response to the restrictions on DDTs use have killed hundreds of thousands to millions of humans.

Now, unfortunately, it's too late. Like not using all of one's prescribed antibiotics, we allowed mosquitoes to develop a resistance to DDT when we stopped using it and it doesn't work anymore (at least not as well).

By the early 1960s we had malaria cases in India down to almost zero from 75 Million in 1947. Sri Lanka went from 2.8 million cases in 1946 to 17 cases in 1963. Malaria was on the verge of extinction in these places.

Then we lost DDT thanks to Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". By 1976 there were 6.4 million cases in India. Today it sits between 2 and 3 million cases a year and India is one of the luckier ones. Throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa more than 50% of all children are infected. In Zambia, in 2005, there were 1353 cases for every 1000 children under 5 years old. That means a huge percent of the children are infected more than once a year.

Was DDT dangerous to spray indiscriminately? Absolutely. Was it saving millions of lives? Without a doubt.

Discuss...

🗨️ Emojis & HTML

Enable JavaScript to submit a comment.

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.