>> host: do they use those today at all? yet so they use copper sulfate in organic gardening but they used toxic chemicals not only to control insects but to take care of the diseases that people had. you would in just up that almost be worse than what you were trying to get rid of yourself with modern insecticides came about essentially in world war ii. ddt was probably the first one and it was very effective. we tested our soldiers with that in the sicilian campaign in europe. we dusted millions and millions of germans and italians and holocaust survivors after the war to prevent typhus. they use ddt vary widely in the south pacific to prevent the lariat, to kill mosquitoes and then after the war, they basically 1945 was the first test case of ddt in tennessee

valley area. beyond that, they decided it is so effective against mosquitoes, we can get rid of malaria in the united states and in europe so they started spraying it all over and it was also used a lot for agriculture. of ddt? >> guest: the known affect where you want to talk about real scientific evidence are slim. rashes on your skin. there's a lot of conjecture. but ddt is probably the single most studied chemical in history -- >> host: because of "silent spring"? >> guest: partly. "silent spring" was followed after rachel carson's death by a concerted campaign by environmental defense fund and other environmental organizations and essentially to launch the environmental movement to give it a prestigious power base funding base it never enjoyed before. so those things in combination

and the pressure brought against the ddt eventually got a band under president nixon. but in the meantime it was used all over the world. it was used tremendously in the united states. you can see old video or film footage of people dancing and clouds of ddt and swimming pools with clouds of ddt often are held them. people at picnic tables. so it was very widely used and the which was studied and studied, nothing more than tangential and speculatively next to the diseases and cancer and so forth were ever established. there were concerns about eggshells and we can get into that if you wish, but again a lot of conjecture, not a good solid proof. >> host: and we will get into that but good evening. this is book tv in primetime. and tonight's discussion, life

call-in program is about rachel carson and her book, "silent spring," published in 1962. we are joined by paul driessen we've been listening to. he's a senior committee of constructive tomorrow we with congress for racial equality. he has a degree from the university of denver, be a infield ecology from lawrence university, and this is his book, "eco-imperialism: green power, black death." and we are also joined by linda lear in charleston, south carolina who is rachel carson's biographer, and her book is called quote code rachel carson witness for nature" and she has written the introduction to the new addition of "silent spring" that came out in 2009. linda lear, what got you interested in rachel carson? >> guest: well originally it was because i was teaching

environmental history of the university level and when we got to talking about "silent spring" in 1962, my students looked at me and said rachel who? and i thought mauney we have to do something about this. so i set about trying to write rachel carson's biography which had never been done. >> host: we want to get you involved. this is a call-in program. we will put the numbers on the screen so you can talk to linda lear and paul driessen 32,027,370,001 if you live in east times over, 737-0002 if you live in the pacific and now to three sunday a mile at c-span@book tv.com or a tweet at book tv@twitter.com. was it a best seller when it came out in 1962? >> guest: in the it was.

it was a blockbuster in had been serialized in the new yorker magazine in three parts beginning in june and there was nothing but a stunning, anything but silent summer. when the book was finally published in september of that year it was already a best seller. john f. kennedy helped a lot to call attention to rachel carson's ideas by commenting on them in a press conference and setting up a presidential that 53 committee to look, presidential led by sri committee to look into her claims about the massive contamination of the environment by chemical pesticides. >> host: when you say her claims where did she get her knowledge? >> guest: kurson had studied, she was ecologist by training, marine biologists and ecologists. she had impeccable credentials

and was an m.a. from johns hopkins. she didn't have a ph.d. degree but she had worked all her life of fish and wildlife service and in government and had read and studied the ocean for per great best seller, "the sea around us" and then subsequently "the edge of the cp quote she did impeccable research. she was not a person who was writing for the academic community. and the remarkable thing was that rachel carson insisted on writing for the public. she wanted the public to know what was happening in their world. >> host: paul driessen, she was a marine biologist and writing here about non-reena issues; is that correct? >> guest: euskadi much the same. i was a fresh water ecologist major in college along with my geology and there is a tremendous cross over land to

water you look, your door and they are interconnected and the marine aspects are interconnected. so, she was drifting a little bit of yield of where she was trained but not all that much. the bigger problem that i found with rachel carson and some of her work is that she tended to go on the basis of punches and speculation and conjecture or anecdotal evidence and not always well backed up and sometimes she was not that familiar with or ignored the very good literature about ddt for example the was out there and she made some conclusions that were not based in the science available at that time. >> host: linda lear, which has been the impact of "silent spring" and rachel carson? >> guest: well first of all i want to say the airline would disagree with what paul driessen just said we can go back to that

perhaps later. i would say the impact was immediate. it was to have a lot only presidential science committee which found that until rachel carson's "silent spring" the public did not know pesticides for toxic. that is an astonishing statement. and until it rachel carson's book, "silent spring," the public did not understand following a mosquito, trucks spraying for mosquitoes on a path and spraying the children might be dangerous to your health or might not be good for children. but pesticides were ubiquitous. it was a science claiming the world after world war ii and was the end to insect problems. her book, however, after it came

out was the first of all the chemical industry thought she was probably a lightweight and they considered that she would go away. she didn't. and as information gathered and she began to talk further about the book and what she was trying to argue that we were over using pesticides she did don't claim that we should never use them. she claimed we were misusing them and as that began to roll on into the public to take notice then congressional hearings were called. rachel testified before both the senate and house and 1963 and the hearings were held that would go into creation finally of the environmental protection agency. >> host: let's take some calls for the guests. but before linda lear comegys did you disagree with something

paul driessen said. what was that? >> guest: well, that rachel carson based her claims of false teeth science or had overstepped the information on chemical pesticides was very hard to get. the agricultural science agency research agency of the department of agriculture was closed. they wouldn't speak to her. they wouldn't let the material out. the national cancer institute have similarly closed its doors to anybody who asked questions that might provoke maybe what was happening to people who were subjected to the dry cleaning fluids and had developed lymphoma and problems with blood disease of all sorts, rachel carson was against a wall of silence that people did not want to give her this information. so, while she -- the cancer

chapters in "silent spring" came after she had begun the book. she was first of all starting to talk about air, water and the ground pollution and it was only later that she realized she had to talk about human health and that the skin of the human body was permeable. it wasn't as people thought, something the would keep chemical's out. >> host: paul driessen, final comment before we go to calls. >> guest: bear in mind that before she was writing that book and the pesticides were ubiquitous, it was mostly ddt. there wasn't much else and in terms of toxicity it was pretty low toxic as i mentioned it caused skin rashes but not much else. people in just trying to kill themselves that they've been unable to. there's been scientists who would give talks about ddt and

tsp of ddt and eat drink their talk to make the point that it wasn't as toxic as it was reputed to be. but there is -- you have to bear in mind we were also using a lot of other chemicals and still do and there wasn't as much care for the use of those chemicals as there should have been and people were getting sick and there are pesticides out there that one drop on your skin can kill you but those were not available at that time. >> host: and this is from "silent spring."

our first call for the two guests, linda "silent spring" and paul driessen collagen in omaha nebraska. please go ahead. >> caller: i remember when i was a kid and we used to play outside going up and down the streets trucks were spraying and when you look at the life expectancy we have right now it's kind of amazing you could draw the conclusion that was dangerous, and also how many deaths do you think can be attributed to ms. carson for not using ddt? >> host: we will start with paul driessen dividend linda lear. >> guest: excellent points and a good question. i have seen all kind of numbers in terms of the deaths attributable to not having ddt

available or talking mostly about malaria in the context of disease that affects 300 to 500 million people in here causes permanent brain damage and makes people unable to work for perhaps three, four, five weeks at a time. it is a disease that leads people permanently brain damaged. so, it is something you want to get rid of as quickly as you can and the lack of ddt mosul much as an insecticide but as a repellent to keep mosquitoes out of homes according to the various estimates has cost ten to 40 millions unnecessary deaths so it's a very serious problem. >> host: is lear? >> guest: i don't have -- i thought your question was very good but i don't think that rachel carson was saying that ddt cause death or chemical pesticides necessarily caused death. what she was arguing was that we

were prolific and kleeb misusing pesticides, particularly in agriculture when we didn't know the long term affect of the@@ú@ñ the environment and what were we thinking that we could control or not control. >> host: linda lear was the common misperception she called for the banning of all pesticides? >> guest: well i don't know how that perception came about because that is not in "silent spring" and was never rachel's testimony or her idea.

her most was to call attention to the fact that there was a prolific use of pesticides in the environment when we did not know what the total outcome was and when the public did not know that their homes and farms and animals were being sprayed from the air by airplanes in the fields and they didn't know when this was going to happen and it did indeed kill certain wildlife, birds, fish, certain mammals and there was a prolific use without the public permission and we didn't know what the total -- what the outcome would be. she never called for a ban on pesticide use. >> host: from "silent spring

mr. driessen? >> guest: one of the hard things to gauge in all of this is what is the difference between the effect that rachel carson had as an individual, her book had as a book and then the environmental groups especially after her death, what they did to campaign against ddt first and foremost but also other pesticides and chemicals. and that is where a lot of the what linda was talking about where the misinformation came in, rachel carson didn't call for the elimination but she did take some of her speculation beyond where the science back it up. she, for example talked about the ddt as something building huge resistance in insects at an early time when she was really

talking about mosquitos for example avoiding it much as they do deet, off four other republics. that is ddt's most prominent role. it doesn't compare to what we have today that time it was the best we had and we used it profitably as linda pointed out. but it's also the most powerful appellant that has ever been developed, the most powerful and long-lasting, and that's why we want to keep it in the malaria prevention arena now because spraying it once or twice a year on the walls of the house keeps 80% of the mosquitos from coming in. >> host: what developed it? what company? >> guest: it was defended to the invented by paul mueller back in their early 40's --

>> guest: [inaudible] >> host: thank you. >> guest: thank you. of the germans had evicted and what to do with it and the americans got it and we started using it in places where we were confronted with a lot of disease, mosquitos and malaria and yellow fever and so forth. so mueller got a nobel prize for his development of this. but nobody at the time knew exactly what they have on their hands, good or bad, and even though the information about the ddt repellent was available back in the early 1940's, people didn't appreciate that value right away and rachel carson interpreted that as assistance rather of an avoidance mechanisms. >> host: lucille samet calls new york. >> caller: hi. this is for either of you although i have to say i kind of agree with linda at this point. i am a casual bird watcher and i

noticed last summer i have the woods behind my house, pond next to my house which i affectionately call a cesspool. and i noticed a lot of birds just disappearing and i went out and got her book and read it and made perfect sense to me. i'm especially interested in eagles. we have a wildlife refuge your our finger lakes butter now polluted and it's worse now. i read her book about our lakes are polluted. you can't eat the fish. the birds to me are diminishing. the geese and ducks, i haven't seen a starling all winter. and i got concerned. >> host: linda lear? >> guest: and you should be concerned. the system is here that rachel was pointing out right up route

95 from where she was was of course the fish and wildlife refuge and they were working on feeding ddt two birds, eagles, pelicans, the nesting birds that fly. and these birds were showing signs of various reproductive problems. these birds were sort of the tip of the iceberg and then came the robins and whether or not the eggshell thinning can be proven to the ingestion of pesticides i am not sure it has never been clear. but resistance and pesticides are persistent and water soil and air. they don't go away and that was one of rachel's big points in silent spring and i sure paul doesn't disagree with this. you can't wash away so the leaks are polluted. all of the leaks are polluted

and the birds and fish have ingested not just ddt but a whole lot of chemistry of pesticides and pollutants of all sorts. so there is going to be a change in the boyda and what is happening to nature. it shouldn't be lead just at the door of ddt by any circumstance but it should be laid up the door of this barrages of pesticides and chemicals that we've put into our environment. >> guest: i will agree up to a point but i think that you are dealing with mother nature in a very complex ecology out there. i live on a pond in a wooded area as well and right along the i-95 quarter that we are speaking of i have seen far more keys in the most winters recently than i remember growing up or being around the virginia area when i was first here.

they tended to winter over because they find a lot more food than they used to. and this winter has been a rough winter. a lot more snow, a lot colder, the crows and the starlings have largely disappeared from the area for the time being. but when it warms up a little bit on the m amazed that the hundreds of birds that suddenly come out of nowhere and just last week when we had some patches of bear ground in the backyard we had 20, 30 robins not there that i haven't seen for weeks so i think you are dealing with a very complex situation. the of reproductive issues going that to rachel carson's time i think it's really important to recognize that back in those days we were dumping of justin insecticides but chemicals and they were interacting, there were synergisms. nobody could figure out what was

affecting what. >> host: a quick question to the both of you. is our environment cleaner today than it was in 1962, paul driessen? >> guest: i would say absolutely yes. you look at the air quality, the water. you can measure things out there and detect them to the equivalent of one second in 32 years with modern detection technology. that wasn't the case back then. ddt actually does break down very rapidly in the environment not so much in the soil in the water and in the sunlight it breaks down into various other components. but the question becomes what level does something like that have an affect and what about all of the leal and other things in the environment? >> host: linda lear, same question. >> guest: same question. i feel we are in the much worse shape than we were when rachel brought them here in a charleston for example we are not able to dredge the ashley

river out to where the boats can actually lead anchor the cause of the leaders of pollution and toxins that would be released into the water if the dredging occurred. that is just a small example. i don't see the gallinaceous birds down here that i used to see to it i think the whole buy order has been poisoned and continues to be poisoned. >> host: clermont california thanks for holding. you are on with linda lear and paul driessen discussing rachel carson's "silent spring" on booktv prime time. >> caller: thank you. my question is primarily for mr. driessen. it reminds me of the slander against rachel carson and the 60's and 70's by the agribusiness industry. number one ddt is extremely toxic. i spent 25 years with u.s. environmental protection agency. the ban did because it was a

potential human carcinogen killing in number of birds all over the country especially the golden eagle but it showed the part of the ddt that disrupt the hormones so it was a technical hormone disrupted and carcinogen so it seems to me mr. driessen this doesn't make any sense because 48 years now after rachel carson and we have a problem in the environment. >> host: paul driessen? >> guest: we think would have to recognize is ddt and others are toxic more to some species than others. for a simple as cats and fish are more susceptible to ddt in

the and the province or equals three the rahman populations rapidly increasing during the time when we were screened the most ddt and they attribute that to the fact, when ddt was coming in what insects and mosquitos carrying the avian diseases and to link the insects feeding the birds food as to the eagles. the interesting thing is before 1922 the ottoman society in ecology magazine said that the eagles were threatened with extinction but by the 1960's when ddt was being used the most the eagle populations were up 25% and what happened in the interim was people stopped shooting the eagles. we passed the bald eagle protection act and the that was a huge difference and we amended to cover the golden eagles as well lead that is when the eagle population started coming back and it happened in the midst of

using ddt. >> host: linda lear? >> guest: what about the republicans when we finally stopped using ddt as much as we have, the brown pelicans once again began to combat. these are birds, there's a difference in the kind of birds and how they hatch and later eggs and they were the most affected by ddt. i want to just say that when the congress after the hearings rachel creston testified with, but congress band the production of ddt in this country but they never band the sale or distribution of ddt abroad. we have had 50 plus years, almost 50 years since of the distribution of ddt and all with its sister chemicals abroad. so the dispersion of the multiplicity of pesticides,

chemical toxins in our environment has accelerated, not a decelerated since rachel carson's time. >> host: linda lear, with the founding of the epa, the environmental movement, the effect or of of what we give to the environment today recycling, taking the lead out of gas, removing phosphates from the water product, would that have occurred in your view without rachel carson "silent spring"? >> guest: that's really almost an a historical question and it's hard for historians to answer that. i feel what rachel carson was trying to do is bring awareness to her readers and the world that we need to ask the question always what is still long term affect of what we are doing ek if to the environment to human and nonhuman environment by

putting these chemicals into our wiota. did that was her primary concern. it was the interlocking ecologyñ . you are on with linda lear and paul driessen. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. interesting conversations.

i just wanted to make a couple of points. one is that of course the falcon was one of the test cases for ddt banned in california where they are able to measure the shells in the 12-foot wingspan and the 70's. the other thing is the coinciding news headlines smith the blocks so klein announced in january they are going to make available information on the hundreds of compounds that can address malaria. these are natural compounds. it's everybody's right to make money in this country but why is it mccaul companies can make whatever they want and these corporations shom were this stuff, they do their own testing. nobody knows whether or not this stuff is harmful or not we find out later, maybe it causes problems, maybe they fudge the

numbers. at any rate -- >> host: we got the point, thanks. paul driessen >> guest: let me jump back just a second to the earlier point about the epa banning ddt. when they did they had a seventh month study and it was determined that ddt was and carcinogenic or causing the problems but william said i have a political problem and i'm going to solve it. let's go to mark's comment. i think you were talking about the convert, it is a separate situation and there were still a lot of problems of people shooting them and hope habitat losses and other things like that. joel dittman was the guy that did the calcium -- the ddt thinning studies initially. he concluded ddt in fact this caught the thinning but that was pointed out that his studies were using by it's deficient in

calcium. he ran the tests because he was a darn good scientist right here in the maryland area and lo and behold there was no impact on the eggshell thinning. my big concern with ddt and keeping it out there and using it when it is appropriate and use it responsibly and by trained personnel because i think that should be done with all chemicals is the death of children. these are 25 kids out of 50 who died at the course of one year in a one school in ugonda. friends of mine are supporters of the school so imagine in this country 10% of a class of kids just being did from one disease in one year it's just a tragedy we don't want to repeat. >> host: lee in south carolina. you are on booktv. >> caller: i would like to challenge a few things mr. driessen has said. when ddt was used in the second

world war, it was used in a power perform and it's extremely hard to absorb through the skin when it is a powder but once we started spraying get on crops in the neighborhood of the mix with oil and becomes highly toxic. another think he is overlooking is he's isolating the ddt and dr. linda lear is exactly right. what happens if you are exposed to ddt and are taking antibiotics, other drugs, what happens in your body when this mix is, does it make your antibiotics toxic and that was certainly something she asks magnificent questions and then there were other chemicals at the time, there was dieldrin -- i'm probably murdering the pronunciation -- there were some of those much more highly toxic

than ddt. >> host: paul driessen and linda lear. >> guest: i agree those are far more toxic and why there are more controls on them and clearly when you mix ddt with oil because it isn't soluble in water you exit -- it was busted as a powder troops and holocaust survivors so you are right. when it's mixed with leal id is absorbed more into the skin but even then there have never been a single study that conclusively shows any carcinogenic effect or other toxic effect on human beings that doesn't say that there is not an impact on some species and the environment generally the certainly with all of the other chemicals we are putting in including birth control pills from women putting all sorts of things into the environment and i don't think anybody can separate what one chemical out of the mix has an

affect on various species or the ecology as a whole. >> host: linda lear. >> guest: i have to say it depends on whether we are taking a at a look at our world or whether we are talking about the whole of life. rachel carson was talking about whole of life and she also observed technology was on a fast trajectory than the moral responsibility. what she was hoping by her book was to galvanize people to take moral responsibility for the whole of the wiota. humans as well as the rest of nature and i agree with paul in this since the use of ddt or whatever the best and tight malarial chemical might be in a specific contained use to

prevent these diseases like malaria is an important thing and rachel wouldn't be against it but ddt has been used in agriculture and once used prolific currently in agriculture and the other ones that this caller, thank you very much, as specified that once you use it all. the agriculture and the insects have different chemical compositions and find you can use it inside a tent. it's very effective but that doesn't mean it's effective loophole of the landscape and what she was saying is it isn't just one place. it's the whole world we are talking about and we have to be concerned about the stream of life, the whole stream of life. and what you think about the current movement of the last couple of years to reintroduce the ddt to combat malaria? >> guest: i'm not a scientist.

i would put that to paul driessen. he would be able to answer that better. i am not antichemical and i don't think that rachel would have been but we need to know what its long-term effects are. we can't just be so blind as we were with the line for example that can at the same time and put out there and then say oh no because once you put a chemical out into the society into the stream of life if you will you can't take it back so we better know what we are doing before hand and that is what her point was. >> guest: that is my point, to match. all chemicals the to be used carefully by trained people. people need to be aware that you are dealing, you are handling of things that either in the very immediate term with some chemicals or in the longer term can have a serious deleterious

effect on you as a person or the people around you or the environment around you. in terms of ddt for malaria control what i was explaining before is what you do now is not about and spray the environment to kill a mosquito. ddt has never been good at that, the slow acting compared to dial treynor icon or some of the others used today. what they do is the spring of the walls and the eaves of parts so that the mosquito's don't come in. if they come when they get excited, agitated and mostly leave before they buy it and if they do happen to landaluze all then they die within a couple of minutes other chemicals used in a mosquito control in the united states is instantaneous. the chemical comes in contact and the microscopic drops and

the mosquito is dead. what i recommend is a broad based approach to malaria we need the bed nets and the drugs. we need the mosquito killer is to keep them under control and better treatment drugs and hospitalization in the countries and we need ddt to serve as a sort of long-lasting whole house bed net that you don't have to worry about putting on each night. it's just there and you don't have to have it only when you're sleeping. >> host: a quick housekeeping noted. i've been calling you paul driessen -- it is driessen. good. ann in north carolina. you are on with linda lear and paul driessen to a >> caller: think you for taking my call. on was 7-years-old when her book came out. i don't have any questions just more comments than anything.

pesticides, herbicides, homicide, suicide, they are all in the same family. and that always struck me as kind of an interesting thing to think about. there are many chemicals into rivers and streams and what's happening down here on the appalachian mountains is mountaintop removal and that is just atrocious. nearly 500 mountains have been removed in the appalachian -- >> host: tell you what we appreciate the comments. we are going to leave it there. linda lear, this e-mail kinver martha who lives in charleston south carolina where you are right now. if you could respond i have the feeling rachel carson's love was the earth see in her books. my favorite is "the sea around us." she also wanted children to experience a sense of wonder and nature as her posthumous books state. please comment, linda lear on the silent spring research and

writing almost being forced upon her when she preferred writing about the earth and its wonders. >> guest: marcella is certainly right that rachel didn't come looking for "silent spring" as the book to write. she was hoping to write about evolution actually and to continue on with her book on how to teach our children to wonder therefore love the natural world and to want to keep it because they loved it. you don't work for something that you don't love. but i don't believe on the other hand that rachel carson wasn't wholeheartedly involved in this book, speak or that she gave up the love of her seat because she didn't. the 1961 preface to "the sea

around us" is a preface in which she talks a great deal about the threat of atomic dumping into the ocean. she was one of the earliest people to call attention to what kind of contamination ocean dumping what do to the biota, to the oceans and global warming. she actually wrote something about because rachel had studied and was on the board of trustees in the oceanographic institute. she had kept up in her research. she actually wrote about the incipient rising in ocean temperatures and what that might do. of course it was very speculative back then. but owls martha says she had a love of the ocean. but carson was passionate about the ongoing life and the whole of the biota and the interlocking this of life.

so one couldn't go on without the other and that really was her love. >> host: here is the post script what happened to the fish and wildlife pamphlets for the government. doug brinkley the historian commented recently her work there was destroyed. >> guest: no. i don't believe that -- i haven't seen that from him, but her work on those pamphlets has been considered some of the best writing efficient way of life ever had. they may have lost the pamphlets but they're certainly in the archives and interregional archive -- rachel carson archived at the college. >> host: rachel carson for 1907 by 1964. "silent spring" published in 1962. barry in norfolk nebraska. good evening.

>> caller: thank you for taking my call. one comment and a quick question. i was 16-years-old in 1962. and it's apparent the streams are delayed of what we used to have when we were kids,

salamanders, turtles, toads, frogs, plus the song birds are just wiped out and they never have come back but my question is what you might making a couple of comments about agent orange? >> host: paul driessen? >> guest: i am not willing to cross into that because that's something i've not studied. i've read all sorts of stories about it but i'm not an expert on that and i wouldn't want -- >> host: linda lear? >> guest: i'm not an expert on that either. i just know quite interestingly enough, several of regional's scientific experts, frank and ruth scott in particular have been using the four of the roadside for the rights of way for telephone poles and railroad sidings and so forth and ruth's got a great pennsylvania conservationist and frank both concluded that these agents,

these herbicides which i think our relatives of agent orange or so detrimental to the vegetation and bird life or the insect life on those rights of ways that they advocated and hoped rachel would advocate against their use. to her, to the rachel it was all one of a peace. you don't put it out there when it is clear you are harming the whole of the biota. >> host: paul driessen use if you are a former member of the sierra club and of the zero population growth group. why former? >> guest: i came to the conclusion having worked in these areas for a long time that part of much of what they were telling me was not totally in sync with what i was studying

and i was being fed information that simply wasn't correct and there were times in discussions and things like i conclude they flat out were misrepresenting the facts about a wide variety of issues and i just had a parting of ways on different topics. most of it having to do with activities out west when i was living in colorado and wyoming. >> host: where did you come up with the name of your book "eco-imperialism: green power, black death"? >> guest: as i indicated earlier, i grew up kind of in the environmental movement. rachel carson was a huge inspiration for me. it changed a lot of my thinking that as i traveled more and more in the other countries of the world and came in contact with the impoverishment of the communities and the diseases that we don't even see here anymore i realized that as much as the environmental movement

has improved things in many ways, some of the antitechnology and antichemical positions are detrimental to the development and the health of people in these other countries. malaria is a good example. the opposition by environmental groups like the sierra club and greenpeace for example to the use of biotechnology in agriculture is something i've never been able to understand and my friend, patrick who is a co-founder of greenpeace and i are on the same page. we just don't understand what the opposition is. the opposition of fossil fuel with a lot of these countries where they just don't have electricity. 95% of people in sub-saharan africa still don't have electricity and i cannot imagine my life without electricity. so these are the issues i brought up in foia "eco-imperialism" three >> host: peter in greenwich connecticut. you're on the air. >> caller: thank you.

actually rachel affected the. i'm an architect today because she mentioned my home town where i still practicing greenwich and i witnessed the spraying to save the entries of ddt. it seems a conversation on both sides here is the theme that seems to go through is antibig business but not holding government out the task. it seems like we've trusted them with protecting us if you will and it seems example after example of the business is trying to do things better is either sorted or put back by government regulations that are too quick from the hipaa -- >> host: peter, you said that you are a landscape architect. do you use insecticides and chemicals in your work?

>> guest: >> caller: i use them sometimes, yes and especially working in the golf world and would be shocked and amazed at how absolutely precise and terrific the united states golf association in particular has studied this carefully because they were put on the rack as bad boys and they've come back and studied this very carefully. it seems the political fix to ban ddt as mentioned earlier is something that comes easily and quickly. >> host: linda lear if you would come you live in charleston south carolina, a lot of golf courses in your area. did you have any comments regarding that? >> guest: note. i have to quickly say that i am this privilege to be down in charleston south carolina part of my life and the rest i live where paul lives in bethesda maryland, and so i don't have

any comment about the golf courses but i -- nor do i know if they've improved things or not. i'm not a golfer. >> host: darnell in maryland please go ahead with your question. >> caller: as far as the chemicals we use, there are always side effects just like the medicines we take and they don't care how many people get sick, how many people die as long as it doesn't affect their bottom line. they will not tell you the truth until they are forced to. as far as the chemicals being sprayed from the trucks that come around in the summertime and kill the mosquitos my neighbor was sitting outside last summer and started getting a headache. i suggest because the truck just came and sprayed you. that has a bug killer and people act like they are so shocked and don't know what is going on but if you try to get the information about what they are springing out of the trucks he speeds off and will give you a number. i live in a waldorf maryland and

they've been doing it for years. i try to get them to stop and it's very hard. >> host: okay. got the point. linda lear, let's start with you and then paul driessen. >> guest: i couldn't agree with you more. we haven't come that far where we care more about how to clean our lawns are as opposed to how many songbirds we have or whether the worms and other drugs under the ground or in good health or in poor health. i just want to say that carson's whole point was about humility and arrogance that so long as humans act as though they can't control nature we can spray away this and the drug away that. we are not going to have a cleaner world or a world that will sustain our planet for very long humans have to have some humility. we are not in control of nature

and we can't control where it is going to go. we have to be humble and we have to think about the whole of nature and that includes all the little insects in people and yes media or green lawns and golf courses can't be so green but maybe we can live happier and longer without them. >> host: paul driessen? >> guest: i think the use of chemicals is very important and they have to be used carefully to die you need to take continuing approach to evaluating the impact of evaluating how much you need, what should be used with it is ddt or anything else but there are benefits to having these chemicals in all aspects of our lives. we wouldn't be -- we would still be living at -- don young at age 47 as we were around 1900 if it were not for some of the chemicals and other things we've developed over time. we have to be humble and

recognize, to back that sometimes say things government does is very bad. the ban on ddt by william buckles house contrary to his own scientific advisory panel recommendations and conclusions was for many people in the world one of the first things that could happen because of lead eventually to an almost international ban or did facto ban against using a chemical that could save millions of lives. if we want to take one other issue that were where peter brooke the government versus corporations, one of my big has been the cafe standards. we do them corporate automobile efficiency standards. we do it to save gasoline. there are questions about that but the big question from my perspective is here government came along and made some decisions to enact the mileage standards and various people that have studied this say that three to 4,000 more americans

are dying every year because of the cafe standards. we downsized and plasticized the cars so these are all things we should be thinking about in the context of our human environment and the broad natural environment and i hope we will continue studying them for a long time to come and making some wise policy decisions right from the get go. >> host: lancaster p.a.. you are on the air. >> caller: we need more informative programs like this. anybody know anything that the cycle of plays -- of police in? is that still applicable? you can't find in the winter and the north grapes or berries or fruits from other than chile or mexico. >> host: cycle of plays in. >> guest: everything we create has a half life and termination

point. various levels of toxicity. it depends on the type of poison, the type of exposure. so all of those things get rolled into an analysis of what the cycle of plays and actively is and we have to of laid the speculation and extrapolation and actually deal with the scientific fact. .. the biggest impact on rachel carson and "silent spring"? >> that she allowed us to think about our future, about the world, and that we would question authority, that we would ask what is it that you are doing? why is it helpful? and who is it going to hurt? and who is it going to benefit? >> host: linda lear and paul driessen. if you want to hear

thank you for being with us this evening. president obama today spoke and the first anniversary of the 787 billion-dollar stimulus package that passed the congress and he signed last february. here is a little bit of what he had to say and that we will get our authors reactions. >> we acted because we had a larger responsibility than simply winning the next election. we have a responsibility to do what was right for the economy and the american people. one year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second oppression is no longer a possibility. one of the main reasons the economy has gone from shrinking by 6% to g