The question of success and environmental ethics: Revisiting the DDT controversy from a transnational perspective, 1967–72

Abstract

Drawing from the testimony of two landmark hearings on the controversial pesticide DDT held between 1967 and 1972, this article explores how environmentalists and US chemical interests understood and articulated the risks and benefits of DDT use within the United States and beyond its borders. It examines the critical role the international use of DDT played in shaping the domestic regulation of the pesticide and sheds light on the ethical arguments made against and in defense of DDT. By exploring the role of the international use of DDT as it relates of US environmental regulation, this article draws attention to the historical roots of a conflict that situates environmental ethics squarely at odds with the ethics of saving lives with a known environmental pollutant.