Tuesday, June 28, 2005

How Live 8 performers could actually help Africa

I found this interesting bit of opinion about how Live 8 is most likely going to be a futile event, because of difficulties put in place by Greenpeace, which is supported by many of the Live 8 performers. The theory goes like this: Greenpeace is responsible for trying to ban DDT from Africa (among other places). DDT helps to eliminate malaria inducing mosquitoes, which in turn helps African countries economically because they don't have to pay for treatment of millions of people and those people continue to work. Secondly, Greenpeace supports a ban on vitamin A enriched rice because of its biotech nature. This rice could help to keep millions of children in Africa from going blind and thus be able to enter the workforce at an appropriate age as well as the savings from treatment of blind children. The author theorizes that since many of the Live 8 performers acknowledge that they want to see development in Africa, they should stop their support of Greenpeace or use their influence to force Greenpeace to drop their support for these policies which are helping to prevent development in Africa. You should really read the article, it's better stated their. My question is whether there are other pesticides - perhaps organic ones that GP might be more supportive of - that would do the same thing as DDT. Worth thinking about at least.

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