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http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Makes a good case for why eradicating mosquitoes will not be problematic.

But every time there is a large scale intervention like this the side effects only become apparent decades after the fact. You mess with ecosystems at this scale at your peril. Even if we can't see any downside to this today that doesn't mean there isn't a downside.

DDT looked pretty good once upon a time.

Another problem is that we simply have not mapped all the interactions between species within an ecosystem and eradicating one species might upset the balance in a hard to predict way.

Introduction of a new species can be problematic:

http://www.animalcontrol.com.au/rabbit.htm

We have some solid proof for that. Maybe 40 years from now we will know why eradicating something as obviously harmful as a mosquito can be problematic too.

That's the only way to learn, it would be nice if this research was proven correct.

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There seems to be an assumption here that ecosystems are friendly places but they really aren't. Nature does not know best. The vast majority all species in history have been wiped out by their natural environments, many by their own genes.

All actions that we take to try to fix problems go on to create new problems. It's expected.

And, of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't act, unless we have a good explanation now as to why the harm of a proposed course of action outweighs the benefits.

The alternative is to follow some kind of 'Precautionary Principle', which, as David Deutsch has pointed out, can only damage our ability to handle threats which we do not foresee.

Meanwhile, people's lives are in known peril from malaria.

I think the major difference between this attempt at species destruction and other previous attempts is the massive amount of human disease and death already perpetrated by the clumsy little biters.

It comes down to determining whats better: not messing with the environment and continuing to allow hundreds of thousands of human deaths a year. or trying to kill off mosquitoes.

Wikipedia claims that malaria alone causes 2.23% of yearly human death world wide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

Thats a pretty ridiculous number if you think about it.

Huh? What previous attempts at species destruction are you referring to?

> Huh? What previous attempts at species destruction are you referring to?

This one, maybe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign ?

I don't think so, since that too was ultimately aimed at preventing human casualties.

gerggerg is claiming there's a big difference between this and previous deliberate attempts to wipe out a whole species. I'm asking, what are those previous attempts? I can think of none for which human welfare wasn't the main selling point.

What I'm ultimately doing is disagreeing with the gerggerg; I'm saying that human welfare doesn't justify any attempt to wipe out an entire species.

> I'm saying that human welfare doesn't justify any attempt to wipe out an entire species.

You must see the irony in that statement. The whole point is to eradicate Plasmodium vivax, and five other species from the earth.

The goal is to eradicate malaria in humans. No one claims that we can extinct any plasmodium as a species, and no one cares.

In addition, there's a bit of a difference between a microbial parasite and mosquitoes, with regard to ecological roles that benefit humans. I'm sure you can see the difference.

You seem to prefer pot-shots to reasoned defences your statements. I'm not surprised; I do occasionally hear statements like "Let's start spraying DDT from planes and dumping oil on wetlands" from people without the means or will to support them, but I am disappointed to hear it on HN.

whats better: not messing with the environment and continuing to allow hundreds of thousands of human deaths a year.

One could argue that in the light of human overpopulation it might not be wise to remove one of our last natural predators.

A cynical stance, for sure, and it gets only more cynical when you consider that we might be trading mosquito-deaths for starvation-deaths here...

I would call it a parasite, not a predator.

in the light of human overpopulation

Malthus might make that argument, but others, like Julian Simon, would say quite the opposite.

The Malthusian theory is that we've only got a certain amount of arable land, and thus can only support a finite number of people. Once we hit that maximum population, mankind stagnates at that point.

The competing theory -- and the one that has proven through history to be correct -- is that the most important resource, the one that outweighs all others, is the human mind. The more people we have, the more creativity we can bring to bear on a problem.

Thus, the problem of agriculture has been largely solved. Humans have invented irrigation, terracing, crop rotation, selective breeding, and genetic manipulation. We spend our time on the edge of disaster, but before we can topple over, the lure of riches to the person who can come up with the solution is sufficient to take us to the next plateau.

and the one that has proven through history to be correct

Something tells me you didn't apply the scientific method here...

We spend our time on the edge of disaster, but before we can topple over, the lure of riches to the person who can come up with the solution is sufficient to take us to the next plateau.

That's implying the pretty optimistic assumption that we're capable of solving any problem that we create for us.

Something tells me you didn't apply the scientific method here...

Actually, I've created an alternate universe to serve as a control...

Social sciences, unfortunately, aren't generally amenable to experimentation at the scale we're talking about here.

That's implying the pretty optimistic assumption that we're capable of solving any problem that we create for us.

There's a long string of data points supporting this assumption. (And I'm sure that survivorship bias isn't playing any role whatsoever ;) )

Social sciences, unfortunately, aren't generally amenable to experimentation at the scale we're talking about here.

Which doesn't change the fact that "proven through history to be correct" is a meaningless claim in this context.

You don't have to be a malthusian to acknowledge that the physical resources of our planet are finite and that our track-record of dealing with similar problems on much smaller scales isn't exactly flawless.

There's a long string of data points supporting this assumption. (And I'm sure that survivorship bias isn't playing any role whatsoever ;) )

At least you're adding the winking smiley yourself. ;)

"proven through history to be correct"

Pretty sure you mean partially correct. The wolrd has a long history of famines that show we quite often bump up against Malthusian limits.

In the long run yes production can potentially keep pace with population but what's more relevant is the population growth rate itself will naturally fall once a certain quality of life is achieved.

> The world has a long history of famines that show we quite often bump up against Malthusian limits.

Famine isn't caused by a lack of resources - it's a political problem. 87 million people died of famine in the 20th century, but none of those were in democracies. Source (though I haven't checked the numbers myself): http://markhumphrys.com/end.war.html

To say it's a political problem is to say that you can solve all famine just by just changing over to democracy which simply isn't the case (although it would help!).

That's an error in causation. What's more likely is you're seeing the fact that democracy helps but what helps more is the same societal characteristics that are salient for developing a strong democracy (e.g. a strong, educated middle class) also tend to insulate those societies from shocks to the food supply.

Certainly type of government is important but to say famine isn't also caused by lack of resources is silly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_famines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India

"Deaths from malnutrition on a large scale have continued across India into modern times. In Maharashtra alone, for example, there were around 45,000 childhood deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to the Times of India.[145] Another Times of India report in 2010 has stated that 50% of childhood deaths in India are attributable to malnutrition.[146] Around 7.5 million people per year die of malnutrition in modern India, the largest death rate caused by malnutrition for any country."

What's more likely is you're seeing the fact that democracy helps but what helps more is the same societal characteristics that are salient for developing a strong democracy

Yes. More important than democracy itself is a strong system of property rights and a functional market (these are things that tend to be present in democracies, hence the confusion).

The problem in Africa is frequently that property rights are not respected, so warlords and gangsters are able to confiscate the food and sell it themselves, or dole it out to their minions.

But most people with malaria don't die. Instead they experience malaise and lack of energy (due to anemia). This causes tremendous misery and suffering, keeping entire populations stuck and unable to progress - but alive.

On the problematic side, the cheap boric acid solution (pun!) will likely be the most used. And this will be bad.

1) Boric acid will kill any insect that ingests it.

2) If you leave rotting fruit out, every nectar lover will drink it. From experience, this will be at least 50% honeybees.

So yeah, it will crash native honeybee populations too. If you are curious and want to see how effective it would be, mix up some bait without the poison. After a few hours, enough for every bug to find it, sit next to it for ten minutes. Count bees vs mosquitoes, you'll probably be disappointed.

Honeybees are much larger than mosquitoes. Could you simply screen the honeybees out?

That's so low tech, it's genius.

According to the EPA "technical boric acid is practically nontoxic to birds, fish and aquatic invertebrates, and relatively nontoxic to beneficial insects." http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsheets/0024fact.pdf

I thought about this as well. I am going to leave boric acid laced juice socks out at night. BTW this has worked as a solution for cockroaches terrifically well at my place for the last 20 years.

What is a 'juice sock'? Is it like a windsock? A size-12 tube sock soaked in Borax?

It's an open container filled with toxic nectar suspended inside a tube sock which is in turn suspended from a hook.

A wick is added so that the contents of the container are pulled up by capillary action and suffuse the sock.

Maybe 40 years from now we will know why eradicating something as obviously harmful as a mosquito can be problematic too.

Well sure, we'll know why when the aliens feel free to blow up our planet after we kill all the mosquitoes they put here.

http://hellyeahliloandstitch.tumblr.com/post/3095035674/eart...

But every time there is a large scale intervention like this . . .

We could try scaling slower. Say, eradicating mosquitos one 100 square mile block at a time, over the course of a century.

It is not that easy. Ecosystem is different in areas. Who knows there is an ecosystem based around mosquitoes. For example small birds and fish are dependent on mosquitoes egg. Other big animals dependent on these birds and fish. Suddenly destroying mosquitoes without examining the ecosystem in the area may cause huge bad impact.

Of course. That's why it makes sense to do things on a small scale before doing them on a large scale, and to act slowly.

If there are regions that need mosquitoes or effects that manifest over decades, we can correct mistakes -- or at least, damage will be limited locally.

It's not that meddling in a complex system is impossible. It's just that you need to proceed at a scale and speed your current understanding justifies.

Yes but mosquitoes don't travel so far, it is only necessary to kill them in already inhabited areas. Especially in cities since that is were increasingly most of the population is.

We don't have to kill 90% of mosquitoes on earth just 90% around major cities.

> DDT looked pretty good once upon a time.

It looks fantastic today if you have ever had malaria. What is the problem with DDT? It is completely non-toxic to humans and dirt cheap to make. It depresses birds of prey populations during the malaria eradication process, but that is a pretty small price to pay compared to getting malaria. Sure, it is inappropriate as an agricultural insecticide, but it is perfectly fine as a compound to wage war against malaria.

If you could go back to the 1940's, and stop the DDT spraying to save the birds it killed, would you? I am glad our grandparents generation poured oil on wetlands, and gassed DDT all over human populated areas. I'd tell them to do it again.

It is completely non-toxic to humans

From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health:

DDT is classified as "moderately toxic" by the United States National Toxicology Program (NTP)[46] and "moderately hazardous" by the World Health Organization (WHO)

The evidence on Wiki is mixed. Maybe it makes sense to use it for malaria, but there are also other solutions that might have better cost/benefit.

> "If you could go back to the 1940's, and stop the DDT spraying to save the birds it killed, would you?"

This is a bit of a non-sequitur. The problem was that whole species of raptors were threatened by the widespread use of DDT. Yes it absolutely would have been wise to restrict DDT earlier than they did. Or maybe we Americans just enjoy the thrill of nearly exterminating a species of bird. The result is the same: DDT is now restricted in the U.S., and Americans cope with it just fine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the struggles of people in tropical third-world countries, who can often do little better than try to save enough money to buy a mosquito net.

> "I am glad our grandparents generation poured oil on wetlands"

Right, because wetlands don't benefit humans in any way, do they?

It has everything to do with the third world. DDT is the cheapest and longest lasting insecticide. Was used to virtually eradicate malaria in China, and is effective in India where it is still used today.

What compound do you propose treating those mosquito nets with? I assume it is something more expensive and shorter lasting. Untreated mosquito nets don't work very well, and other chemical treatments only last 3 months, and cost 3x as much. DDT is cheap and lasts a year.

No, congratulating your grandparents for fogging their streets with pesticide and destroying wetlands has nothing to do with the struggle against malaria in the third world. Americans do NOT suffer the third world's pain of mosquito borne disease.

DDT has an important role in mosquito control in poor countries, and a lot of technical effort is being put into helping them to use DDT in a targeted, efficient manner, i.e. in manner different from that for which you congratulate our misinformed grandparents.

But perhaps you'd recommend that the third world destroy their wetlands as well (more than they already are). Care to defend that remark, or was that just a cheap drive-by?

I am fine with spraying oil on swamp land to eradicate mosquito born illnesses. I can't tell from your comment if you are aware that malaria used to be a problem in the US. It was, and our grandparent's generation solved it. That is what I am congratulating them for.

I have no problem with the third world using the same techniques to eradicate malaria that was used in the US to eradicate malaria.

Yes I can see that. But you don't seem to have thought this through very well.

If sprayed promiscuously as the Americans did, how much DDT would even the smallest third world tropical country need to make a dent in malaria rates? How much acreage would have to be oiled (and thus destroyed as a habitat) to do the same? Assuming they could afford it financially, how would they afford the ecological costs? Remember, many of these countries don't have industrialized agriculture to insulate them from damage to native habitats.

And forget oiling wetlands -- that's not how the Americans did it. Americans did most of the work by draining wetlands near populated areas. So tell me how that would work in a country like Nigeria? I'll give you a hint if you need one.

There are many intelligent ways to fight malaria. Exporting some clumsy, ham-fisted methods that Americans rejected forty years ago is not one of them.

The reason Americans are currently able to cope with a DDT ban is mostly because the ban only went into effect after malaria had been effectively eradicated.

Ban it a few decades earlier, and people would not be "coping", they'd be getting sick as hell.

You're using some pretty vague phrasing here. People still get "sick as hell" from West Nile, but I don't often hear that used as an excuse to start fogging the streets again.

DDT was only one part of the U.S.'s efforts against malaria, and it is the other mitigations that have provided lasting relief; notice that DDT has now been restricted in the U.S. for over forty years, and malaria continues to be a non-issue in this country.

The pyrethroids that we now use, which are both more effective as knock-down agents and less persistent in the the environment, were first developed in the 60s. If we had restricted DDT use in open air earlier, as we should have, smart money says that development of alternatives would have accelerated. The TVA would have continued with the main parts of the malaria program -- water management, urban planning, maybe even in-home spraying (which is where DDT is most effective anyway). The U.S would still be here, and you'd still not be getting sick as hell from malaria.

By today, 2011, it is likely that malaria would still be largely eradicated. But had DDT been prematurely banned there undoubtedly would have been an uptick in malaria outbreaks. I suggest you spend some time researching the extent of a roll DDT actually played.

All of this is silly anyway. Eagles have made a comeback, so who cares what happened in the past? Seems to me everything worked out pretty well.

> It looks fantastic today

Unless the local mosquito populations are resistant to it, as a lot of them are. That's why it's barely used now. Seems a bit rude to point that out, given how enthusiastic some people are for the substance.

If Benjamin Franklin had his way, we'd still think DDT was a great idea. Eagles be damned.

How so? Asking seriously -- I just started reading a bio of Franklin, and I'm hungry for details.

Benjamin Franklin advocated making the turkey the national bird instead of the bald eagle. I assume that if he were successful, people wouldn't care quite so much about eagles these days ;)

The argument probably goes something like this:

1. Ben Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national bird/symbol, not the bald eagle.

2. DDT is particularly devastating to bald eagles (due to transmission through fish which concentrate the DDT and makes the shells of bird eggs too thin to properly allow full term hatching (bald eagles really like fish)).

3. Since the bald eagle is the national symbol of the US this was a major rallying cry of the anti-DDT folks

4. If the turkey was instead the national symbol, presumably fewer people would have cared about the DDT effects on eagles, causing a weaker response to DDT dangers (e.g. not putting in a blanket ban on its use).

NOTE: point 4 is pure speculation on outcome, but not unreasonable. Also, the argument I present is just me speculating that is what the GP meant.

Just about nailed it.

Of course I'm mostly joking, but I hate birds and recently got a bunch of bug bites....

Makes a good case...

Really? Does it? Because I've read that article several times, and as far as I can tell, the "case" it makes for erradicating them consists entirely of the opinions of some scientists and the half-baked idea that "obviously something else would fill in the niche".

Heck, every time I read that article, considering the amount of time they devote to the impact of erradication, I am astounded at the conclusions they draw, which they seem to have been actively tearing down for the duration of the article.

Ecosystems are actually pretty robust. If mosquitoes are eradicated something else would come and fill the void. Humans are so flexible that while the eradication of mosquitoes will probably cause the extinction of several of their predators, we'll find a way around whatever few problems bubble up to our level.

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