The Effective Use Of Insecticides In Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

The gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) is a highly disruptive species that can, and has played a distinctive role in the lives of many organisms. Included in these organisms are various deciduous trees and shrubs, wildlife species that share the same environment, and even humans. The gypsy moth destroys the beauty of woodlands via defoliation, alters ecosystems and wildlife habitats, and disrupts our own lives. It should therefore come as no surprise that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many other agencies have taken huge steps to help diminish populations of this small, yet persistent species. In an effort to control these overwhelming populations, five chemical control agents have

The following involves the second chapter of Carson’s book, Silent Spring that was written in 1962. In this chapter Carson argues persuasively the adverse impacts of pesticides upon the environment and the risks on human health and the environment associated with these “genetic invaders” (Carson, 1962). Many of the extremely diverse people from Carson’s audience targeted were under the impression that chemicals like DDT, at that time in history, were safe for their health. Carson reconciles and attempts to persuade the public to consider the idea that DDT, which in the 1950s and 60s was one of the many chemical pesticides being manufactured and sold to

Carson speaks about the diminishment of us as a human being. With the amount of harmful pesticides we use without fully understanding its consequences, we are slowly killing our human race. When pesticides are sprayed on crops and insects, they end up getting into our bodies. Adopting the easy way of getting rid of insects is harming us in the long run.

The banning of insecticide, a major pollutant and neurotoxin, has been up for debate for a significant period of time. However,

There is no one correct way to raise children. Many different methods have been experimented with, producing varying results. In fiction, these ideas of parenthood can be further explored due to no real children being involved in the process, allowing for more questionable practices to be utilized. Shakespeare enjoys writing about various parent-child relationship in his play, with Hamlet being no different. One of the major parent figures in Hamlet is Polonius, the chief advisor to the king, Claudius. Polonius is a father that is paranoid and overprotective of his children, Laertes and Ophelia, not allowing them to have many liberties. He asserts his authority over his children’s every action, making him a good father in regards to ensuring his children’s safety but a bad father in terms of being too controlling and stripping them of any independence.

Everyday people all over the world try to improve the qualities of their lives. Nonetheless, they forget that what they do can have severe harms and damages on the environment and other organisms. In the excerpt “A Fable for Tomorrow” from the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson describes the disastrous and horrific effects of pesticides on the environment and animals of the town. In the essay “Our Animal Rites” by Anna Quindlen, she shows the inhumanity of animal hunting by human. Furthermore, she argues how human migration is destroying the natural habitats that belong to the animals. In the excerpt “Reading the River” from the autobiographical book Life on Mississippi, Mark Twain describes how he loses the ability to perceive the

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.

When DDT became available for civilian use in 1945, there were only a few people who expressed second thoughts about this new miracle compound. One was nature writer Edwin Way Teale, who warned, "A spray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy. Ninety percent of all insects are good, and if they are killed, things go out of kilter right away." Another was Rachel Carson, who wrote to the Reader's Digest to propose an article about a series of tests on DDT being conducted not far from where she lived in Maryland. The magazine rejected the idea.

After discovering this book through my AP Environmental Science class and my AP United States History class, I chose to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I have a strong passion for science. With that being said, I also have a yearning to develop a connection to the outside world. It seems that in today’s society, many individuals are ignorant to how the world functions and how living and nonliving organisms interact. However, it is not entirely these individuals’ fault. In fact, many people are not aware of how we, as a species, are able coexist in a world of many different beings—both abiotic and biotic. Therefore, in order to combat the status quo of subjective norms, I have read Silent Spring.

In the movie, Pesticides: Harmful or Necessary, the author of the film tried to prove his point that there were good things and bad things about spraying pesticides. The film showed both Rachel Carson’s view that pesticides are harmful and Dr. Robert White-Stevens’s view that pesticides are necessary. The pesticides helped to protect their crops from bugs, but then it caused cancer among the humans. The pesticides killed all bugs, which then damaged the natural food chain. This is a difficult situation, without the pesticides, our food supply will get eaten by bugs.

In her novel Silent Spring, conservationist Rachel Carson writes, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” This demonstrates Carson’s ability to express the beauty and incredulity of nature. As a scientist, she knew that nature has the strength to restore itself. In Silent Spring, she wants readers to consider the serious dangers that pesticides could have on the environment. The use of these artificial chemicals to control insect populations release harmful substances into the air, water, and soil, and have the potential to poison animals. Carson describes chemicals as the “sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation” (Carson 15). Carson later explains how poisons

As humans, we have always been trying to gain control over nature, chemicals being one of the ways we have attempted this. Carson also explains that most of the problems we try to control with chemicals is caused by our own doing, an example being living in unsanitary conditions or accidentally bringing over new insects when we are shipping things from place to place. Then as we all know, when this book was written the solve-all solution to this problem was to spray DDT all over everything. People believed that this stuff was going to make their lives better and insect free. She even gives an example of

DDT, one of the first insecticides, showed resistance to a species of insects starting as early as 1946, and this resistance has continued to progress and become documented showing that insects can become resistant to any insecticide. (“Insecticide Resistance,” 1958). Insecticide resistance has been shown in four major ways: behavioral resistance, penetration resistance, knock-down resistance (kdr), and metabolic resistance (Bartels et al., 2001). All of these types of resistance are allowing insects to avoid the effects of the insecticide either by physically avoiding through their behavior, or in the case of knock-down resistance, a phenotype trait is inherited giving the insect nerve insensitivity of the major insecticides – DDT, pyrethrins, and pyrethroids – through a point mutation (Gellatly et al.,

Edgar Allan Poe is a famous American writer from the 1800s who is renowned for his gothic writings, which were often dark and mysterious stories. The unique and distinctive themes utilized within his works included untimely death, madness, and obsession. Through the usage of “The Masque of the Red Death”, “The Raven”, and “Fall of the House of Usher”, Edgar Allan Poe uses the themes of untimely death, madness and obsession to convey a sense of darkness in his gothic writings for his audience,

1. Why is Seagate undertaking this transaction? Is this necessary to divest the Veritas shares in separate transaction?