THE ENVIRONMENT
Pesticides such as DDT, parathion, aldrin and dieldrin are both ally and enemy to man. The chemicals annihilate predators: the aphids that plague rose fanciers, disease-bearing mosquitoes, beetles that spread Dutch elm disease, in sects that devour crops. As a farmer's helper, pesticides increase crop yields, hence profits. But poison is blind. Loosed annually by the ton from planes, boats, trucks, tractors and handy spray cans, it cannot isolate its target. Since Rachel Carson exposed the pesticides' threat seven years ago, in Silent Spring, evidence of the chemicals' pernicious effects on...