Pesticide and Ddt

The Danger of Pesticide Use
The many advances made by humans in controlling the environment have created higher populations and longer lives.   However, some of these advancements have proved to be disastrous and have created a whole new set of problems.   Pesticides fit into this category as products of ingenuity that have created further complications for humans.   A pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest” (wormdigest.org).   Even though pesticides have brought a cessation to many immediate concerns, their long term effects were not known at the time of their proliferation, and to some extent are still not understood.   The debate surrounding pesticides is not new.   It has raged since the introduction of their modern use in agriculture and other areas.   Pesticides have been useful in thwarting many problems that plague civilization, such as, assisting high-yielding crops, controlling the spread of certain diseases, and even in stopping household pests (Hosansky 10).   In doing so however pesticides have created a whole new series of debates concerning health related issues due to pesticides found in water and food and also the effects pesticides have on the people who come in contact with them.
The destruction of crops by certain pests has been affecting humans since the dawn of the agricultural revolution.   The transition from hunter-gathering to agriculturally based societies created dependency on the foods grown from the land.   Ever since the agriculture revolution, famine and malnutrition have resulted from failing crops.   This is not to imply that malnutrition and famine were unheard of beforehand.   However, a stationary manner of living seems to exasperate complications of this nature due to lack of mobility.   It is known that various methods of repelling pests were used in antiquity.   There are also Biblical accounts of locust swarms plaguing whole...