Sure enough . . . In a study of Adiele penguins, carrying the ominous title of ?EUR??,,????'??Antarctic Melt Releasing DDT, Tainting Penguins,?EUR??,,????'?? they are finding traces of DDT that, after who knows how much time and money, is found to come from the melting ice of Antarctica. That?EUR??,,????'???s right. They say that ice, contaminated before the 1970?EUR??,,????'???s ban on DDT, is now melting (obviously from global warming) and releasing 2 to 8 pounds of DDT a year across the continent . . . (Just in case you were wondering, Antarctica is about 2.16 million square kilometers or about the size of the United States and Mexico combined.) That?EUR??,,????'???s somewhere less than a gallon of DDT across the entire continent of Antarctica . . .

Man, I am now ?EUR??,,????'??very concerned?EUR??,,????'??? about all this pesticide use . . . I mean who cares that millions of humans are exposed to malaria-carrying mosquitoes when some percentage of that gallon of DDT is showing up in the blood of those poor little penguins. Of course, the article said that it wasn?EUR??,,????'???t enough to affect the penguins, but just the sheer horror of finding any DDT at all is enough to . . . to . . . to . . . OMG I can?EUR??,,????'???t take it!!!

That has to be the reason why the county of Albemarle, Virginia is contemplating banning pesticide use in all of its parks and schools. Another article I read apparently quoted Jackie Lombardo of the National Sierra Club Toxins Committee as saying, ?EUR??,,????'??We?EUR??,,????'???re seeing chemicals and materials that 75 years ago didn?EUR??,,????'???t exist . . .We?EUR??,,????'???re at a point where kids ?EUR??,,????'??? our canaries in coal mines ?EUR??,,????'??? are getting sicker and sicker?EUR??,,????'??

Wait a minute isn?EUR??,,????'???t that the same Sierra Club concerned about all those emerald ash borers and pine bark beetles killing off all those trees across North America? Naw . . . Couldn?EUR??,,????'???t be. And surely we wouldn?EUR??,,????'???t want to control that pesky West Nile virus by spraying kid-killing chemicals all over the place . . .

After all, to quote from the article, ?EUR??,,????'??Children?EUR??,,????'???s health has taken a dramatic turn for the worse in the last 20 years.?EUR??,,????'?? . . . Of course, that has nothing to do with the explosion of fast foods and video games over that same time frame. No way . . . All those obese kids are getting sicker because of all the time they spend playing in the parks . . .

Yeah, those darn chemical companies are just ruining everything these days! I mean you can?EUR??,,????'???t hardly buy food today without hearing that the crop was dusted with this chemical or that fertilizer . . . They?EUR??,,????'???re killing us . . .

Aggghhhh!!!! Stop already!

Sure, let?EUR??,,????'???s be careful what we produce and with how we use it. Sure let?EUR??,,????'???s be careful how we apply pesticides and fertilizers, but give me break! The sky is actually not falling.

And heaven forbid that California gets wind of all this. Next thing you know the state legislators will ban bad insects altogether and establish an insect tax on all the good ones. Of course, then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will rule it unconstitutional to ban or tax bugs who enter the state illegally and force the state to set up a subsidy to make it easy for those bugs to get established . . .

Now, you could make a case that without all those chemicals we wouldn?EUR??,,????'???t have as much food and, although we couldn?EUR??,,????'???t play in the noxious weed infested parks, we could scavenge for edibles and that would surely cut down on childhood obesity . . .

That just might be a good thing, but unless that argument actually makes sense to you, the reality is that pesticides and fertilizers and things that fight hostile infestations are as much a necessity and they are desirable. I like my food and I like breathing the oxygen produced by all the live greenery.

Can we improve on the chemical compounds? Sure. Can we improve on the way pesticides and fertilizers are used? I?EUR??,,????'???m sure we can. But please don?EUR??,,????'???t tell me that banning pesticides and fertilizers is going to make your county a better place to live . . .

We live in a dangerous world. I, for one, don?EUR??,,????'???t want to be told by Chicken Little that he knows a better way . . .

?EUR??,,????'??+God Bless