Jeffrey Sachs: Pricing can’t cure all environmental ills

April 14, 2008

Natural resources people — foresters, river masters, biologists, botanists, agronomists, farmers, rock climbers and miners — understand almost instinctively that wise management of natural resources takes a blend of wisdom in commercial sectors and by government. Still, every once in a while some newly-minted Ph.D. in economics, or some economist who recently learned that governments own 86% of the land in Nevada, put forth a “bold proposal” to let the markets resolve environmental issues. Let pricing do it, they say.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, gives a short interview to the Wall Street Journal’s economics bloggers, in which he details why pricing cannot do the entire job, with examples:

Sachs: Pricing plays a role. Certainly with carbon emissions we need a price. But it’s almost never enough when we’re talking about really big technological changes. When you think of the computer industry and its roots in defense, when you think of the Internet with its root in defense and the National Science Foundation, when you think about drug development and the crucial role of the National Institutes of Health – one major industry after another has always relied, and needed to rely, on a mix of public and private actions.

When we’re talking about something as basic as a sustainable technology this is going to be inevitable. Think about how we’re going to climb out of the mess on nuclear power for example. We need a nuclear power industry in this country but it’s tied up in knots. Pricing by itself isn’t going to do it. There has to be public acceptability, there has to be sense of security that a regulatory framework, safe storage and nonproliferation protection is in place. These are just too complicated to be solved by a price.

For many other things, such as watershed management, there isn’t even a price that turns them into a market. The issues of watershed management involve different rights of upstream and downstream users, and different types of users. [like agriculture, households and industry.] The right price is going to be different. Pricing plays a role, but so does basic science, eminent domain, right of passage and liability.

Sachs is widely experienced in international economics, and in alternative economics. As an advocate of free markets generally, he’s pretty deep into development ideas. You won’t always agree with his opinions, but you’d do well to pay attention to what he says and the data upon which he bases his opinions.

Teachers, this is a short answer that covers a wealth of issues in your economics courses.

7 Comments | Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

DDE-shortened lactation link

March 30, 2008

DDT does break down once released into the wild, and can do so rather quickly, DDT advocates love to point out. It’s part of the sleight-of-hand necessary to argue for DDT. Yes, DDT breaks down, but the first step is a breakdown to the more resilient and consequently more damaging substance known as DDE.

DDE mimics endocrine hormones in the wild and has been implicated in gender ambiguity in alligators, fish and amphibians. These animals feature underdeveloped male sex organs, are often hermaphroditic, and sometimes unable to breed. Endocrine mimics — not always DDE — are implicated in swelling the breasts of male mammals (humans are mammals, by the way), and shrinking testes in animals of all kinds.

Some studies suggest that something causes women’s ability to produce milk to nurse infants is significantly curtailed. A few studies suggest DDE is the culprit.

From a lawyer’s blog, I learned of a study in Mexico that showed no significant discernible link between DDE and the length of lactation (milk production). Something else appears to be injuring these women and their babies.

They conclude that the data from this relatively large study in a highly exposed area of Mexico did not support the hypothesis that exposure to DDE shortens length of lactation, and thus the association seen in women who previously breast-fed was likely attributed to a noncausal mechanism. Nonetheless, the authors note that DDT may have other potential adverse effects which are in need of study.

The blog post is written by Thomas H. Clarke, Jr., J.D., M.S., Chair of the Ropers Majeski Kohn & Bentley Environmental Practice Group.  The blog, Ear to the Ground, is new this month so far as I can tell — in this case it’s useful because it has a workable link to the full text of the article in Environmental Health Perspectives (in case you are, as I am, too lazy to get your own free subscription).

How will the DDT advocates spin this one? Look for pronouncements that DDT “absolutely has no effect on human lactation.” And look out for them — that’s not what this study says at all.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Don’t look now: Businesses ask Uganda to block DDT spraying

March 27, 2008

News comes out of Kampala that the delay in implementing the use of DDT in a Rachel Carson-approved program of integrated pest management — for indoor residual spraying only — faces strong opposition.

From environmentalists? No, you’ll recall that Environmental Defense, the group that led the fight for a ban on broadcast use of DDT in the U.S. has been pressuring the Bush administration and others to use DDT appropriately for years.

The opposition comes from Uganda businesses.

“Zero tolerance on DDT spraying is the feeling of the private sector. Even at the East African Community DDT is a condemned chemical. Government should look for other alternatives,” Mr David Lule, the managing director of Hortexa, a horticultural exporting association to the EU [European Union], said.

Don’t look for corrections or apologies from the pro-poison lobbyists yet. Junk “scientist” Steven Milloy, the “Competitive Enterprise Institute” (which claims to represent businesses) and others have yet to correct any of the many errors they’ve made in their slash-and-burn campaign for poisoning Africa. Why would they change now?

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, Junk science, Politics, Rachel Carson, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A Buddhist perspective on DDT

March 13, 2008

Or, why thinking carefully often outweighs shouting loudly in the free market of ideas. I stumbled across this entry, a serious question to a serious Buddhist practitioner.

2 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Reason, Religion | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gresham’s Law: DDT disinformation crowds out facts

February 18, 2008

I love irony.

Henry VIII devised a novel way to save money. He ordered coins be minted containing silver, as during the reign of Henry VII, but he ordered that the purity of the silver be reduced. Edward VI continued the policy so that, by the time of the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, royal advisor and financier Sir Thomas Gresham observed that most of the old, high-silver content coins were out of circulation, hoarded by people against future inflation, allowing the lesser-valued money to circulate. Gresham told Elizabeth the bad money drove out the good money.

Sir Thomas Gresham (c. 1519 – 21 November 1579), British financier and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and earlier regents. Portrait c. 1554 by Anthonis Mor

Sir Thomas Gresham (c. 1519 – 21 November 1579), British financier and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and earlier regents. Portrait c. 1554 by Anthonis Mor.

The principle had been observed earlier by Aristophanes and others. It is known in modern economics as Gresham’s Law, since 1858 when British economist Henry Dunning McLeod decided to honor Gresham by naming the rule after him.

The bad drives out the good, the cheap drives out the more expensive, gossip drives out good information — the principle is widely observed in areas beyond economics.

And so it is that with regard to DDT, the good information about the dangers of DDT and the benefits of restricting use of the chemical has been driven out of the marketplace by bad information claiming DDT is safe, and ignoring the significant benefits reaped when massive use of DDT was stopped.

And here’s the irony: DDT-happy critics of good environmental policy now claim to be the good information driven out by the “bad” information of DDT’s harms. No kidding. A columnist named Natalie Sirkin, in a column delivering almost nothing but bad, vile information, says bad information drives out the good, never once noting the irony.

The defense of DDT was, from the beginning, a lost cause. A few of us vainly hoped that science would prevail. We soon found that Gresham ’s Law, which states that bad currency drives out good currency, applies to science as well as to economics.

No kidding it applies. Do a Google search for “DDT” today and you’ll find all over the internet the disinformation of Gordon Edwards’ ghost and junk science purveyor Steven Milloy. You will have a difficult time finding any solid study showing how DDT nearly killed off the American bald eagle, however, and you’ll have to do a targeted search to learn of any dangers of DDT — information on human toxicity is almost impossible to find, though it’s easy to find many recountings of Gordon Edwards’ bold drinking of a teaspoon of DDT before lectures.

(Natalie and Gerald Sirkin write for the American Spectator; at this writing, Google features warnings on all of their material at the time of this writing, saying the site host may try to insert “malicious software” on your computer — so I have not linked there. This problem should sort itself out, I hope.)

(The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works to get a history of the agency up on the ‘net; a lot from the DDT ban era is now available at the EPA site for scholars; Milloy will not be happy to have factual rebuttal officially and easily available.)

Below the fold, I’ll offer a point-by-point rebuttal of the bizarre claims in favor of DDT and against the noble public officials who worked to restrict its use.

Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, History, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘Twas DDT nearly killed the beast

December 20, 2007

 

This University of Buffalo South Campus resident keeps a watchful eye over the nesting box in the Mackay tower that was custom-designed by UB facilities staff. - See more at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/news-releases/arts-and-culture.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2010/04/11203.html#sthash.hqz74P1J.dpuf

This University of Buffalo South Campus resident keeps a watchful eye over the nesting box in the Mackay tower that was custom-designed by UB facilities staff. – See more at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/news-releases/arts-and-culture.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2010/04/11203.html#sthash.hqz74P1J.dpuf

It was DDT that nearly did in the peregrine falcon, not habitat destruction, not hunters, not egg collectors.

Dr. [Tom] Cade, who said he had been fascinated by falcons from childhood and who did his Ph.D. dissertation on the peregrine and gyrafalcon in Alaska, recalled that at first the peregrine’s plight was mistakenly attributed to overdevelopment, molestation by falconers, collection of its brown speckled eggs by admirers and wanton killing by people who simply did not like falcons. But at a conference at the University of Wisconsin in 1965, experts realized that the crash of falcons was a worldwide problem, and, as Rachel Carson suggested in ”The Silent Spring,” DDT was probably the main culprit.

DDT is an organochloride compound that breaks down into DDE, a highly persistent chemical that is stored in the fat of animals that consume it, especially predators like peregrines that are at the top of the food chain. DDE interferes with the deposition of calcium in the shells of the birds’ eggs, leaving them too fragile to survive incubation by females weighing two or three pounds.

Remarkable story of the dedication of one ornithologist, a successful program to revive an endangered species, and serendipity with a happy ending, in an often-overlooked article by science writer Jane Brody at the New York Times, February 15, 2000.

Junk science advocates claim that DDT did no serious damage to birds; the story of the peregrine falcon indicates that DDT was the major culprit in a worldwide decline of raptors. (This is direct refutation of claims by Steven Milloy and the late Gordon Edwards.)

Apart from the rebuttal points, Brody’s story tells how scientists work, how they make mistakes and recover, and how luck plays a huge role in some endeavors.

Peregrine falcons were delisted from the endangered species list in 2000, due largely to the success of Tom Cade’s captive breeding program, coupled with a decline in DDT in the wild after DDT use was restricted.

1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Government, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Brits struggle to save Sherwood Forest

November 21, 2007

Worldwide fans of Robin Hood should be concerned: Sherwood Forest is not even a ghost of what it once was.

The Associated Press carried a story detailing efforts to preserve and revive the forest made famous by the stories of Robin Hood. 900-year-old oaks, encroaching development, a sense of history, and a need to save green space — it’s a good story for warm-up on conservation, development, historical myths, or England’s geography.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Heroes, History, World history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Price of repeating history

November 3, 2007

 

“Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.”

Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress, (House of Anansi Press, 2004) (Carroll and Graf, 2005)

Cover of Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress(This book resulted from Ronald Wright’s 2004 lectures in the famous Canadian series, the Massey Lectures. The lectures are broadcast on radio by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), whose website features an excerpt from the Wright lectures. You may get a podcast of Wright’s lecture 1, here; and lecture 2, here. Wright suggests that, after 10,000 years of experimenting with civilization, generally leading to failure, we have a chance to get things right, now, if we act wisely. “It describes in particular how four historical civilisations – those of Easter Island, Sumer, the Maya and Rome – self-destructed due to a lack of foresight and to wrong choices. Wright argues ‘each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.'” Martin Scorsese is developing the movie rights.)

Wright’s use of the phrase is the earliest I’ve been able to document quickly; but it’s a popular phrase now. Please note in comments if you know of an earlier use that can be tracked down.

 

1 Comment | Disasters, Environmental protection, History, Lessons of history, Quotes, Santayana's ghost | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NY Times backs overhaul of mining law

October 26, 2007

Congress seriously considers changes in mining laws in the U.S. — the General Mining Act of 1872 is 135 years old with no serious changes since its passage. President Ulysses S Grant signed the law.

The law affected much of the development of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River, but this issue is generally ignored. The New York Times editorial page endorses the change process in an editorial today.

Originally enacted to encourage economic development in the West, the law gives precedence above all other land uses to mining for hard-rock minerals like gold, uranium and copper. It requires no royalties from companies that mine on public lands and contains no environmental safeguards. It has left a sad legacy of abandoned mines, poisoned streams and damaged landscapes throughout the West.

Now, at last, there is real hope for reform. Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat who has been trying to modernize this law for two decades, has persuaded the Natural Resources Committee to approve a major rewrite.

The law is a major study in economics, government intervention and free markets. It would make a good topic for warm-ups or government intervention lesson plans in high school economics classes.

1 Comment | Economics, Environmental protection, Government, History, Law, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnival of DDT

October 3, 2007

Information on DDT is scattered clouds of information, lately.  Some of these really should get more comment — but time is quite short for me right now.

Here’s the news:

One more study on DDT and breast cancer.  Stop the presses on this one.  It’s a good study, and it shows a link.  Effect Measure at the Seed Stables has a good post on it.   One of the key differences here is that this study looked for childhood exposure.  Exposure of children to DDT seems to be more damaging than exposure to adults.  This should be especially worrying considering DDT’s daughter products and their ability to mimic estrogen in the wild.

Bill Moyers’ program on PBS looked at the recent campaign against Rachel Carson, and found the campaign ethically challenged.  Moyers takes a more in-depth and gentle view of Carson, from a perspective from the arts.  Solid information, interesting view.

All Africa.com had a news report on the current anti-malaria campaign in Malawi:  “Rescuing children from malaria.”  Real news — it doesn’t call for broadcast spraying of DDT.  (Surprised?)  In fact, it attacks the colleagues of the Rachel Carson critics, the tobacco companies.

A blogger named Aaron Swartz takes on the Rachel Carson critics rather directly:  “Rachel Carson:  Mass Murderer?” 

A recent think piece out of the always-informative Christian Science Monitor:  “Bring back DDT?  Think again.”

Perhaps a minor blip:  Plaintiffs ask damages against chemical companies and others because the DDT dumped next door has decreased the value of their properties.  An Alabama appeals court ruled that plaintiffs may call in experts to testify that DDT dumping decreases property value.  (Maybe Roger Bate would like to buy the property at market value?  All that DDT would mean no mosquitoes forever, right?)

And from the lost-but-now-found archives, a story that demonstrates subtly the bias that Rachel Carson critics have — Roger Bate defending tobacco companies in a 1996 Wall Street Journal opinion piece.  Perhaps one should not be surprised that people who defend tobacco against health regulators and health care education could turn around and argue for DDT and against Rachel Carson.

4 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, History, Malaria, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

1872 Mining Act – Amend it now?

September 20, 2007

Sherffius cartoon on Bush administration mining regulations

Few people know about the law. Since 1872, mineral extraction from the public lands of the United States has been governed by a law designed to make it easy for miners to get minerals out. The law is essentially unchanged, though some mining operations are now bound by other laws to protect the environment and other uses of public lands, such as grazing, tourism, scientific study, wood production, grazing, wildlife management and hunting.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources opens hearings on reforming the law next Thursday, September 27. The hearing will be webcast, most likely.

The House of Representatives has already had a couple of field hearings.

Watch your claims!

Resources:

2 Comments | Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, geology, History, Natural history, Natural resources | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Starbucks controversy: The Way I See It #289 (global warming)

September 17, 2007

Found this on my coffee cup today:

The Way I See It #289

So-called “global warming” is just

a secret ploy by wacko tree-

huggers to make America energy

independent, clean our air and

water, improve the fuel efficiency

of our vehicles, kick-start

21st-century industries, and make

our cities safer and more livable.

Don’t let them get away with it!

— Chip Giller
Founder of Grist.org, where
environmentally-minded people
gather online.

Starbucks Coffee Cup, The Way I See It #289

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20 Comments | Climate change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Humor | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

DDT’s disruption of hormone activities

August 12, 2007

Critics of Rachel Carson and sponsors of the anti-science, anti-environmentalist campaign to bring back DDT as a major killer, frequently misinform in very selective ways. For example, they like to mention DDT’s role in causing human cancers, because, they claim Rachel Carson was dead wrong about that link. Therefore, they say, DDT is a nice chemical and bans should be lifted.

In reality, carcinogenicity played a very small role in banning DDT. DDT was banned because it kills indiscriminately, killing beneficial insects along with the bad, killing untargeted species, like songbirds, along with the insect targets; and DDT was banned because once released into the wild, it is very long-lived, and its ultimate destructive effects cannot be known or controlled — though some harms, such as the devestation of America’s birds of prey, are extremely well documented.

Similarly, the anti-science crowd doesn’t like to talk about the third big area where DDT produces harms: Hormone disruption. In fact, Steven Milloy’s “100 things you should know about DDT” at the site that peddles junk science, JunkScience.com, does not even contain the word “hormone.”

They play down the fact that DDT and its by-products disrupt reproductive processes, and sometimes disrupt and deform reproductive organs, of nearly every animal it touches. They don’t want you to know about the hormonal effects of DDT and its breakdown products.

So, they never mention books like the National Academy of Sciences’ compilation of the harms of such chemicals, Hormonally Active Agents in the Environment.

Milloy will misquote the NAS when NAS mentions slightly the benefits of DDT; Milloy will not quote NAS when they cite the dangers of DDT. So this book on hormonally active agents, which mentions DDT specifically in 16 chapters for a total of 309 times, will never be mentioned in a discussion of DDT’s dangers — unless you bring it up.

Go see what the book says in the Executive Summary. If you debate the anti-Rachel Carson crowd, use this book frequently — they will have no answers.

And, Sen. Tom Coburn, are you listening? Since when do your constituents want you to defend a chemical which will ruin their farm animals, and especially the ducks they want to hunt? It’s time to quit trying to tarnish the memory of Rachel Carson, Sen. Coburn, and let that post office in Pennsylvania be named after her.

2 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fisking “Junk Science’s” campaign for DDT: Point #6

August 9, 2007

Another in a continuing series, showing the errors in JunkScience.com’s list of “100 things you should know about DDT.” (No, these are not in order.)

Steven Milloy and the ghost of entomologist J. Gordon Edwards listed this as point six in their list of “100 things you should know about DDT “[did Edwards really have anything to do with the list before he died?]:

6. “To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT… In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable.”

[National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.]

In contrast to their citation for the Sweeney hearing record, which leads one away from the actual hearing record, for this citation, the publication actually exists, though it is no longer available in print. It’s available on-line, in an easily searchable format. [I urge you to check these sources out for yourself; I won’t jive you, but you should see for yourself how the critics of Rachel Carson and WHO distort the data — I think you’ll be concerned, if not outraged.] The quote, though troubled by the tell-tale ellipses of the science liar, is accurately stated so far as it goes.

The problems? It’s only part of the story as told in that publication.  The National Academy of Science calls for DDT to be replaced in that book; NAS is NOT calling for a rollback of any ban, nor is NAS defending DDT against the claims of harm.  The book documents and agrees with the harms Rachel Carson wrote about eight years earlier.

Cover of the electronic version of Life Sciences, the 1970 book looking to future needs in biology and agriculture.

Cover of the electronic version of Life Sciences, the 1970 book looking to future needs in biology and agriculture.

Milloy (and Edwards, he claims), are trying to make a case that the National Academy of Sciences, one of the more reputable and authoritative groups of distinguished scientists in the world, thinks that DDT is just dandy, in contrast to the views of Rachel Carson and environmentalists (who are always cast as stupid and venal in Milloy’s accounts) who asked that DDT use be reduced to save eagles, robins and other songbirds, fish, and other wildlife, and to keep DDT useful against malaria.

First, there is no way that a ban on DDT could have been responsible for 500 million deaths due to malaria.  Calculate it yourself, the mathematics are simply impossible: At about 1 million deaths per year, if we assume DDT could have prevented all of the deaths (which is not so), and had we assumed usage started in 1939 instead of 1946 (a spot of 7 years and 7 million deaths), we would have 69 million deaths prevented by 2008. As best I can determine, the 500 million death figure is a misreading from an early WHO report that noted about 500 million people are annually exposed to malaria, I’m guessing a bit at that conclusion — that’s the nicest way to attribute it to simple error and not malicious lie. It was 500 million exposures to malaria, not 500 million deaths. It’s unfortunate that this erroneous figure found its way into a publication of the NAS — I suppose it’s the proof that anyone can err.

Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Saving Texas’s only natural lake

August 3, 2007

Aptly named, Salvinia molesta threatens to choke Caddo Lake to death. As Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in Texas, and a site of outstanding beauty and great natural treasure, the friends of Caddo Lake are fighting back.

Spraying Salvinia molesta on Caddo Lake - NY Times photo by Michael Stravato

The New York Times features a lengthy story on the lake and the fight to save it in this week’s Science section (July 31, 2007 – Science is part of the Times every Tuesday).

Every Texas social studies teacher should know Caddo Lake and its stories as well as anything else. It’s the stuff memorable classes are made of.

1. It’s the only “natural” lake in Texas, though it is formed by a dam. The “only honest lake in Texas,” in the local lingo. The original lake was formed by a monumental log jam on the Red River, probably trees blown down by a massive hurricane several hundred years ago.

2. Caddo Lake is named after the Caddo Tribe, the tribe whose word for friend, “tejas,” gave the state its name. (See my earlier post on Caddoland.)

3. Caddo Lake straddles what was once “no man’s land,” or the Neutral Territory, a buffer zone between English/French, then American, and Spanish, then Mexican settlements. It was a haven for criminals, scalawags, filibusterers and revolutionaries. The area plays a large role in the decades of fighting to steal Texas from the Spain, and later from Mexico. Texas history is much better understood when one knows the lake.

4. Caddo Lake once was the means to make Jefferson, Texas, a port city. Until Col. Shreveport dynamited the logjam that made the lake in 1873, Jefferson was a bustling center of commerce. Today Jefferson boasts some wonderfully preserved historic remnants of that era, many converted to bed and breakfast inns, a great weekend getaway. Fishing is good, photography is great.

5. Ladybird Johnson was born nearby, and her family still lives in the area.

6. The Hughes Tool Company had its beginnings on Caddo Lake, where Howard Hughes, Sr., tested his drill bit, “the rock eater,” designed to cut through mud and rock to where the oil was; this is the home of the fortune that Howard Hughes, Jr., inherited, to build to one of the greatest fortunes in the world. That the younger Hughes was a rake, a mechanical genius, an air pioneer, daring movie producer, and weird as hell only makes the story better. Hughes named his movie production company after the lake, Caddo Productions.

6. Contrary to most of Texas’s political leanings, local people around Caddo Lake have rallied to efforts to protect the lake and conserve its rare beauty. The area is designated for protection as a Ramsar Treaty critical wetlands site — a designation that most conservative Texans ridicule and fear (at one point the Texas Republican Party platform opposed conservation easements to protect the lake — bizarre). Latter-day Caddoans welcome the designation, and when we toured the area they sang the praises of Don Henley, the rock and roll musician who is aiding their efforts to save the lake. It’s an odd combination for any political work — uniquely Texas. (Here’s your chance to play the Eagles for your classes, teachers!)

7. When it comes to Texas botany, zoology, and biology in general, Caddo Lake provides the local angle for water quality, water shortages (one proposal is to steal water from the lake for Texas cities far away), wildlife management, and of course, the invasion of exotic species.

8. Everything about this area screams Texas quirkiness. Uncertain, Texas? An often-told story (accurate?) is that when the town applied for a post office, there was a dispute about what to call the town. The fellow who filled out the application wrote “uncertain” in the blank for the town’s name — and that’s how the U.S. Postal Service approved it. Another story holds that the name “Uncertain Landing” caught on because the landing was treacherous mooring for boats. You got a better story about your town’s name? I doubt it.

Save the article from the Times, teachers! You’ll be glad you have it later this year.

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6 Comments | 1836, A Good Story, Conservation, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Natural history, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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