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Silent Spring: by Rachel Carson

© Irene Taylor

I first read Rachel Carson's landmark book, Silent Spring, about 15 years ago. I was especially interested as my brother-in-law was very involved with pesticides in his job. What I picked up to read as a reference and source of information surprisingly became one of the best books I had ever read - surely a great book, and one to consider if you've never read it.

Reading Silent Spring from the vantage point of the early 21st century will give readers some amount of comfort, as much of what Miss Carson discusses has been documented by science, and changes have been made to the way we treat our environment.

But in 1962 when it was written, Silent Spring was an eye-opening indictment of the environmental practices that were standard procedure. As early as 1945, Ms. Carson was making her concerns about the use of pesticides, especially DDT, known. As new insecticides, herbicides and fungicides were discovered, their uses became rampant in an effort to control our environment, and little or no regard was given to the effects of those agents on nature and on US!

Ms. Carson opens this science-based account with "A Fable for Tomorrow", a chilling tale of what might be if present practices were allowed to continue. She describes the strange disappearance of birds, litters of young on farms unhatched and unborn, no bees to pollinate the fruit, brown vegetation everywhere.

Her words, "No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it to themselves." end the fable - with a warning that all of these things had happened and would continue if something wasn't done, and soon!

The rest of the book takes on many and varied environmental threats, and includes a comprehensive list of primary sources. It ends with a challenge - that we, in 1962, stood at a fork where two roads diverge, like those in Robert Frost's famous poem. Ms. Carson sees those roads as unequal - one leading to further disaster, the other "offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth."

Ms. Carson was attacked by many for her views, but she persevered. She appeared before Congress in 1963, calling for new policies to protect human health and the environment. And she was heard. President John Kennedy ordered a review of her claims by the President's Scientific Advisory Committee, and in May of 1963 a report was released by the PSAC stating that the use of pesticides needed greater control. The report credits Silent Spring with making people aware of the dangers and toxicity of pesticides.

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