Limiting The Use Of Pesticides In Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

One way in which we can live with each other and with the world is to endure ourselves on the far reaching effect of chemical pesticides. For instance, in her article “The Obligation to Endure” environmentalist Rachel Carson states

Throughout the mid-20th century, the world established new ideas and innovations. During this time, new farming techniques, including pesticides, were rampantly in use. The government policy at the time claimed these techniques were safe and dependable. However, the claim did not sit well with everyone. Rachel Carson was among the first people to challenge such regulations of the government. Carson’s legacy affected the lives of others through challenging the status quo, saving the environment, and creating a whole new world.

Through discussing possible solutions using a critical and cynical tone, Carson identifies the common mistakes and effects that humanity has been creating. The article starts by explaining how common poisoning as a way to control pesky animals has become. Rachel Carson demonstrates, “In southern Indiana, for example, a group of farmers went together in the summer of 1959 to engage a spray plane to treat an area of river bottomland with parathion. The area was a favored roosting site for thousands of blackbirds that were feeding in nearby cornfields. The problem could have been solved easily by a slight change in agricultural practice,” (12-19.) By presenting an example in which poision seems to be the answer and then presenting an uncomplicated solution which would benefit the ecosystem and the farmers, she is emphasizing how simple it is to destroy the Earth. To add on, when the author utilizes the words “easily” and “slight” she brings the audience’s attention to her critical tone by accenting the transparent fix. As the audience is exposed to how mindless their actions were with the the parathion, they understands the author’s discontent of the dangerous manipulation of the farmland.

When Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1962, it generated a storm of controversy over the use of chemical pesticides. Miss Carson's intent in writing Silent Spring was to warn the public of the dangers associated with pesticide use. Throughout her book are numerous case studies documenting the harmful effects that chemical pesticides have had on the environment. Along with these facts, she explains how in many instances the pesticides have done more harm than good in eradicating the pests they were designed to destroy. In addition to her reports on pesticide use, Miss Carson points out that many of the long-term effects that

In 17 chapters, many of which can stand alone as essays, Carson develops a deceptively simple premise: the use and overuse of synthetic chemicals to control insect pests introduces these chemicals into the air, water, and soil and into the food chain where they poison animals and humans, and disrupt the many intricate

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, is arguably a seminal text of the environmental movement and continues to impact on critical ecological discourse fifty years on. The late 1950’s were a period of relative economic prosperity in the United States with a parallel baby boom following World War 2. However, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union manifested economic and political rivalries during the same time. It was in this era, that Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring which invoked the public into an ‘environmental consciousness’ (Griswold 2012). Inherent in Carson’s text, that fundamentally sought to inform the wider public about the biological dangers inherent in pesticides, was her ability to utilise a variety of literary

Pesticides have a very negative stigma in today 's culture. Monsanto, their GMOs, and countless pollutants have frightened the American (and frankly world) populace. As such, their benefits are accepted only with chagrin; modern agricultural techniques, despite being laden with the echoes of Malthusian pessimism, have allowed society to profit and proffer further progress. Narrowing in, however, the most celebrated villain is positively infamous in name alone: DDT. It would be hard to deny DDT is anything but an artificial product of a highly-developed society. As such, to study its implications is to meditate essentially upon the whole of like-minded technologies. DDT is genocidal in purpose. It is designed to kill insects. And yet, it preserves human life in ways that will be later demonstrated. Other pesticides continue to be used to keep crops alive and ensure food is not only present but plentiful. If shown effective are pesticides the solution to an ongoing problem? How much value does a human life have to morality, and how is it calculated in terms of developing an ethic? Is the indefinite preservation of human life in itself moral? How does non-human life figure into the ethical calculus? Is this moral? Put forward is this claim: if human life and the preservation thereof is to be valued by an ethical system, then DDT (and pesticides in general) are to be regarded as a moral good in spite of their faults because of the benefits they garner the human species.

As many public issues began to arise over the use of pesticides, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring. Ira Baldwin reviewed the book revealing that it is one sided and only tells the negative side of using pesticides. She did significant research on the issues that go along with the use of pesticides but left out the entirety of the benefits and contributions of their use. It does nothing to indicate all of the positive ways that pesticides benefit the lives of humans daily. In his article, Ira says, “I can understand that the author felt it necessary to

This statement is very helpful and understanding so that the public can manage to trust the author. Another example, Carson provides several words such as devils, dangerous, kills, deprivation, invasion, and disease these are part of the pesticides and chemicals. The audience can use their logic to associate these strong words. Perhaps, the audience can connect and understand the reason for Carson’s perspective among the harmful pesticides on earth. Carson stated, “To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment” (Carson 644). She clearly establishes her own belief perhaps to her opinion that the earth is in danger. More importantly, in terms of ethos appeals,

In chapter four of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson describes the damage pesticides can do to the water supply. Carson describes what happens when pesticides enter the water supply. Also, Carson shows us the drinking water at Pennsylvania was contaminated with insecticides. Carson shows that the contaminated water can kill a fish in only four hours. In Silent Spring, Carson says,“For example, a sample of drinking water from an orchard area Pennsylvania, when tested on fish in a laboratory, contained enough insecticide to kill all of the test fish in only four hours”(41). In this quote, Carson shows that the water supply at Pennsylvania was very contaminated with insecticides. A number of insecticides in that water were enough to kill the animals in the lake in only four hours because it was very concentrated. Carson shows us that the water Pennsylvanian was contaminated with insecticides. Also, Carson shows that the insecticides were very concentrated in the fatty tissues of the animals. The water is not safe for the animals and the human beings that drink it. Pesticide should be limited because it poisons our water

In the book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson warns people about the use of insecticide. When people use pesticide to kill insects it leads to problems because it would transfer from people to animals. Carson shows us when the earth is contaminated with pollution, it is going to take generation after generation to fix. When the chemicals were discovered to make pesticides it was founded by an accident. People started to use pesticides to kill insects, but the pesticide started to make people and animals to get sick or die. The pesticide would enter the body animals or people and it would transfer to the offspring of the animals or human beings. According to Carson pesticide would go to the water supply where people drink from and get sick or die. Carson suggests that we should not stop using pesticide, but to limit our usage of pesticide. I agree with Carson that we should limit the use of pesticides. People around the world she cut back on the usage of pesticides because it hurts the health of human beings, animals, and water supply.

Silent spring by Rachel Carson is the story about pesticide use and its consequences, which prompts human attitudes towards pollution and gives such a vivid critiques to some modern industrial behaviors. The book is a cause of panel setup for saving ecology of President Kennedy. Carson begins her first chapter “A Fable of tomorrow,” with a visualized description of a heartbreaking outcome in a small town in America when it comes to the massive use of pesticides. She introduces many kinds of insecticides such as DDT, arsenic, heptachloride, chlordane, hexachloride and so forth. The synthetic pesticides tragically spread and unknowingly resided in the body of fish, birds, reptiles, and domesticated and wild animals, and thus also in the body

To a certain degree, Carson’s writing is charitable to those it criticizes. Carson explains the pesticides notably DDT and a group of related insecticides that came into wide use after WWII. I think she has some charity but lacks much of it. She acknowledges the various reasons the insecticides are used because she says they are used to effectively controlling insects that damaged food crops, transmit diseases, and were just large pests to human society. She sort of emphasizes that she did not write the book to discredit the chemical pesticide industry but to inform people about the unintended consequences that came with the use of pesticides. She explains the situation, giving the opposing view (the reason the pesticides are used), but she

Rachel Carson was recruited by the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Audubon Society to help publicize the use of synthetic pesticides, during this time she began writing and environmental science book called, Silent Spring. The book exposed the detrimental effects that the use of pesticides had on the environment, and birds in particular; Houghton Mifflin published it on September 27, 1962. While it caused uproar within the chemical companies, it also opened the eyes and minds of the American public, influencing the movement on environmental conservation and protection.

But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” (Cason, P. 276) In the end no one benefits from harsh chemicals being sprayed. The environment suffers, people suffer, and wildlife suffers. If manufacturing companies were honest about what their product does, people would be hesitant to use these products, and they surely would not use them in such close contact. Other more effective ways are out there to rid an area of unwanted species, but currently people are unwilling to adopt those practices. I agree with Rachel Carson’s point of view of the dangers of biocides. I think they do need to be monitored on larger scale. These chemicals may not be killing people in staggering numbers, but there has been a few cases. Also many bird flocks have died off, and this change is extremely noticeable in the communities and seem to have happened over night. The same chemicals endangering the ecosystem are in human the human blood stream. The question is not if it will have negative effects on the human population; it is when and to what extent. Chemical producers as well as consumers need to take a closer look at what they are spraying in their own back yard. Everyone has an out of sight out of mind attitude, but once the affects come into sight it may be too late