Silent Spring

Rachel Carson

About 3 pages (983 words)

Silent Spring Summary

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Silent Spring

In 1955 Rachel Carson was at the peak of her profession as a popular writer of science books about the sea. Under the Sea Wind (published in 1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955) were all best-sellers, and they catapulted her into celebrity as one of the best loved and most sought after American authors. By 1956, she was planning a book in which she intended to explore the human race's relationship with nature. Fearing that human beings were severing their connection to the web of life, she began the painstaking research that would form her next work, Silent Spring, a book that would change her life and the world.

Carson's deepest held beliefs were in the delicate interconnectedness of nature and the sanctity of life. Her work as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during World War II (1939-1945) had involved studying documents concerning the horrendous chemical and human-made devastations that were occurring. After the war, many of the chemicals developed for the military were unleashed on neighborhoods and farms in a war against nature. By 1960, there were some 200 untested chemicals used in pesticide formulas. That same year, 638 million pounds of poisons were broadcast in the United States alone. The chemical pesticide business was a $250 million industry enthusiastically supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other agencies. Government researchers had documented the dangers of uncontrolled pesticide use, but their warnings were ignored or destroyed, with many of the scientists encouraged to find other jobs. A chance note from an ornithologist friend concerning a die-off of baby birds after a DDT spraying of a nearby marsh spurred Carson to act. As she began reading hundreds of scientific papers and contacting biologists, chemists, agriculture experts, and doctors around the world, her alarm and her determination grew. "The more I learned about the use of pesticides the more appalled I became. I realized that here was the material for a book. What I discovered was that everything which meant the most to me as a naturalist was being threatened and that nothing I could do would be more important" (Jezer 1988, p. 79).

After four years of research, Silent Spring began appearing in a serialized condensed version in The New Yorker on June 16, 1962. It included an appendix of more than fifty pages of scientific references. Response was immediate and overwhelming. Praise and concern in the form of thousands of letters and telegrams poured into the magazine from citizens, scientists, and even the new U.S. president, John F. Kennedy. The response from the American Medical Association, the USDA, and the chemical companies was even more vocal, however. They targeted a quarter of a million dollars for a brutally negative publicity campaign, impugning Carson's science and her morals. One member of a government pest control board scoffed that Carson had no business worrying about genetics as she was a "spinster." The Velsicol Chemical Corporation sent her publisher a threatening letter insisting that Carson was part of a communist conspiracy to undermine the economy of Western nations. Houghton Mifflin was undeterred and the book was published on schedule, on September 27, 1962. As the book soared on the best-seller list, the attacks intensified in print and on television. Her opponents must have realized—as was indeed the case—that she was questioning not only the indiscriminate use of poisons but also the basicirresponsibility of an industrialized, technological society toward the natural world. She refused to accept the premise that damage to nature was the inevitable cost of progress.

President Kennedy initiated a Science Advisory Committee to study the dangers and benefits of pesticides. After eight months of study, their report concluded that "Until the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, people were generally unaware of the toxicity of pesticides." A U.S. Senate committee was formed to study environmental hazards. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall acknowledged, "She made us realize that we had allowed our fascination with chemicals to override our wisdom in their use." Most importantly she touched a chord in the population of the United States and the dozens of countries worldwide where her book was translated. Grass-roots conservation and environmental organizations sprang up demanding political action. By the end of 1962 more than forty bills regulating pesticides had been introduced in legislatures across the United States. By 1964, the U.S. Congress had amended federal laws to shift the burden of demonstrating the safety of new chemicals to the manufacturers, requiring the proof of safety before the chemicals could be released. As her ideas gained momentum, Carson was showered with honors and awards, including the Audubon Medal and honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the American Geographical Society. Carson continued to warn that "modern science has given human beings the capacity to destroy in a few years life forms that have taken eons to evolve. Humans are challenged to use this new power intelligently and cautiously. Conservation is a cause that has no end" (Jezer 1988, p. 99).

On April 14, 1964, Carson died of breast cancer. Before she wrote Silent Spring few people were aware of the ecological principle that all of life is interrelated. Because of her courage, determination and eloquence, these ideas have become widespread. Millions of human beings have begun to take responsibility for humanity's place in the natural world. They agree with Carson that "man is a part of nature and his war against nature is a war against himself. The human race now faces the challenge of proving our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves" (Jezer 1988, p. 105).