Chemical Insecticides Or Utilitarianism

However, agriculture is the central issue. While pesticides are being used to keep crops alive, a benefit to farmers, the natural ecosystem is not exactly experiencing the same effect; the ecosystem is being destroyed. An effective way agriculturists can improve on decreasing the amount of pesticides is to use continuous production, where it is reusing the fields, without wasting and hurting them.

Carson’s primary argument is that the ecosystem is unable to adjust and rebalance itself due to the rapidity of the introduction of chemicals into the environment. She points to the common knowledge that it took hundreds of millions of years for life to evolve to its current state. She goes on to explain how, given time (eons), the environment adjusted to natural dangers such as radiation emitted from certain rocks and short-wave radiation from the sun, but that it is impossible for the earth to adjust and rebalance in the face of man-made threats in the relative miniscule timeframe of decades. Her appeal is both logical and emotional. Logically, chemicals sprayed on croplands, forests or gardens will kill not just “pests” but other living organisms, and that some amount of these chemicals will end up in ground water, causing problems for anyone or anything that depends on this water. Emotionally if the possibility of permanent gene damage, which cause deformities, cancers, and early death, is not enough to encourage a second look at this issue then there is no hope for the planet’s future.

”On those visits, I feel not only the spirit of the local people…and the seasonal change.”(345).Nowadays seasonal variation in industrial societies is minimized by importing many products that mature in specific seasons from different parts of the world. Technologies however, are impacting on our lives. “DDT would exert incredible selective pressure for mutations that would confer resistance” (347), it killed malaria-carrying mosquitoes but in few years large numbers of mosquitoes will return. It also has ecological damage the compound is ingested by many organisms, become concentrated up the food chain in a process called biomagnification. It causes heavy bird mortality.

Agriculture is the most fundamental resource of society. Without it, humans could not live, especially in the ways we do now where people reside in cities. This means that those cities could not exist without large scale agriculture to sustain them. Since agriculture is such a necessity, people have developed methods to gain more from their land. One of the many solutions besides machinery they have developed to produce higher crop yields is through the use of pesticides. However, those pesticides which have resulted in high crop yields have come at price, and that is human health itself. This seems rather contradictory. Pesticides were designed to help people and society by increased the success of producing high crop yields, and they

In the early 1940’s, a new technology emerged that was able to successfully combat crop-damaging and disease-carrying insects. A new age of synthetic chemical pesticides use arose. After their impressive success in fighting deadly insect-borne diseases during World War II, pesticides were used widely to combat insect pests for agriculture and public health. Few people challenged the benefits of the new scientific and technological products and many embraced pesticide use with enthusiasm. Despite its success, doubts about pesticide use began to appear a decade later in the 1950’s, when the government began a vigorous pesticide campaign across the country against insect pests. Scientists began reporting heavy losses of avian and

This scholarly text book, part of a series called Current Controversies, is composed of primary sources taken from a diversity of informational categories including books, newspapers, periodicals, international government documents, and the publications of organizations. The authors in this series examine some of the issues that typical arise in the debate about pesticides, including whether they are detrimental to human health, animals and the environment, whether they are essential to curtailing international hunger, and what the future of pesticides might be. This book widely mirrors the mosaic of opinions in both parts of the debate regarding the benefits and harmful effects

Aerial spraying, overspray, and drift threaten food crops not modified to withstand the pesticides. Soil is bare and exposed seven months of the year, resulting in tremendous soil erosion. It isn’t our soil to lose. Future generations will pay the price” (McCulloch). Farms that operate on a monocultural based scale have made it easy for specific insects to multiply abundantly. However, at the rate and to the extent that pesticides are being applied, has resulted in and continues to cause overall disturbance to the natural ecosystem. Through the studies of Rachel Carson, as infected insects were being consumed by birds, runoff from crops were leaking into streams and rivers and people were being diagnosed with illnesses. Because DDT is a synthetic chemical compound, many organisms do not have an enzyme to break it down and it becomes stored in fat and liver tissues where it cannot be

In an era where innovations have advanced and have become a greater part in our society, many Americans were negligent to the consequences of them. These innovations were presented to improve the lives of Americans as a whole. A prime example of these enriching innovations is pesticides, more specifically DDT. Although pesticides help crop output, there were numerous dangers that came with the utilization of them and many people were unaware them. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, wrote Silent Spring to critique the use of pesticides.

In the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s main concern is the widespread use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson concentrates on a commonly used pesticide in the 1950s called DDT. She opposes the indiscriminate spraying of DDT because it has profound consequences on the environment, humans and animals. Carson collected information about how the DDT can cause cancer in humans, harm animals such as birds and remained in the environment for long periods of time. Subsequently, the chemicals in the pesticides are extremely harmful so she tries to raise awareness and convince others that there are better alternatives.

Neonicotinoids, specifically, can remain in the soil for years, and will eventually be soaked up by the new plants that grow and come in contact with it. When a honeybee arrives at the blossom to collect pollen, much of the bee’s body is exposed to neonics. This exposure will likely cause the bee to become sick and eventually die. Our textbook defines sustainable agriculture as: “Agricultural methods that maintain soil productivity and a healthy ecological balance while having minimal long-term impacts.” When discussing the benefits and problems of using pesticides to control agricultural pests, we are introduced to the terms, “narrow-spectrum pesticides” and “broad-spectrum pesticides”. Narrow-spectrum pesticides are described as ideal, because they kill only the intended organism, without harming other species. However, the pesticides that are being used the most are broad-spectrum pesticides, which is why our precious bees have become collateral damage (Berg, Linda R.,Visualizing Environmental Science,

America the Beautiful! So why are we destroying it everyday with the use of pesticides? It has been proven that pesticides have affects on it's surrounding, although made to improve earths resources, they typically take there negative effect on the environment in time. Pesticides affect more than the environment; they also affect the animals and humans living in the environment. There are alternative, to this major problem but, we as the caretakers of earth must act fast. In the following paper I'm going to share with you what pesticides are. I'll tell you why they are not safe to use and some of the affects of pesticides. Last, I will talk about some new alternatives there are

A major theme throughout this book is about how the acts of humans were changing the balance of nature. Carson makes it clear that the environment has a way of protecting itself without the aid of man, and when humans intervene they can create problems. For example, when there is an increase of one type of soil organism then it greatly disturbs the balance. Things like aldrin, DDD, and heptathlon will disrupt the normally ecologically balanced relationship between fungi and the roots of higher plants (Carson 38). Another huge disruption in the balance nature created was dealing with the elms and robins. To save the elms humans used DDT in attempt to kill the elm bark beetles who were the vectors for a fungus disease. However, detrimental effects rained down on many of the other organisms around the area. Namely, the robins suffered fatal consequences due the bioaccumulation of DDT (pg 61). The balance once again was disrupted at the hands of humans.

Transportation by fuel-guzzling land, water, and air vehicles is rapidly depleting the fossil fuels, and causing air pollution. The flow from industries, fertilizer run off, and oil spills all hurt delicate ecosystems. Removing trees and other plants to grow places of civilization causes loss and treats the survival of many species of animals and plants. There are many negative impacts along with population explosion. Using chemical fertilizers, insecticides,

Ethics is the study of what is right and wrong in human conduct. Environmental ethics studies the effects of human’s moral relationships on the environment and everything within it (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). The ethical principles that govern those relations determine human duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth’s natural environment and all of the animals and plants that inhabit it (Taylor, 1989). The purpose of this paper is to reveal environmental issues that are threatening the existence of life on Earth, and discus our social obligations to refrain from further damaging our environment, health and life for future generations. I will discus the need for appropriate actions and the ethical

Chemistry is considered from a lot of people as the science of the future. The ability of chemical products to contribute the increase of the standard of living of the society, it seems inexhaustible. A field that grew due to chemistry is pesticides. Pesticides are organic or non-organic substances that comes from natural or artificial origins, that they are applied against natural enemies such as insects, fungi’s, pests, but also any other substance that protects preharvest the crops in the field or the glasshouse or later(post harvest), during the storage period of the agricultural products. Every year, large quantities of crop productions are being destroyed from those factors. Fertilizers are not considered as pesticides.