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Yet due to the precautionary principle, we will not eradicate them as a species, since it might cause some human death. It seems illogical to me that almost 1
by csdvrx 4y ago
Yet due to the precautionary principle, we will not eradicate them as a species, since it might cause some human death.
It seems illogical to me that almost 1 million dead for sure is preferable to a low percentage risk of a few thousand that might die say due to chemical pollution from the bugspray selected: even at a very conservative 1% risk, eradicating mosquitoes can't cause 100 million death -- and that's only counting 1 year, while we should use a sum over 10 years, but even then with a 5% discount rate for uncertainty it still doesn't make sense to prefer inaction.
I believe it's a case of status-quo bias.
- svnt 4y agoYou should look into the DDT effort and the consequences of it. You are grossly oversimplifying and making it sound like everyone is just sitting around leaning on “the precautionary principle.”
- BurningFrog 4y agoThere are surround 800 mosquito species. Only ~20 of them can carry malaria. There is active research into eradicating those.
- WalterGR 4y ago"Mosquito control: Proposals to eradicate mosquitoes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_control#Proposals_to_eradicate_mosquitoes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_control#Proposals_to_...