Draw Breath

I think the think or swim blog has got Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney down just right. So how depressing to see Harry McGee (who, or whose editor, ought to know better) giving them a puff piece in today's Irish Times. Now, I'm not going to weigh in on ‘inaccuracies in An Inconvenient Truth’ = ‘climate change is a sham’ claims or on the idea that there’s a scientific debate over anthropogenic climate change. The climate change debate is over: there is no reasonable disagreement remaining even if we have to listen to bullshit generated by special interests and their ideological shills.
But what really makes my blood boil is that McGee lets them get away with the old canard about DDT. It seems McElhinney and McAleer’s film begins by covering “the widespread ban on the use of the anti-malaria pesticide DDT.” McGee tells us that “the ban was highly controversial because there was evidence that its absence actually increased the incidence of malaria in poor countries.”
But there is no ban on DDT use against malaria. McGee would have known this if he had even searched Wikipedia.

The last ten years has seen the rise of a wonder wingnut distraction over DDT: that environmentalists had it banned and that this led to lots of malaria deaths. It just isn't true. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants did ban DDT for agricultural use but it continues to be used in some places against malaria. Thing is though, DDT is less effective than it used to be. Why? Because those pesky environmentalists were right: overuse breeds resistance. Also, it's logistically very difficult to use properly in the areas where malaria is rife. But let's be clear: this is not a matter of interpretation or nuance: there is no ban on anti-malarial use of DDT.
So why is DDT included in the denialist distraction arsenal? John Quiggin suggest one startling reason (also here). One Earth points to another in an interesting overview piece.
Denialist arguments are often like postmodern zombies: no amount of evidence will stop them coming back. The DDT story is worse: it started off not true and stayed that way. How sad to see the Irish newspaper of record and a generally intelligent and interesting journalist allowing this sort of manure into print.