All Creatures Matter in Richard Conniff’s essay Why God Created Flies

A positive consequence of DDT is its effectiveness, even in the face of pesticide resistance in the anopheles mosquito. The eradication of malaria in the United States and the health of US Soldiers while fighting in World War II can be greatly credited to the use of DDT

We, human beings feel distinctly unique, individual and most importantly, unmistakably superior due to our exclusive intelligence. This is why we, as a society, tend to look down on other types of life-forms, insect or animal, as they do not possess that desired intellect. Yet, Lewis Thomas, in his opinion essay “On Societies as Organisms”, argues that human society has much to learn from the communal accomplishment of other life-forms. The author effectively conveys this main idea through his use of analogy, enumeration of examples and through his level of language.

Through discussing possible solutions using a critical and cynical tone, Carson identifies the common mistakes and effects that humanity has been creating. The article starts by explaining how common poisoning as a way to control pesky animals has become. Rachel Carson demonstrates, “In southern Indiana, for example, a group of farmers went together in the summer of 1959 to engage a spray plane to treat an area of river bottomland with parathion. The area was a favored roosting site for thousands of blackbirds that were feeding in nearby cornfields. The problem could have been solved easily by a slight change in agricultural practice,” (12-19.) By presenting an example in which poision seems to be the answer and then presenting an uncomplicated solution which would benefit the ecosystem and the farmers, she is emphasizing how simple it is to destroy the Earth. To add on, when the author utilizes the words “easily” and “slight” she brings the audience’s attention to her critical tone by accenting the transparent fix. As the audience is exposed to how mindless their actions were with the the parathion, they understands the author’s discontent of the dangerous manipulation of the farmland.

Throughout his essay, Suzuki supports his arguments with specific examples. To justify his reasoning, the author uses the case of DDT, otherwise known as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. This chemical compound is used as an insecticide to eliminate the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which it did effectively, and saved millions of lives. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, complications arose, which led to an increase in chemicals and caused a domino effect of

David Suzuki’s essay “It Always Costs”, focuses on the author’s opinion that new technologies always come with underlying problems. He argues that developments in technologies are beneficial to civilization, but also costly. Suzuki chooses to focus not on the economic side effects, but mostly in the environmental and health impacts of these advances. To support his main argument, Suzuki refers to DDT as an example of a beneficial technology that in the long run was subdued by its unfavourable effects. The use of DDT, a widely known chemical, aids the reader in identifying the main problem Suzuki is addressing in his essay, however, Suzuki’s argument is not very convincing. He chooses to focus on issues that relate only to the development of new technologies in the area of chemistry, such is the example of three different chemicals through the essay, which does not provide enough evidence to make the generalization that the development of any technology is detrimental to humankind.

In fact, Carson outlines her evidence and claims for the global environment and the whole of humanity. In addition to this, it is worthy to mention that, Carson was directing her message to policymakers because they had the power to ban the manufacture of the pesticides and insecticides. Furthermore, Carson’s messages were directed at certain companies and the manufacturers of pesticides such as DDT. The catalyst of this message stemmed from the widespread use of insecticides both at home and in offices. As it seemed, there was a widespread rate of ignorance and misinformation across the public on the harmful effects of these pesticides.

Furthermore, the preceding statement supports Carson’s intention to present an informative, persuasive, and logical point of view without shocking or confusing the reader. Carson presents the problem calmly in the opening paragraph and states her claim as a practical approach to stop or decrease the amount of the spraying of DDT pesticides in combined efforts to stop the super races of insects like mosquitoes for example from becoming immune. Including this support for her thesis Carson argues mosquitoes becoming immune to the man-made vaccines presently available would inarguably have serious, detrimental and adverse negative impacts upon the effectiveness of the

DDT is a very controversial product… but why? DDT was a pesticide used in the 1950s and it was very effective at killing mosquitoes. This was good because mosquitoes carry a very deadly disease called malaria. But soon the government banned its use in the USA. It supposedly has been decreasing the populations of bald eagles. They think that it makes the eggshells thinner, so when the eagle it trying to keep the eggs warm it might break the eggs on accident. Many people are happy about this ban and others are not. Some researchers feel that evidence supports a ban on DDT while others feel that it is an over reaction to an environmental concern. DDT has been shown to help control the malaria parasite. Evidence supports the banning

Carson speaks about the diminishment of us as a human being. With the amount of harmful pesticides we use without fully understanding its consequences, we are slowly killing our human race. When pesticides are sprayed on crops and insects, they end up getting into our bodies. Adopting the easy way of getting rid of insects is harming us in the long run.

”On those visits, I feel not only the spirit of the local people…and the seasonal change.”(345).Nowadays seasonal variation in industrial societies is minimized by importing many products that mature in specific seasons from different parts of the world. Technologies however, are impacting on our lives. “DDT would exert incredible selective pressure for mutations that would confer resistance” (347), it killed malaria-carrying mosquitoes but in few years large numbers of mosquitoes will return. It also has ecological damage the compound is ingested by many organisms, become concentrated up the food chain in a process called biomagnification. It causes heavy bird mortality.

1. Carson is asking a rhetorical question (p.376), not making an argument. The rhetorical question is a device intended to encourage thought, in this case about the proper apportionment of power in our society. The use of DDT and other insecticides has outcomes that go far beyond the immediate desired effect of the user, yet there is no specific cost attached to these externalities. Carson recognizes that such decisions are often made by small groups of people with narrow interests, and simply wants the reader to question whether such a system of stewardship for the world is ideal. Given that the audience is the majority of people who are not party to such decisions, the question is a fair one to ask, since it engages the audience to think about their role as complicit bystanders in actions such as the use of DDT.

DDT is a chemical that is widely known for is properties as an insecticide. When humans discovered this “wonder product” the whole country was on fire! The one company that made the most money was Montrose Chemical Corporation. From 1942 - 1971, when DDT was banned, the MCC pumped out DDT tons at a time. However, the bigshots were faced with a problem. Where do you dump all the leftover byproduct? Hey, why not the ocean! When DDT byproduct, DDE, was dumped into the ocean, fish and other seafood had it leached into them. This meant the bald eagles’ main food source was contaminated. When the bald eagles ingested their main source of food, the DDE became very concentrated in them. When bald eagles attempted to lay eggs, barely any would hatch! The DDE caused their eggs to be porous, and the eggs fail to hatch. This meant the bald eagles’ total extinction on the Channel Islands by the 1950’s.

When DDT became available for civilian use in 1945, there were only a few people who expressed second thoughts about this new miracle compound. One was nature writer Edwin Way Teale, who warned, "A spray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy. Ninety percent of all insects are good, and if they are killed, things go out of kilter right away." Another was Rachel Carson, who wrote to the Reader's Digest to propose an article about a series of tests on DDT being conducted not far from where she lived in Maryland. The magazine rejected the idea.

In the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s main concern is the widespread use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson concentrates on a commonly used pesticide in the 1950s called DDT. She opposes the indiscriminate spraying of DDT because it has profound consequences on the environment, humans and animals. Carson collected information about how the DDT can cause cancer in humans, harm animals such as birds and remained in the environment for long periods of time. Subsequently, the chemicals in the pesticides are extremely harmful so she tries to raise awareness and convince others that there are better alternatives.

As humans, we have always been trying to gain control over nature, chemicals being one of the ways we have attempted this. Carson also explains that most of the problems we try to control with chemicals is caused by our own doing, an example being living in unsanitary conditions or accidentally bringing over new insects when we are shipping things from place to place. Then as we all know, when this book was written the solve-all solution to this problem was to spray DDT all over everything. People believed that this stuff was going to make their lives better and insect free. She even gives an example of