In the 50 years since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published, it has generated its fair share of opposition and controversy, inspired generations of environmentalists, and brought issues into the foreground that industries had tried hard to keep under wraps.
Spurred by a letter her friend had written to The Boston Herald in January 1958describing the death of numerous birds from the aerial spraying of DDT, Carson published Silent Spring in September 1962 to speak out on the negative effects of pesticides on the biosphere.
Due to the uncontrolled usage of pesticides, she envisioned a spring season where bird songs could not be heard because the creatures had all become extinct. It is that vision that led to Carson to title her book as she did.
It is also what inspired her opening essay; a myth entitled “A Fable for Tomorrow.”
It describes a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with the surroundings, coexisting with nature. The actions of the people themselves, however, “silenced the rebirth of new life.” There were now many unexplained deaths among children and adults, the birds had disappeared, no bees hovered over the trees for pollination to happen, and all the fish were dead.
Though Carson commented that these disasters had not happened all at once in a particular town, it was a grim warning of what could befall people if they were not diligent.
Basing the book on research conducted over four years and using examples that helped to illustrate the interrelationship of living organisms, it detailed how the pesticides entered the food chain to accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals and in water supplies from run-offs. Humans would then consume these animals and water, causing the chemical compound to enter their bodies and accumulate until they reached a certain threshold, striking children and adults with illnesses such as diabetes, damages to the reproductive system, slowing development, and cancers of the breast, liver, and pancreas.
Being outspoken on the negative impacts of pesticides was unheard of at the time of Silent Spring’s publication.
Synthesized in 1874, DDT was first used to kill insects in 1939 by Paul Hermann Muller, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1948. Its usage was far more influential during World War II, where it proved to be an effective method of controlling lice in soldiers and clearing out areas infested with malaria-carrying insects. When it became commercially available in 1945, very few had reason to believe the chemical could have impacts that would mask such triumphs.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the book was met with fervent uproar. Regardless of all of Carson’s preparation, the aggressiveness was far more than anyone had anticipated.
The book was called Soviet agricultural propaganda with its facts coming under intense scrutiny; the teachings were summarized as advising people to return to the Dark Ages, and the author was called hysterical, emotional, and a spinster- amongst many others sexist comments. In addition, many chemical and agricultural companies threatened Carson with lawsuits.
Yet, all of that could not deter Rachel Carson.
Silent Spring led US President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, to direct his Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson’s claims, which verified her work and led to the strengthening of chemical pesticide regulations.
The successes based on the book continued when the United States banned the domestic sale of DDT in 1972, the same year the United Nations Environment Programme was established. American companies, however, would continue to export the compound until the mid 1980s. That was in addition to the initiation of the Clean Air and Water Acts, the introduction of Earth Day, and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 under President Richard Nixon.
While she did not singlehandedly start the environmental movement, her book was a step in that direction.
Her advocacy for grass-roots movement began when she involved concerned housewives, her target audience in the book, in reporting incidents of poisoned creatures they found dead outside their back door.
People were willing to help because Carson had previously established herself as a successful writer. When the attacks started, the public was on her side, as they saw the industry attacking a sincere woman. She presented viable alternatives to controlling insects and used the opinions of many doctors in order to further her point.
These same people then began to organize into groups, voicing their concern to the government about pesticide spraying. The establishment of the EPA and other agencies furthered their cause, and interest grew leading to the foundation of what is now known as the environmental movement.
Despite the high regard till this day, controversy continues to outlive Carson, who passed away in 1964 from breast cancer. Scientists and industries alike have continued to dispute over the actual harm that DDT can cause, comparing that to the benefits.
In recent years, many groups have laid the case against Carson, stating that her book taught people the wrong lessons, therefore stigmatizing DDT and indirectly causing millions of deaths as it could not have been used to combat malaria.
Though she never truly called for an outright ban on the usage of chemicals, focusing instead on limiting haphazard, unaccounted application, it did not prevent the book from being considered by the Human Events newspaper as one of the most harmful publications of the 19th and 20th centuries, along with Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto.
It also did not stop one non-governmental organization from setting up a website called Rachelwaswrong.org directly attributing the deaths from malaria to the content of the book and the “false alarm” that it sounded through her “inaccurate stories and unclear statistics.”
In response to these claims, many of the author’s supporters have stated that DDT would not have been as effective in Africa as thought, especially in the scattered and remote villages, noting that the mosquitoes had already developed resistance.
This does not quell the book’s opponents, who have taken to online forums to express their views, arguing with those who are celebrating the book’s 50th anniversary. This is a sign that even five decades later, the subject matter continues to generate as much attention as it did in 1962.
That in its own right is a testament to the legacy that Silent Spring has left: the ability to generate public awareness about nature’s vulnerability and call upon concerned citizens to protect their own health. It will continue to be the first point of reference for anyone interested in furthering their environmental interests.
While the science will continue to be heavily contested and blame will be always issued, the role of Rachel Carson as an agent of environmental change and an inspiration to many, through her eloquent writing, cannot be as easily disputed.