Silent Spring
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| Author | Rachel Carson |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Released | September 1962 |
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin in September 1962. 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, 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 is credited with the ban of the pesticide DDT<ref>EPA reference retrieved April 26, 2006</ref> 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.
Silent Spring has made many lists of the best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. In the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Nonfiction it was at #5, and it was at #78 in the conservative National Review's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century. However, it was a "honorable mention" on conservative Human Events' "Ten Most Harmful Books of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries".
Contents |
[edit] Thesis
The book stated that uncontrolled pesticide use led to the deaths of animals, especially birds, but also including humans. Its title was meant to evoke a spring season in which no bird songs could be heard, because they had all died from pesticides. Its title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake,/And no birds sing." [1]
[edit] Support
History professor Gary Kroll commented, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'— as a perspective that cut against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."<ref>Gary Kroll, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring:A Brief History of Ecology as a Subversive Subject", retrieved April 26, 2006</ref>
According to Time magazine in 1999, within a year or so of its publication, "all but the most self-serving of Carson's attackers were backing rapidly toward safer ground. In their ugly campaign to reduce a brave scientist's protest to a matter of public relations, the chemical interests had only increased public awareness."
Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides, but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use, with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem. However, some critics asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides.
[edit] Criticism
Even before Silent Spring was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, there was strong opposition to it. According to Time in 1999:
Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid—indeed, the whole chemical industry—duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.
One of the book's most controversial claims was that DDT is a carcinogen; see DDT: Effects on human health for a summary of the evidence for and against her claim.
In the 1960's, biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth."<ref>PBS Frontline program, Fooling with Nature, retrieved April 26, 2006</ref>
Industry and agribusiness advocates continue to criticize Silent Spring. In a 2002 essay, journalist Ronald Bailey wrote that the book had a mixed legacy:
The book did point to problems that had not been adequately addressed, such as the effects of DDT on some wildlife. And given the state of the science at the time she wrote, one might even make the case that Carson's concerns about the effects of synthetic chemicals on human health were not completely unwarranted. Along with other researchers, she was simply ignorant of the facts. But after four decades in which tens of billions of dollars have been wasted chasing imaginary risks without measurably improving American health, her intellectual descendants don't have the same excuse.<ref>"Silent Spring at 40", Ronald Bailey, Reason, June 12, 2002</ref>
In a 2005 essay, "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", British politician Dick Taverne was damning in his criticism of Carson:
Carson didn't seem to take into account the vital role (DDT) played in controlling the transmission of malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the parasite (...) It is the single most effective agent ever developed for saving human life (...) Rachel Carson is a warning to us all of the dangers of neglecting the evidence-based approach and the need to weight potential risk against benefit: it can be argued that the anti-DDT campaign she inspired was responsible for almost as many deaths as some of the worst dictators of the last century. <ref>*Taverne, Dick "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", collected in Panic Nation, 2005, edited by Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks, ISBN 1-84454-122-3.</ref>
However, this criticism doesn't consider that, as reported also in Silent Spring, mosquitoes had started to develop pesticide resistance. Hence already before publishing Silent Spring, DDT was not any more as effective as this criticism claims. See also DDT#Effectiveness against Malaria.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
<references/>
[edit] Sources
- Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), Mariner Books, 2002, ISBN 0-618-24906-0
- Silent Spring initially appeared serialized in three parts in the June 16, June 23, and June 30, 1962 issues of The New Yorker magazine
- Graham, Frank. Since Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), Fawcett 1976 reprint: ISBN 0-449-23141-0
- Silent Spring Revisited, American Chemical Society, 1986: ISBN 0-317-59798-1, 1987: ISBN 0-8412-0981-2
- Litmans, Brian and Jeff Miller, Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use And Endangered Species, Diane Publishing Co., 2004, ISBN 0-7567-4439-3 (67 p.)
- Lear, Linda. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997, Owl Books paperback 1998: ISBN 0-8050-3428-5
- Murphy, Priscilla Coit, What A Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring, University of Massachusetts Press, 2005, ISBN 1-55849-476-6
- United States Environmental Protection Agency "What is DDT?" retrieved April 26, 2006
- 'DDT Chemical Backgrounder', National Safety Council Retrieved May 30 2005
- Report on Carcinogens, Fifth Edition; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program (1999).
[edit] External links
- Silent spring studyguide: summary, analysis, historical context, retrieved April 26, 2006
- New York Times report of chemical industry's campaign July 22, 1962
- Jim Norton, "Silencing Silent Spring
- Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): The Story of Silent Spring — NRDCca:Primavera Silenciosa
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