Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964)

Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, published in 1962 is considered a classic; one of the most important environmental books of the twentieth century, challenging western society’s blind faith in science and pesticides.  It was written at a time when: ‘science and technology and those who worked in these fields were revered as the saviours of the free world and the trustees of prosperity’, records her biographer, Linda Lear. ‘In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson exposes these experts to public scrutiny and makes it clear that at best they had not done their homework and at worst they had withheld the truth.’

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and nature writer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, she served as an aquatic biologist at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and later became editor‐in-chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service. She wrote a very popular trilogy of books about marine life (Under the Sea Wind,  The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea), making her world famous and allowing her to devote her time to writing, before being inspired to research and write on the effects of pesticides on ecosystems.

The resulting book Silent Spring warned of the consequences that DDT and other insecticides were having on bird and other animal  populations and that their indiscriminate overuse was counter-productive;  creating insect resistance to the chemicals which would then render them useless whilst destroying other ecosystems:

The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.

She also pointed out that people were also part of the ecosystem and that:  

For the first time in history, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death...We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

The publication of the book led to increased public awareness but also to considerable personal attack from the scientific establishment. It did however eventually lead to the creation in the US of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and the banning of DDT in 1972 (although the UK did not follow until as late as 1984).

However her main arguments have still not been assimilated by either governments or nations: ‘I think she would have been horrified about the state of the planet today’, comments Jonathon Porritt (former director of Friends of the Earth and Sustainability champion): ‘Silent Spring outlined a clear and important message: that everything in nature is related to everything else. Yet we have not taken that idea on board or fully appreciated its significance. In that sense, we have let her down.’