Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson

Carson questioned the moral right of government to leave its citizens unprotected from substances they could neither physically avoid nor publicly question.

“They should not be called ‘insecticides’ but ‘biocides.’”

the “right of the citizen to be secure in his own home against the intrusion of poisons applied by other persons.”

“poisonous and biologically potent chemicals” to fall “indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm.”

moral vacuity.

She categorically rejected the notion proposed by industry that there were human “thresholds” for such poisons,

Carson presented evidence that some human cancers were linked to pesticide exposure.

Chemical corruption of the globe affects us from conception to death.

All forms of life are more alike than different.

She was a “bird and bunny lover,” a woman who kept cats and was therefore clearly suspect.

the industry spent a quarter of a million dollars to discredit her research and malign her character.

Unbeknown to her detractors in government and industry, Carson was fighting a far more powerful enemy than corporate outrage: a rapidly metastasizing breast cancer.

miracle is that she lived to complete the book at all, enduring a “catalogue of illnesses,” as she called it.

After Silent Spring caught the attention of President John F. Kennedy, federal and state investigations were launched into the validity of Carson’s claims.

While Carson knew that one book could not alter the dynamic of the capitalist system, an environmental movement grew from her challenge,

Carson remains an example of what one committed individual can do to change the direction of society.

revolutionary spokesperson for the right...

Rachel Carson knew before she died that her work had made a difference.

posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.

DDT is found in the livers of birds and fish on every oceanic island on the planet and

in the breast milk of every mother.

reduction of the use of pesticides has been one of the major policy failures of the environmental era.

the role of the expert had to be limited by democratic access and must include public debate about the risks of hazardous technologies.

Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”

we, like all other living creatures, are part of the vast ecosystems of the earth, part of the whole stream of life.

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.

foxes barked in the hills

The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life,

Then a strange blight crept over the area

mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died.

The farmers spoke of much illness among t...

There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children,

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone?

The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly.

the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound;

Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere,

What has already silenced the voices of spring in countless towns in America? This book is an attempt to explain.

one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

During the past quarter century this power has not only increased to one of disturbing magnitude but it has changed

in char...

The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with da...

pollution is for the most part ir...

chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death.

As Albert Schweitzer has said, “Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”

It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth—eons

The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature.

new chemicals to which the bodies of men

and animals are required somehow to adapt each year, chemicals totally outside the limits of biologic experience.

Since the mid-1940’s over 200 basic chemicals have been created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms describe...