Kindle Notes & Highlights
DDT Wars: Rescuing Our National Bird, Preventing Cancer, and Creating the Environmental Defense Fund
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February 7 - February 9, 2023
“As soon as several Americans have conceived a sentiment or an idea that they want to produce before the world, they seek each other out, and when found, they unite. Thenceforth they are no longer isolated individuals, but a power conspicuous from the distance whose action serve as an example; when it speaks, men listen.”
Who could ask for a better legacy? Was the DDT battle worth fighting? Absolutely!
We pursued solutions to environmental problems, which is interesting and stimulating work.
We ignored the boring need to “get organized” until we were forced to do so.
scientific community.
Financial reward was not a motivating force.
We discovered lawyers with a method for our science to be heard by decisi...
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The lawyers discovered scientists, giving them s...
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Patience is not a virtue. Persistence gets action, which attracts attention and then supporters.
Early on we stressed economics, joining science and law as the third leg on the stool.
We were never a local organization that became national, but from the beginning we were national in focus, even when penniless. We figured we could turn the country around.
We tackled controversial problems with powerful adversaries, which generates friends, enemies, and media attention. Friends are the important part.
process stimulates competition and the desire to win.
The sticks make the carrots taste better.
When in doubt, escalate. A good offense is the best defense.
Get the science right, every time!
this is a story about people who cared, a steadily increasing team of dedicated scientists, attorneys, economists, and other citizens, most of them volunteers without special wealth or political connections, who sought to protect the environment.
In recent decades all of these efforts have expanded immeasurably and became worldwide to include much of humanity, yielding hope that environmental quality will be protected far into the future.
Fred Krupp was hired as executive director of EDF in 1984 and is now president.
to do something about my age every day.”
leading EDF to become one of the world’s leading science-based environmental advocacy organizations.
Thankfully, Charlie and his fellow EDF founders persisted, and their signal victory on DDT opened the way for the modern environmental movement.
They witnessed the gradual transition from a combative EDF whose informal slogan was “Sue the bastards” to an equally ambitious but more pragmatic organization whose motto today is “Finding the ways that work.”
EDF’s people today are as passionate about the environment as in 1967, and our goals are real game changers, like ushering in a new low-carbon clean energy economy worldwide.
EDF began engaging Ph.D. economists in the 1970s to work alongside the scientists and attorneys, and the combination has proved invaluable in designing durable solutions.
“Behind the waste dumps and dams and power plants and pesticides that threaten major environmental harm, there are nearly always legitimate social needs, and … long-term solutions lie in finding alternative ways to meet those underlying needs.”
Appreciating the complexities of global environmental issues is increasingly important today.
By joining forces and engaging many others, however, we must get the job done.
people could solve a lot more problems if we would just lower our voices.
The global stakes are huge and the time horizon is short.
