Search This Blog

De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, January 4, 2016

Through The Looking Glass

By Rich Kozlovich - Originally published June 25, 2008 updated June 25, 2016

"The time has come," the Walrus said, to talk of many things: Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax - Of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings."- Lewis Carroll


Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory states, "The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes. " May I be so bold as to entertain the thought that this certainly would apply to those who attempt to define Integrated Pest Management (IPM) or Green for the structural pest control industry?


Here is the reality we are faced with - we have agreed to use these terms without agreeing on what they mean. I hear the statement often - “we all know what IPM is or; we all know what Green means”. Really? The reality is that there is “no universally accepted definition of the IPM and Green phenomena; there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them.”


In short - neither IPM or Green Pest Control have a logical foundation or structure to justify their existence.


Yet, the activists wield words and phrases such as, “we must reduce our chemical impact” like a cudgel to browbeat anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their views regarding IPM or Green pest control. They suggest that we are a bunch of evil fascists attempting to pollute the world and kill our children for mere profit.


My questions are always the same:


1. Exactly what chemical impact are they talking about?
2. Where are the peer reviewable negative statistics?
3. Where are the statistics showing a reduction in life expectancy caused by pesticides?
4. Where is the massive increase in pesticide generated afflictions or diseases?


They aren’t in countries that are the heaviest users of pesticides. In fact, it is now reported that the life expectancy is increasing in these countries. However, the opposite is true in countries that use pesticides the least. They answer by making unfounded claims in the press, where they sound like songbirds chirping the same tune - however, when you challenge these people face to face they sound more like croaking toads.

It can be clearly shown that while they spew out unproven claims about pesticides and those who use them, the green movement has wreaked havoc on people’s lives all over the world. Children dying by the millions and tens millions suffering from a host of maladies and conditions created by the things they promote, which could have been easily prevented except for the influence green Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) have on the decision makers of the world. These are facts and they are part of the public record for those who are willing to look for them. They cannot be disputed! They can be spun, they can be denied, they can be twisted and the can be ignored….but they cannot be disputed!


I have abandoned any hope industry and association journals will take this fight public. It's just not what they do. They're not prepared to be crusaders. I don't like it but there it is. However, this brings me to some questions I would really love an answer to:


  • Why are promoters of these misanthropic concepts given columns that regularly appear in chemical industry and association trade journals?
  • Why is it that those who have different views are not given the same opportunity to refute these activist's views?
  • Why do I never see a regular column in the trades or association journals devoted to defending us as we are!
  • Why don't we see the "rest of the story"?
  • And most importantly: Why aren't we demanding to see the "rest of story"? If we don't - they won't!

I have a circle of writers I'm in regular communication with such as Dr. Jay Lehr, one of the founders of EPA, who now believes it needs dismantled and has developed a five year plan to do so. Then there's Steve Milloy, Paul Driessen, Henry Miller, all excellent defenders against the green tide. Why don't we see their work published by those delivering our information?

For years the green activists have promoted causes and programs resulting in devastation to the poorest and most desperate people of the world, starting with the ban on DDT.


All the while these activist induced devastations have been going on these people have maintained a steady drumbeat of misinformation, condemning us with their unscientific claims about pesticides and public health. And the information deliverers inside and outside of our industry has either been silent or has been party to this campaign of Jabberwocky.

What has the application industries done to publically defend itself from these false charges, and I mean attacking these falsehoods with vigor!  As far as I can tell we've done little or nothing! Worse yet - although is seems to me this may be changing - the pesticide manufacturing, distribution and application industries became part and parcel of that package.

Why?

Because this is now become a two fold issue - moral and economic. We, as an industry, are now making more money than ever, and regulations are the cause. Yet we must ask ourselves - is society benefitting from all of this? I say no! And that's the conundrum - do we taking a moral stand or an economic stand? And if we take an economic stand how do we defend the morality of that decision when people are unnecessarily suffering from these green inititives.  Suffering that could easily be eliminated!  Suffering that should be eliminated!


How do these ideas take hold in an industry? It's caused by decent everyday go to work people who willingly but unknowingly take these green concepts seriously. And why are they so 'willing' and 'unknowing'? Actually it is understandable. It's because there is no one from within our industry strongly rebutting these claims, or responding to the arbitrary demands from the activists and regulators in our own forums. And apparently, it appears that no one else is permitted to publically rebut them. As a result they have no other touch stone to go by except the propaganda of the greenies and the EPA.


Another point that should be obvious to the most casual observer is that we can't get “ahead of this green issue”. How can we get ahead of something that isn’t ours? It is their program and they will adjust it to offset anything we do. If we even appear to be “getting ahead” they will adjust it in such a manner that we will fall behind again. We will never get ahead of this “green” phenomenon - period! 


You can’t get ahead of an irrational concept that is initiated by those who wish you ill. If it isn’t your program you can’t control it - you can only defeat it!

Green is even less definable than IPM. I was recently told: “We didn’t get ahead of IPM and look where it got us”. We waste energy trying to get ahead of things we cannot get ahead of and cannot control. Furthermore, we shouldn’t be trying to get ahead - we should be working to eliminate them.


The reason we have “green” as an issue now is not because we didn’t get ahead of IPM - it’s because we didn’t defeat IPM. This was the next obvious step after IPM. Their goal is to eliminate pesticides, and each time we adopt an attitude of appeasement, they will go to the next level and each level will be more extreme than the last.

Make no mistake about it, we didn’t stand up to IPM then, and if we don’t defeat “green” now the next step will be elimination. The European Union has already taken steps to do just that, although that may not matter so much any longer because the EU is doomed.


"Europe is also dying for reasons independent of geopolitics and policy. All but six of its 27 members (the UK is one of the six) have already aged past any hope of demographic recovery. Germany -- the country the EU seems to be pinning its hopes on -- has the world’s most distorted population structure, with more people in their 50s than 40s than 30s than 20s than teenagers than children. Which means that all three forms of economic growth -- consumption, investment and export -- are about to prove beyond them. In essence, Europe’s aging is transforming it into a collection of old folks’ homes."


The Brexit vote is just the beginning of Europe's woes. Europe, along with Russia have been breeding themselves out of existence. Their demographic pyramid is so bad they don't really have enough young men to man their armies properly. Russia has seven defensive gaps they need to defend but only have the manpower to man three of them.


Europe is doomed right along with the EU, so why would we want to sign on to any international agreements changing any of our policies regarding chemicals, especially pesticides. It's my belief the world's economy will seriously worsen after 2020, and European chemical companies will have to abandon Europe by 2030, if not earlier, if they wish to survive.  And guess where they'll move?


(Editor's Note: I will address this soon in an article entitled "Let Me Tell You About Bretton Woods". RK)

Who will we blame when we awaken from this irrational and nightmarish attempt to please the green activists inside and outside of our industry? More importantly - who will take responsibility for the disasters that awaits us if or when the developed world eliminates pesticides and loses the benefits they impart? We've seen the consequences of losing carbamates and organophosphates - a massive plague of bed bugs enveloping the nation. We've seen Zika virus fears throughout the Americas, and this won't get better until we resolve to defeat all these initiatives by the green movement and their cat's paws in government.


"Through the Looking Glass" was a book by Lewis Carroll with Alice (As in Alice in Wonderland) as the main character. In the book Alice finally awakens from her irrational and nightmarish dream and promptly blames one of her cats for the whole thing. When we've faced enough disasters to awaken from this nightmare of environmentalism and see the disasters they've wrought - Who will we blame? Who will answer for it? You?


One more thing.  Definition leads to clarity!

Green is no longer about the environment. "Socialism and environmentalism have become opposite sides of the same coin......for many in the green movement the environment is no longer the cause, but the vehicle. The environment, and climate change in particular, is the big sail at the backs of activists who have hijacked the green movement. They are watermelons—green on the outside, red on the inside."


No comments:

Post a Comment