Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rachel CarsonBrand: Baker and Taylor
Introduction: Linda Lear
Afterword: Edward O. Wilson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10-22
ISBN: 0618249060
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780618249060
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Silent Spring
Book Review: Still VERY relevant
Summary: 5 Stars
Holy cow. What a well-written book. I can totally understand how Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) jump-started the modern environmental movement.
The 300 page book starts and ends with hopeful fables of a healthy environment full of vibrant flora and fauna. The middle 15 chapters document, in painful detail, the damage that synthetic chemicals inflict on life. The book is famous for exposing the dangers of DDT (and aldrin and heptachlor), but I was shocked and angered by the bigger problem: All knowing bureaucrats over-applying chemicals in places that do not need them, to fight bugs that may not be present, without a clue of the collateral damage that they are causing.
Yes, we're talking about the USDA (and various government "landscaping" bureaucracies).
I took a few notes while reading the book:
* Carson started speaking out about DDT in 1945. It was banned in the US in response to her book.
* She too respected, intelligent and careful to ignore. She died in 1964, of cancer.*
* DDT went everywhere, even hundreds of kilometers from where it was sprayed.
* She wrote, consistently, about the need to be careful about using chemicals and pesticides. She did not advocate bans on chemicals, per se.**
* Monsanto appears as the face of evil -- as they have recently, twice, thrice.
* Western Sagebrush was labeled a "weed" and sprayed with herbicides, with massive bad results.
* Same thing in Maine and Michigan, where they devastated thousands of acres of ALL life, by overspraying for insect populations that were NOT out of control. Spraying frequently led to massive rebounds and much more damage, often by killing predator and competator species.
* California rice growers sprayed their fields. Local insects, fish and migratory birds died.
* Fisheries (salmon, trout, bass, etc.) were destroyed (by direct damage and starvation for lack of insect food), but people were also harmed by eating fish that had bioaccumulated DDT and related chemicals.
* The USDA's campaign against the fire ant is a case-study in the chemical abuse, money waste, and massive environmental destruction [p. 171]:
In 1959... the Agriculture Department offered the chemicals free to Texas landowners who would sign a release absolving federal, state and local governments of responsibility for damage. In the same year, the State of Alabama, alarmed and angry at the damage done by the chemicals, refused to appropriate further funds to the project. One of its officials characterized the whole program as "ill advised, hastily conceived, poorly planned, and a glaring example of riding roughshod over the responsibilities of other public and private agencies."
[USDA incompetence made me want to throw the book across the room at this point. I feel the same about corn ethanol. I bet politicians were involved...]
* Many entomologists (bug scientists) worked for chemical companies, either on staff or at universities, because these companies funded their research. Not surprisingly, these "professionals" supported chemical control of insects.
A big thought: Most farmers will tell you that they minimize the volume of chemicals (and fertilizer) that they apply to their land, because they do not want to waste money and time on over-application. It's thus important (and sad) to note that the biggest abusers of chemicals in Silent Spring are bureaucrats whose jobs dictate that they should "do something" with other people's money (OPM!) and homeowners who do not understand the dangers of the chemicals they use and who think that "some is good, so more is better" when applying them to their yards. Both groups are convinced to buy and use by salesmen and advertising;*** both groups have little idea of how effective chemicals are (they do not watch yields); and both groups do not suffer the consequences from over-use of chemicals. Bureaucrats apply them to other people's land; homeowners just wash excess into storm drains and distant environments. Farmers may be willing to chemically sterilize their land, but at least they experience most of the costs and benefits of those actions.
She concludes with [p. 297]:
The "control of nature" is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from the Stone age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
Bottom Line: FIVE STARS. Be careful with poisons; they can kill you and everything that you love.
* Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made, as in the Egyptians -- old Egyptians -- didn't have it. Mukherjee claims that it's been with us for a long time, but his book summarizes ancient references to "tumors" that may not be cancerous.
** Protecting rainforests and draining hatching sites is more effective controlling mosquitoes (malaria) than DDT.
*** My favorite is pine-scented bug killer. I guess you can spray it on your kids too!
Summary of Silent Spring
Rachel Carson?s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson?s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.
In 2012 we invite you to join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of this great work.
In 2012 we invite you to join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of this great work.
Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous than radiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed to chemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death. Presented with thorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about the dangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work.
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