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Years Later: Reflections on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring by Rachel Kossover During any given year, in any given town in any given country, a woman glances at the thermometer hanging outside her kitchen window. The sun is shining and the temperature outside is a balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The woman tells her young son, "Put on a coat! I'll take you down to the pond and we can look for birds' nests." The two walk down the street to the town pond. The lawns are brilliantly green and free from crabgrass, but the elm trees are not sporting any new growth. Insects buzz all around, but there are no rabbits chasing mice across the lawns. At the pond, the woman sits on the grass while her son explores the surrounding brush under her watchful eye. It is a beautiful day, but something is missing from the idyllic scene. After a lengthy exploration, her son comes back to her, dejected. "Mommy," he asks, "I can't find any nests." And suddenly, the woman realizes what was missing. There are no songbirds singing this year. Not one.  |
 Similar
scenes have played out in many habitats across the United States and
the world over the past few decades. Songbirds have disappeared from
local ponds, massive fish kills have occurred in major rivers, and
fire ants have resurged after human attempts to eradicate them. All
of these events are related. Their causes are complex, but can be
traced back to one main theme: humans have tried to make nature submit
to their will. Rachel Carson brought this theme to the public's attention
in 1962 with the publication of Silent Spring. In the novel,
she details scientific evidence supporting the basic ecological idea
that all living organisms have an effect on their environment and
on each other. Carson's book focuses on the effects of chemicals on
Earth's natural habitats. Watershed systems, soils, and plant, animal
and insect life have all been affected by the emergence of chemical
pest control, which has utilized problematic chemicals such as arsenic,
dieldrin, and aldrin over the years. Many of these chemicals are chlorinated
hydrocarbons, which are extremely toxic. In Silent Spring,
Carson details the devastating effects of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane
(DDT), one of the most widely used hydrocarbons. |
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