Originally posted by twhitehead
So you would rather let people die to save the environment, or are you suggesting that instead of 'condoning' DDT, somebody would pay for a more expensive solution?

This is an area of ambiguous morality to my mind. I'm not saying that I would 'let people die to save the environment', although neither do I think that we should trash the environment to save every human life that we can. Personally, I think that we have a tendency nowadays to overvalue human life in the short-term, a practice which, as far as I can see, often leads to a degradation of human existence in the long- and possibly even medium-term. I also think that we are usually all too ready to domesticate or despoil natural environments with concomitant permanent loss of biodiversity (of undetermined value) in the interest usually of immediate or short-term financial gain papered over with a thin film of humanitarian interest. Without addressing any of the other issues currently affecting human society in Africa, would there really be any great reduction in human misery consequent to the widespread manufacture and use of DDT across the continent?