DDT Wars: Rescuing Our National Bird, Preventing Cancer, and Creating the Environmental Defense Fund

by Charles F. Wurster

DDT Wars is the untold inside story of the decade-long scientific, legal and strategic campaign that culminated in the national ban of the insecticide DDT in 1972. The widespread misinformation, disinformation and mythology of the DDT issue are corrected in this book. DDT contamination had become worldwide, concentrating up food chains and causing birds to lay thin-shelled eggs that broke in the nests. Populations of many species of predatory and fish-eating birds collapsed, including the American Bald Eagle, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon and Brown Pelican. Their numbers recovered spectacularly in the decades following the ban. During the campaign DDT and five other insecticides were found to cause cancer in laboratory tests, which led to bans of these six pesticides by international treaty in 2001. This campaign produced lasting changes in American pesticide policies. The legal precedents broke down the court "standing" barrier, forming the basis for the development of
environmental law as we know it today. This case history represents one of the greatest environmental victories of recent decades. DDT is still "controversial" because it has been deceptively interjected into the "climate wars."

This campaign was led by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), founded in 1967 by ten citizens, most of them scientists, volunteers without special political connections or financial resources. Their strategy was to take environmental problems to court. There were many setbacks along the way in this exciting and entertaining story. The group was often kicked out of court, but a few determined citizens made a large difference for environmental protection and public health. Author Charles Wurster was one of the leaders of the campaign. The first six years of EDF history are described as it struggled to survive. Now EDF is one of the world's great environmental advocacy organizations defending our climate, ecosystems, oceans and public health.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, Environment

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2015

Reviews

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if we had the perfect way to wipe away all the bad stuff and leave the good? Some said that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) would do exactly that. (More recently that argument has been made for a variety of things including the neutron bomb, though happily this assertion remains untested).

When used in the 1940s, DDT appeared as wonderful in its way as penicillin was in its. It allowed, for the first time, control over the spread of malaria and typhus. It improved crop yields by destroying many of the insects doing substantial agricultural damage.

So far, so good it would seem. You may recall the apocryphal Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong, will. The relationship between man and his/her environment has shown that Murphy was an optimist. How many times are we and our planet going to be the victims of unintended consequences?

DDT use spread across the globe, scientists began to notice that there were a series of effects that seemed to be linked to its increased use. Foremost among these was its effect on birds ranging from falcons to pelicans whose eggs became so thin-shelled that they couldn’t remain viable. Then came reports linking DDT (and several other pesticides to increased cancer manifestations. Yet those who produced these chemicals seemed indifferent to this information for far too long.

It can be said that a good deal of the nascent environmental movement was galvanized by DDT, Rachel Carson and the EDF. This book tells how a band of scientists and lawyers (without any of the environmental laws we now rely on) sued some of the most powerful corporations in this country and won. It is not engaging in overstatement to call this a “war.” Modern environmentalism was born in these efforts and Wurster puts together a compelling story of how we got from then to now.

[mj · Rating 4 out of 5]

“never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. indeed, it is the only thing that has”
RAHHHHHHHH🦅 THIS!! this is why i am an environmental scientist. i am so patriotic after reading this it’s unbelievable. the fact that this case established environmental law is amazing, but god all mighty it was boring to read about the repetitive court cases.
And to answer his question, no, i dont think the DDT wars could be won today in 2026.

[Leslie Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a clever premise — tracing the history of the ban of DDT while simultaneously tracing its interconnections with the early years of the EDF up through the early 1970s. Someon interested only in the history of DDT might find it dull slogging through the names of the early EDF players and how they met, but as Wurster shows, these two history are inseparable.

It’s a valuable story, not only to document an important organization, but to complement the history of Rachel Carson. I always think of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when thinking of DDT, but as Wurster shows, Carson generated a lot of publicity, but pesticide policies themselves didn’t change until the 1970s. As an early EDF director put it, “...a partnership of scientists and lawyers could accomplish something the eloquence of Rachel Carson could not: regulatory reform that would change the pesticide practices of agribusiness.”

As a historian (not a lawyer or scientists or economist), it wasn’t always the easiest read for me (that’s not to say it was difficult, just that clearly there’s lot of expertise in these areas in this book). But it’s worth the effort. You learn how EDF used the strategies honed in the DDT fight to tackle other, larger problems related to land use, wildlife habitat, and so on. Scientists, lawyers, economists, and other committed activists found effective ways to work together to accomplish environmental goals. And, not surprisingly, their opponents quickly found familiar ways to defend dangerous products and practices.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in environmental science, environmental history, and environmental law. But I’d also recommend it to modern activists looking for inspiration and role models.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and inspiring information about the most transformative period of the modern American environmental movement. The writing doesn't always flow brilliantly but the content is what drives this book. Especially beneficial to counteract all the recent revisionist historians who try to obfuscate the facts on DDT.

[Della Pfeil · Rating 3 out of 5]

DDT Wars was highly informational and a great overview on EDF. It tells a story of how a small group of concerned citizens have the power to make a difference, if they just put their mind to it.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Founding and development of the Environmental Defense Fund with useful information about the politics and legal strategies that did or did not work in getting environmental pollutants banned.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very engaging, read like a Netflix docuseries

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an easy read, but also full of good information. Of course, it's easier to read a book about an environmental problem that actually got solved. But at the time the story was as hopeless and as depressing as many environmental issues are today - multiple species were facing extinction, human health was threatened, and the responsible entities were flat out denying everything - but in this case the whole mind-boggling problem was addressed appropriately. Now we have recovered bird populations, and the structural issues having to do with laws and institutions were also corrected, so that we have the tools at hand to deal with similar problems in the future. I've encountered people on the Internet trying to play down the science on DDT and trying to make environmentalists sound like a bunch of renegades, but here is a case where the so-called renegades fought and won and helped to make a better America in the process. No, and they wouldn't have called themselves renegades, just concerned citizens willing to come together to alleviate a serious harm they had seen around them.