Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published on September 27, 1962 and documents the adverse effects on the environment of pesticide use at random. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials to accept industrial claims without asking.
In the late 1950s, Carson turned his attention to conservation, especially the environmental problems he believed to be caused by synthetic pesticides. The result is Silent Spring (1962), which brings environmental issues to the American public. Silent Spring met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but spurred a reversal in national pesticide policies, causing a national ban on DDT for agricultural use, and inspired environmental movements that led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
In 1996, a follow-up book, Beyond Silent Spring , co-authored by H.F. van Emden and David Peakall, published. In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by Discover Magazine editor.
Video Silent Spring
Research and writing
In the mid-1940s, Carson became concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, much of which had been developed through military science funding after World War II. The 1957 US Department of Agriculture's fire fighting antidote program, which involved air spraying against DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil and including spraying private land, encouraged Carson to devote his research, and the next book, to pesticides and environmental toxins.. Landowners in Long Island filed a lawsuit to stop spraying, and many in the affected areas followed the case closely. Although the lawsuit is missing, the Supreme Court grants applicants the right to command for potential future environmental damage, laying the groundwork for later environmental action.
The impulse for Silent Spring was a letter written in January 1958 by Carson's friend Olga Owens Huckins to The Boston Herald, describing the death of birds around his property resulting from DDT air spraying to kill mosquitoes, a copy Huckins sent to Carson. Carson later wrote that this letter encouraged him to study the environmental problems caused by chemical pesticides.
The Audubon Naturalist Society is actively opposing the chemical spraying program and recruits Carson to help publicize US government spraying practices and related research. Carson started the four-year project Silent Spring by collecting examples of environmental damage associated with DDT. He tried to ask E. B. White and a number of journalists and scientists for his purposes. In 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to work with Edwin Diamond's science journalist Newsweek . However, when The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, he began to consider writing more than just introductions and conclusions as planned; soon became a solo project. Diamond will write one of the harshest criticisms of Silent Spring .
As his research progresses, Carson finds a sizable community of scientists documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides. He made use of his personal connections with many government scientists, who gave him confidential information about it. From reading scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson discovered two scientific camps; those who reject the possibility of dangerous spraying of pesticides by limiting conclusive evidence and those exposed to possible dangers and willing to consider alternative methods, such as biological pest control.
In 1959, the USDA Agricultural Research Service responded to criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, Fire Ant in Court ; Carson calls this "striking propaganda" that ignores the dangers that spray pesticides aimed at humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in The Washington Post, which links the recent decline in bird populations - in his words, "silencing birds" - to excessive use of pesticides. In the same year, 1957, 1958, and 1959 US cranberry plants were found to contain high levels of aminotriazole herbicides and the sale of all cranberry products was discontinued. Carson attends the next FDA hearing on revising pesticide regulations; he was not advocated by the aggressive tactics of the representatives of the chemical industry, which included expert testimony that was strictly contradicted by most of the scientific literature he had learned. He also wondered about the possibility of "financial impetus behind a particular pesticide program".
Research at the Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers who investigated the entire cancer-causing chemicals. What is important is the work of National Cancer Institute researchers and the founding director of the environmental cancer section, Wilhelm Hueper, who classifies many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and his research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer relationship; for Carson, the evidence for the toxicity of various synthetic pesticides is very clear, although such conclusions are highly controversial outside the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.
In 1960, Carson had enough research material and his writing developed rapidly. He has investigated hundreds of incidents of exposure to individual pesticides and human diseases and the resulting ecological damage. In January 1960, he suffered a disease that kept him bedridden for weeks, delaying the book. When he was almost fully recovered in March, he found a cyst in his left breast, requiring a mastectomy. In December of that year, Carson discovered that he had breast cancer, which had spread. His research was also delayed by the revision work for the new edition of The Sea Around Us, and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann. Much of the research and writing was done in the fall of 1960, except for recent research discussions on biological control and investigation of some new pesticides. However, further health problems delayed the final revision in 1961 and early 1962.
The title is inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contains the lines "The sediment was withered from the lake, And no birds sang." "Silent Spring" was originally suggested as the title of the chapter on birds. In August 1961, Carson agreed with the suggestion of his literary agent, Marie Rodell: Silent Spring would be the title of the metaphor for the entire book - suggesting a bleak future for the whole of nature - rather than a literal chapter title about the absence of chirping bird. With Carson's approval, Paul Brooks's editor at Houghton Mifflin organized illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The last paper is the first chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow", which is intended to provide a gentle introduction to a serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had largely completed editing and planned to promote the book by sending manuscripts to select individuals for final advice. In Silent Spring, Carson relied on evidence from two New York state organic growers, Marjorie Spock and Mary Richards, and proponents of biodiversity farming Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in developing his case against DDT.
Maps Silent Spring
Content
The main theme of Silent Spring is a strong, and often negative, human influence on nature. Carson's main argument is that pesticides have a detrimental effect on the environment; He says this is more accurately called "biocide" because the effect is seldom limited to the target pest. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides - many of which are exposed to bioaccumulation - are investigated. Carson accused the chemical industry of deliberately spreading disinformation and public officials to accept uncritically industrial claims. Most books are devoted to the effects of pesticides on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail the cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other diseases linked to pesticides. About DDT and cancer, Carson just said:
In laboratory tests in animals, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors are not sure how to classify them, but feel there is some "justification for considering their low grade liver cell carcinoma." Dr. Hueper [authors of Occupational Tumors and Occupational Titors ] now gives DDT the exact value of "chemical carcinogens."
Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially as targeted pests can develop resistance to weak pesticides and ecosystems to the prey of unexpected invasive species. The book concludes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.
Carson never called for a direct ban on DDT. He said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides have no environmental side effects, their exaggerated overuse is counterproductive because it creates insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in removing targeted insect populations:
No one is responsible for believing that insect-borne diseases should be ignored. The question that now comes naturally is whether it is wise or responsible to attack the problem with a method that quickly makes it worse. The world has heard many victory wars against disease through the control of infectious vector infections, but has heard little from the other side of the story - defeat, a short-lived victory that now strongly supports the worrisome view that insect enemies have been made stronger by our efforts. Worse, we may have destroyed our means of struggle.
Carson also said that "Malaria programs are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes", and cites the advice given by the director of the Dutch Plant Protection Service: "Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as possible' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' Pressure on pest populations should always be as small as possible. "
Promotion and acceptance
Carson and others involved with Silent Spring publications are expecting fierce criticism and worry about being prosecuted for defamation. Carson is undergoing radiation therapy for his cancer and is expected to have less energy to keep his job and respond to criticism. In preparation for the anticipated attack, Carson and his agent sought to gather prominent supporters before the book's release.
Most of the scientific chapters of this book are reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among which Carson has strong support. Carson attended the May 1962 Conference of the White House on Conservation; Houghton Mifflin distributed copies of proof of Silent Spring to many delegates and promoted the upcoming serialization at The New Yorker . Carson also sent a copy of the evidence to Supreme Court Judge William O. Douglas, an old environmental advocate who has opposed the court's refusal of the Long Island pesticide spraying case and has provided Carson with some material included in the chapter on herbicides.
Although Silent Spring has resulted in a fairly high level of interest based on pre-publishing promotions, it became more intense with serialization, which began on June 16, 1962, a problem. This brings this book to the attention of the chemical industry and its hobbyists, as well as to the American public. Around that time, Carson learned that Silent Spring had been chosen as a Book-of-the-Moon for October; he said it would "take him to farms and villages across the country who do not know what the bookstore looks like - let alone The New Yorker." Other publicity includes a positive editorial on The New York Times and excerpts from the serial version published at Audubon Magazine. There is one more publicity in July and August when chemical companies respond. The story about the causative drug of thalidomide birth was damaged just before the publication of the book, inviting a comparison between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, a Food and Drug Administration reviewer who has blocked the sale of the drug in the United States.
In the weeks before the publication of 27 September 1962, there was strong opposition to Silent Spring from the chemical industry. DuPont, a major producer of DDT and 2,4-D, and Velsicol Chemical Company, the only manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor, were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on press book coverage and estimated its impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin, and The New Yorker and Audubon Magazine except the Silent Spring feature planned to be canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists file non-specific complaints, some of them anonymously. Chemical companies and related organizations produce brochures and articles that promote and defend the use of pesticides. However, Carson's lawyers and publishers are confident in the Silent Spring inspection process. The publication of magazines and books proceeded as planned, as did the printing of a great Book of the Moon, which included a pamphlet by William O. Douglas supporting this book.
American biologist Cyanamid Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, notably Carson's analysis of DDT. According to White-Stevens, "If people follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we will return to the Dark Ages, and insects and diseases and pests will once again inherit the earth." Others attacked Carson's personal character and credibility, his training being in marine biology rather than biochemistry. White-Stevens called it "a fanatic advocate of the cult of natural balance", while former US Agriculture Minister Ezra Taft Benson in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly said that since he was unmarried although physically attractive, he was "probably a Communist".
Many critics have repeatedly said that Carson calls for the abolition of all pesticides, but he has insisted that he does not advocate this but instead encourages responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemical impact on the ecosystem. He concluded his section on DDT in Silent Spring with suggestions to spray as little as possible to limit the development of resistance. Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson "consciously decided to write a book that questions the paradigm of scientific progress that defines postwar American culture".
The academic community - including prominent advocates like H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam and Frank Egler - mostly supports scientific claims and public opinion books that support Carson's texts. The chemical industry campaign is counterproductive because controversy raises public awareness of potential pesticide dangers. The use of pesticides became a major public issue after TV special CBS Reports, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, which aired on April 3, 1963. The program included Carson's reading segment of Silent Spring > and interviews with other experts, mostly critics including White-Stevens. According to biographer Linda Lear, "in alignment with the wild-eyed Dr. Robert White-Stevens and a loud voice in a white lab coat, Carson reveals nothing but a hysterical alarmist criticized by his critics." Reactions from the audience estimates of ten to fifteen million were very positive and the program spurred congressional reviews on the dangers of pesticides and the public release of pesticide reports by the Science Advisory Committee of the President. Within a year of publication, the attacks on the book and Carson lost momentum.
In one of his last public appearances, Carson testified before the Science Advisory Committee of John F. Kennedy, who issued his report on May 15, 1963, largely in favor of Carson's scientific claims. After the release of the report, Carson also testified before the US Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Although Carson received hundreds of other invitations to speak, he was unable to accept most of them as his health continued to decline, with a short period of remission. He talked as much as he could, and appeared on The Today Show and gave a speech at several dinners held in his honor. In late 1963, he received numerous awards and awards: the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, the Cullum Geographical Medal of the American Geographical Society, and the induction to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Countries and other languages ​​
This book has been translated into German (with the title: Der stumme FrÃÆ'¼hling ), with the first German edition appeared in 1963, followed by a number of subsequent editions.
It was translated into French (like Le printemps silencieux ), with the first French edition also appearing in 1963.
In 1965 Silent Spring was published in USSR in Russian (with the title ??????????? ???? ).
The title of the Italian book is Primavera silenziosa .; and the Spanish title is Primavera silenciosa .
It was translated into Swedish and published in 1963, titled Tyst vÃÆ'  ¥ r .
Impact
Roots of the grassroots environment and EPA
Carson's work has a strong impact on the environmental movement. Silent Spring became a gathering point for a new social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and scholar Carson H. Patricia Hynes, " Silent Spring changed the balance of power in the world.No one can afford to sell pollution as an important part of progress easily or uncritically." Carson and partially inspired activism are responsible for the deep ecological movement and the strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It also affects the emergence of ecofeminism and in many feminist scientists. Carson's direct legacy in the environmental movement is a campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States, and related efforts to ban or restrict its use worldwide. The establishment of the 1967 Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought a lawsuit against the government to "establish citizens' rights over a clean environment", and the arguments against DDT largely reflect Carson's. In 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups have successfully secured the abolition of DDT use in the United States, except in cases of emergency.
The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Nixon Administration in 1970 was aimed at another concern Carson wrote. Until then, the USDA is responsible for organizing pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agricultural industry; Carson sees this as a conflict of interest, since the agency is not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental issues beyond agricultural policy. Fifteen years after its creation, a journalist described the EPA as a "long shadow of Silent Spring ". Much of the agency's initial work, such as the enforcement of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticidal Act in 1972, is directly related to Carson's work. Contrary to the position of the pesticide industry, the removal of DDT taken by the EPA (led by William Ruckelshaus) implies that there is no way to adequately regulate the use of DDT. Ruckelshaus's conclusion is that DDT can not be used safely. Professor of History Gary Kroll writes, "Rachel Carson
In a 2013 interview, Ruckelshaus briefly recounted his decision to ban DDT except for emergency use, noting that Carson's book featured DDT and for that reason the issue attracted considerable public attention.
Former Vice President of the United States and environmental activist Al Gore wrote an introduction to the 1992 edition of Silent Spring . He wrote: "Silent Spring has a big impact... Ã, Indeed, Rachel Carson is one of the reasons why I become so environmentally conscious and so involved with environmental problems... Ã, [he has an influence as much or more to me than anyone, and maybe from them all together. "
Critics of environmentalism and DDT restrictions
Carson and the environmental movement - and continues to be criticized by some who argue that restrictions on pesticide use - especially DDT - have caused tens of millions of unnecessary deaths and impeded agriculture, and Carson is implicitly responsible. to instigate such restrictions. These arguments have been rejected as "outrageous" by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, entomologist at the University of Illinois, said, "to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible." Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this idea as a "myth" promoted primarily by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM) advocacy group.
In the 2000s, criticism of the DDT ban that his work encouraged intensified. In 2009, the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute created a website that says, "Millions of people around the world suffer from a painful and often fatal malaria effect because one person sounds a false alarm, that person is Rachel Carson." A 2012 review article in Nature by Rob Dunn commemorates the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring encouraging responses in a letter written by Anthony Trewavas and signed by 10 others, including Christopher Leaver, Bruce Ames, Richard Tren and Peter Lachmann, who cites an estimate of 60 to 80 million deaths "as a result of misguided fears based on less understood evidence".
Biographer Hamilton Lytle believes these estimates are unrealistic, even if Carson can be "blamed" for DDT policies worldwide. John Quiggin and Tim Lambert write, "the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is its undeniable ease". DDT was never prohibited for the use of anti-malaria, and its prohibition for agricultural use in the United States in 1972 did not apply outside the US or anti-malarial spraying. International treaties that prohibit most use of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides - the Stockholm Convention 2001 on Persistent Organic Pollutants (which became effective in 2004) - including exceptions for the use of DDT for malaria control until an affordable substitute can be found. Mass spraying outside DDT was abandoned in poor countries affected by malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s; this is not because of the government ban but because DDT has lost its ability to kill mosquitoes. Due to the very short breeding cycle of insects and the very large number of children, the most surviving insects and pass on their genetic traits to their offspring, which replaced the relatively fast-pesticide-killed insects. Agricultural pesticide spraying produces pesticide resistance in seven to ten years.
Some experts say that the restrictions placed on the use of DDT agriculture have increased their effectiveness for malaria control. According to pro-DDT advocate Amir Attaran, the result of the Stockholm Convention (activated in 2004) prohibiting the use of DDT in agriculture "is arguably better than the status quo... Ã, For the first time, now there is a restricted insecticide for control vector only, which means that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before. "
While Carson provides accurate reports of scientific consensus at the time he wrote the book, much has changed in half a century. For example, the linkage between agricultural chemicals and diseases, especially cancer, remains "very grim." Charles C. Mann argues in 2018:
- Carson complicates matters by combining excessive confidence with other common ecological errors, the belief that natural systems tend to evolve into a balanced state, the community of interconnected species that survives in eternal equilibrium unless disturbed by humans.... In this view, the ecosystem has a place and function for every creature and every species in it, and all work together as a kind of "superorganism." When people annihilate species, they, in effect, destroy the vital organs of this superorganism. They are without disrupting the balance of nature, which can degrade entire ecosystems - spiritual and ecological disasters. Unfortunately, nature is not, in fact, balanced. Instead, ecosystems are a collection of temporary and chaotic species, with their relationship and environment in constant change.
Legacy
Silent Spring has been featured on many of the 20th century's best nonfiction book lists. This is fifth in the List of the 20th Century Nonfiction Modern Library and number 78 in the National Review's 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century. In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by Discover Magazine editor. In 2012, the American Chemical Society established a legacy of Silent Spring, the National Historic Chemical Landmark at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
In 1996, a follow-up book, Beyond Silent Spring , co-authored by H.F. van Emden and David Peakall, published.
In 2011, American composer Steven Stucky wrote a symphony poem bearing the episode of Silent Spring to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication. The cut was awarded his world premiere in Pittsburgh on February 17, 2012, with conductor Manfred Honeck leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Naturalist Sir David Attenborough Experts have stated that Silent Spring is probably the book that has changed the world of science at most, after Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
See also
References
Source
External links
- The New York Times July 22, 1962 chemical industry campaign report against 16, 23, June 30, 1962 series at The New Yorker
- New York Times book review 23 September 1962
- Graham, Frank Jr.; Since Silent Spring : denial of attacks by chemical agribusiness companies; Audubon Magazine
- Doyle, Jack "Pen Power": Silent Spring : 1962 (Publishing, Politics, Ecology) pophistorydig.com
- Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): The story of Silent Spring - NRDC
- First edition photo of Silent Spring
- Silent Spring , a Visual History curated by the Michigan State University Museum
- Rachel Carson Silent Spring Turns 50 - Elizabeth Grossman - Atlantic
- Griswold, Eliza; How to Silent Spring Turn on The New York Times Environment Movement September 21, 2012
- Board of Rachel Carson
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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