THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 179, September 26, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MALARIA ATONEMENT & FORGIVENESS:
Environmentalists & the Foundations That Support
Them Have Much to Atone for
By Paul K. Driessen
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM VERSUS HUMAN HEALTH & WELFARE: THE SINS FOR WHICH THE POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & THE FOUNDATIONS WHICH SUPPORT THEM NEED TO ATONE: THWARTING HUMAN
PROGRESS & THEREBY HELPING TO PROLONG POVERTY, MISERY, & PREMATURE DEATH -- OPPOSING USE OF FOSSIL FUELS,
AS WELL AS HYDROELECTRIC & NUCLEAR POWER, & THEREBY DEPRIVING THE THIRD WORLD OF ENERGY FOR FOR LIGHTS,
REFRIGERATION, HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, OFFICES, FACTORIES, & SAFE WATER -- OPPOSING ADVANCES IN BIOTECHNOLOGY
& THEREBY PREVENTING THIRD WORLD FARMERS FROM PLANTING CROPS WHICH RESIST DISEASE & YIELD BUMPER
HARVESTS THAT WOULD REDUCE MALNUTRITION & PUT CASH IN THE POCKETS OF DESTITUTE FAMILIES -- OPPOSING USE
OF DDT & OTHER INSECTICIDES TO KILL BLOOD-SUCKING INSECTS THAT CARRY MALARIA, DENGUE, YELLOW FEVER, & A
HOST OF OTHER KILLER DISEASES -- VIOLATING BASIC MEDICAL, HUMANITARIAN, & HUMAN RIGHTS PRINCIPLES --
IGNORING THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH
FULL STORY:
During the Days of Repentance, Jews ponder their sins of the past year. Yom Kippur, is their final opportunity to make
amends and alter the judgment that God will enter in his books, as the sun sets.
However, this Day of Atonement (observed September 22 this year) can assure forgiveness only for sins between people
and God. To atone for sins against other persons, we must first seek reconciliation with those we have wronged,
demonstrate repentance, and right the wrongs or make restitution.
In this politicized age, many people have their own lists of folks who “ought to be seeking forgiveness.” I’m on several
such lists, including Greenpeace’s roster of “climate criminals” (for not believing that people are causing a climate
Armageddon).
At the top of my own list are the radical environmentalists, as well as the foundations and others who give them the
money and political clout to perpetrate mischief worldwide.
Back when I helped organize the very first Earth Day on my college campus, the nascent environmentalist movement
offered hope for a cleaner, better future. Indeed, thanks to the awareness we helped generate, the river I grew up on was
revitalized, air pollution was reduced, and our overall quality of life improved.
But, over the years, the environmentalist movement became a huge, multinational, multi-billion-dollar crisis creation and
perpetuation industry. Using junk science, over-hyped fears and unrelenting campaigns against companies, technology
and development, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resource
Defense Council, and other groups thwart progress and help prolong poverty, misery, and premature death.
The movement's leaders and government, corporate and foundation mother lodes have much to atone for, if they are to
escape harsh judgment in the eyes of God and history.
By opposing fossil-fuel, hydroelectric and nuclear power, radical Greens help keep a third of the world reliant on wood and
animal dung – or, if they’re lucky, little solar panels on their huts. Deprived of energy for lights, refrigeration, hospitals,
schools, offices, factories and safe water, they remain impoverished, plagued by disease and despondent about their future.
Intense environmentalist opposition to biotechnology prevents Third World farmers from planting crops that resist disease
and drought, require fewer pesticides, and yield bumper harvests that would reduce malnutrition and put cash in the
pockets of destitute families.
The worst cabal of pressure groups remains virulently opposed to spraying tiny amounts of DDT on house walls to keep
mosquitoes out of houses, and is just as strongly opposed to using other insecticides to kill blood-sucking insects that
carry malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and a host of other killer diseases.
A year ago, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the President’s Malaria
Initiative and other agencies again recognized the vital role of these chemicals and reintroduced them in their
comprehensive, integrated disease control programs. But Pesticide Action Network, Beyond Pesticides and Physicians for
Social Responsibility demand that the agencies return to the disastrous policies of recent years, when disease and death
rates were rising every year.
The activists and foundations had watched the tolls mount, but did nothing. They knew the approach they advocated
didn’t work, but did nothing. They could have supported research into alternatives to DDT, or even bought bednets to
protect children, but didn’t spend a dime on that. They spend millions to attack insecticides and truly comprehensive
solutions, but nothing to protect parents and children.
Pesticides, they shout, are “poisonous bandaids.” Some researchers, they assert, have found “possible links” between
high levels of DDT and low birth weights in babies, reduced breastmilk production in mothers, and slightly impaired mental
abilities in children. One day, they insist, we will have a vaccine.
It’s all pure speculation, but they have the money and Public Relations savvy to garner extensive press coverage, hyping
minor hypothetical risks of using pesticides and ignoring the real, life-threatening dangers that those pesticides would
prevent.
Meanwhile, an African child dies from malaria every 30 seconds – a million a year. Countless more perish from other
insect-borne diseases. Two billion people are at risk, and 500 million get malaria every year, notes Fiona
Kobusingye-Boynes, Coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda.
Malaria victims are wracked by fevers, chills, convulsions and vomiting. They can’t work, cultivate crops, or attend school.
Families must stay home to care for the sick, and spend up to a fourth of their meager incomes on drugs and medical care.
Many who don’t die suffer severe brain damage.
Fiona knows this all too well. She has endured repeated bouts with malaria, lost many family members to the disease, and
almost died again a week ago from malaria complicated by pneumonia and intestinal illness that are also prevalent across
Africa.
Chloroquine and other treatments are potent drugs that have adverse side effects and don’t always help. Bednets are
themselves impregnated with insecticides, and are only a partial solution. (Rich countries fight cancer with chemotherapy
drugs that have nasty, proven side effects. Should we ban them, too, along with the insecticides that keep mosquitoes and
West Nile virus at bay?)
And yet, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation, the Cedar Tree Foundation, the California Endowment, and other
callous, shortsighted donors continue to lavish hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on these radical groups,
enabling them to continue their lethal lies, tirades, pressure tactics, and mayhem.
The Goldman Foundation is headed by a wealthy San Francisco insurance magnate. The Cedar Tree Foundation was
begun by a Boston pediatrician. The California Endowment is headed by an African-American physician. All support good
causes. But the millions they have given Pesticide Action Network, Beyond Pesticides, and Physicians for Social
Responsibility have exacted an unconscionable toll across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Good deeds simply don’t offset this carnage. And, while for-profit corporations are prosecuted and penalized for every
accident, the above-mentioned toxic groups and their bankrollers are not held liable or accountable even for the horrendous
disease and death toll they have caused.
Their actions violate basic medical, humanitarian, and human rights principles. They violate the ethical and social
responsibility standards that “progressive” activists say for-profit companies must follow. They ignore the Hippocratic
Oath, and the need to help families insure their children against killer diseases, with comprehensive strategies that include
DDT and other insecticides – and actually work.
Goldman, Cedar Tree, the California Endowment and their compatriots must atone for their sins. How?
Stop funding these heartless pressure groups. Donate to organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and
Africa Fighting Malaria, which are working with the World Health Organization, the United States Agency for International
Development and the President's Malaria Initiative, working with these agencies to end the needless slaughter, get electricity
and other modern
technologies to people in the Third World, and enable them to stay healthy, work more productively, and build strong family
and national economies that can afford modern homes with window screens. Buy some bed nets, and help train Africans in
how to use DDT and other insecticides safely, responsibly, and with minimal environmental impact in order to reduce disease
and save lives – now!
Then they can seek forgiveness from families who have lost loved ones, and atonement would be made.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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