SILENT SPRING

‘We spray our elms, and the following spring, trees are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled step by step through the now familiar elm-earthworm-robin cycle’

                                                                                            – Rachael Carson

            This quotation appeared in Rachael Carson’s book entitled Silent Spring. In the years following the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, the book has inspired controversy and has initiated a major change in thinking about the safety of using pesticides and other toxic chemicals.  The book is widely credited with launching the environmentalism movement in the West.When Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read (especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and an endorsement by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas), spending several weeks on the New York Times best seller list, and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment.

Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972 in the United States.The book claimed detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. She proposed a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to DDT, claiming that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells and result in reproductive problems and death.

(Rachael Carson, Silent Spring, 1962)

By:  Zurina Zakaria a123555…