Silent Spring
Author Rachel Carson
Copy write 1962
Country United States
Language English
Subject Environmentalism
Publisher Houghton Mifflin
Publication date September 27, 1962
Media type Hardcover/paperback
Silent Spring is the one of the famous outcome of the great writer Rachel Carson which points towards environmental impact of chemicals used in agriculture. It was the beginning of environmental movements in United States. Rachel Carson’s alarm touched off a national debate on use of chemical pesticides, responsibility of science and limitation of technology. It generated a storm of controversy over the use of chemical pesticides. Miss Carson's intent in writing Silent Spring was to warn the public of the dangers associated with pesticide use. Throughout her book are numerous case studies documenting the harmful effects that chemical pesticides have on the environment. Along with these facts, she explains how in many instances the pesticides have done more harm than good in eradicating the pests they were designed to destroy. In addition to her reports on pesticide use, Miss Carson points out that many of the long-term effects that these chemicals may have on the environment, as well as on humans, are still unknown. Her book as one critic wrote, "dealt pesticides a sharp blow" (Senior Scholastic 1962). The controversy sparked by Silent Spring led to the enactment of environmental legislation and the establishment of government agencies to better regulate the use of these chemicals.
Cason begins the article in an imaginary story which drags the readers into the hazards of chemicals used in agriculture.Once there was a town in the United States of America where all living things existed in harmony. Thriving farms surrounded the town and every spring there were fruits and flowers in abundance. When people traveled to the area, they enjoyed the variety of plants. This was a land that was beautiful in spring and in winter. Suddenly, something happened to make everything start to die. No one could account for the strange kinds of symptoms people, birds, and animals started displaying. Many creatures died. People wondered what had happened to the birds. The birds that remained were often so sickly that they couldn’t fly. Chickens still laid eggs, but the eggs didn’t hatch. The apple trees put out blossoms, but no bees came to pollinate them. The countryside that once looked so pretty now looked dry and withered. People noticed a fine, white dust had settled all over the leaves and in the gutters of their houses. The problem with this land didn’t come from witchcraft, but from the people themselves.
Miss Carson first became aware of the effects of chemical pesticides on the natural environment while working for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. Of particular concern to her was the government’s use of chemical pesticides such as DDT. She was familiar with early studies of DDT and knew of its dangers and lasting effects on the environment. DDT is a very complex chemical very hard to break. Ones it reaches to an organism it transfers through the food chain and causes endless effects on many other organisms. That’s why Carson said they are not insecticides, but they are biocides.
According to Darwin’s principle of ‘survival of fittest’, Continues use of same pesticides leads to adaptations and pests gain immunity against that pesticide. So farmers will be compelled to use stronger insecticides and the same process continues. Thus use of chemicals is never a permanent solution but it will do temporarily. But if we look more deeply, the real interest in usage of excessive chemicals is over production and more economical benefits which essentially ruin all the concepts of sustainability. Here most remarkable thing is all these are not just saying there is no problem with insects and no need of control them, but it is saying, rather, control must be geared to realities and is not to wash us away gradually with insects. Here the important questions that Carson never tried to answer are whether use of chemicals and pesticides are just about economical interest or whether it is an outcome of overpopulation and exponentially increasing needs..? Controlling chemicals is critical for the future life, but what is an alternative way for the production of required crops and food materials for this huge population…??
Most of the chemical presently using are allowed to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wild life and man himself. The people who have control over these chemicals usually don’t know very much about them. They work zealously on stamping out unwanted plants and animals. Carson isn’t against the use of chemicals at all. The problem is that these chemicals have been controlled by people who don’t know what they’re doing and don’t know the harm they’re causing. The Bill of Rights doesn’t guarantee people in the United States to be secure against lethal poisons that are distributed by individuals or public officials, but that is only because the framers of the Constitution didn’t foresee the problem. These chemicals have been used without considering their effect on the soil, the water, the wildlife or on people. Most people don’t know how big this problem is. Specialists only know about their area. Corporations make sure that their chance for profits isn’t impeded. The U.S. public should be the ones to decide these matters. People are very worried about the threat of a nuclear war destroying the planet. They should think about the use of these chemicals that are being poured into the environment. These chemicals get into the tissues of plants and animals. They even get into the germ cells so that they will change the material of heredity. Some people are thinking about engineering people’s genes. They don’t seem to recognize the fact that another kind of engineering is happening inadvertently already.
Today most common pesticides include DDT, Arsenic, chlorinated hydrocarbons and organic phosphorous compounds. The main difference of synthetic pesticides is their power not only to poison but to enter into the body and change its processes. They destroy enzymes of the body, enzymes that are supposed to protect the body. They also block oxidation, thus blocking the body’s ability to receive energy. They make organs malfunction. They cause cancer. Even so, more chemicals are added each year. In the United States from 1947 to 1960 the production of synthetic pesticides increased by five times. It is important to learn about these chemicals we live with. Most of these chemicals leads to many skin and hereditary problems and slowly kill lever and other tissues as they are excreted in negligible amounts. Another important issue is regarding spraying these chemicals from copters and planes which not only kill many useful organisms but also poisons air for large areas. Silent Spring not only attacked the integrity of the chemical industry, but also challenged the credibility of the government. The general public knew only of the benefits of using chemical pesticides and trusted the government that these chemicals were safe to use. However, the issues that Miss Carson raised made people more aware of the pesticide spraying that was going on in their neighborhoods.
Threats of chemicals used in agriculture spread ultimately into water too. They finally reach to surrounding water resources and ground water through rain water. High chemical contents not only poison the resource but it reduces the oxygen content (nitrification) and make inhabitable for aquatic lives. Soil pollution is another important concern. The soil constantly changes. New matter is added all the time to existing soil and other matter is taken away by living creatures like earthworm, bacteria, fungi etc. Insecticides upset the delicate balance of organisms in the soil. They last in the soil for hundreds of years. So even if we control them they build up in the soil year by year due to repeated application.
Environment has its own ability maintain equilibrium and prevent any unbalances. But it is very slow process compared to rate of anthropogenic activities. Trees and plants have important role in carrying out natural processes. Thus de habitation, herbicides and seed killers’ biggest challenges for effective natural process and which enhances accumulation of chemicals further more. Now a day’s People were reporting the shocking drop in the number of bird sightings in places where they had previously been abundantly present. Many animals are under the risk of extinction. Abundance of fish in rivers also considerably reduced. The only question remains is how long humans going to exist!?
A drastic change has occurred in the realm of public health problems. Whereas in past decades, people worried about smallpox, cholera, and such communicable diseases, now they have to worry about the hazards of chemical poisoning. Environmental health problems are many and various. People now live under the fear that their environment is being corrupted. They now fear environmental diseases caused by the pollution of the air they breathe and the food they eat. Living things have been fighting cancer from early times, but it become most common after industrial era. The rate of cancer has risen dramatically each year of the twentieth century. In 1900, only four percent of deaths were caused by cancer. In 1959, the figure had risen to fifteen percent of deaths.
Carson ended her writing with few more words of ethical appeal of the book. Darwin would be impressed today by the fact that insect populations so clearly bear out his theories of the survival of the fittest. Insects have worked under the stress of repeated chemical sprayings to weed out the weaker members of species and reinforce the strongest. Carson dwells on the positive answer to the problem of pest insects. She has spent the majority of the book showing the harmful effects of insecticides, pesticides, and fungicides; here she shows the promising research and its successful results in using biological methods to control insects. She provides a variety of examples from a variety of locations in order to demonstrate the extent of applicability of biological methods to prevent insects efficiently.
Silent spring made many impacts on environmental thinkers as well as supporters of pesticide industry. Many arguments and criticisms are raised. Silent spring doesn’t give a clear picture of use of chemicals in agriculture as it is silent about it beneficial aspects especially in the present situation of huge population and higher need for food. Many industries published articles explaining why chemicals are in agriculture during while many articles came out supporting Carson’s ideas and explaining how chemical pesticides were largely responsible for the virtual eradication of diseases. Even though she is not supporting insecticides, she is not arguing that they must be banned. However silent spring resulted in banning DDT in United States and followed by many other countries. Carson was so effective in generating pubic opposition to pesticide use was her ability to incorporate into her book real-world examples of how pesticides were negatively impacting the environment. She explained how use of DDT kills other organisms which are not targeted using food chain and examples. It also helps to illustrate relation between different organisms and also reminds human is not separate, but is interconnected through web life.
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