Rachel Carson was a Marine Biologist and a conservationist who wrote Silent Spring, which helped revolutionize modern environmental conservation. She was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, PA. Her mother had a vast love for nature which was bequeathed down to Carson. She graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women in 1927 with a major in Marine Biology and later got her M.A. from John Hopkins in Zoology on the year of 1932. Initially, she wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources while editing scientific journals, but after World War II and recognizing the effects of synthetic chemicals after the war, she “reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long-term effects of misusing pesticides” (Rachelcarson.org, 5). In 1962, she published Silent Spring and although she was attacked by the pesticide, chemical, and some governmental industries, she promptly inspired a new generation globally to appreciate …show more content…
In the novel, Carson argues the potentially harmful effects of pesticides, including DDT (which was still legal at the time). It turned its attention to man vs. nature, and its contribution to the deep ecology movement. Carson believed that “in an interconnected world...man’s newfound power to change his environment needs to be wielded with extreme caution if we are to avoid destroying the very systems that support us” (litcharts, 2). She also argued that in the long run, insects will be able to build a resistance against the chemicals, and the pesticides will kill natural predators, while the pests will remain and increase in numbers. She concludes her novel with stating different methods that can be used for insect control and other methods that have successfully and safely worked. Although Carson’s novel was written 45 years ago, it still bears the same relevance to environmental conflicts we are facing
Rachel Carson is a noted biologist who studies biology, a branch of science addressing living organisms, yet she has written a book called Silent Spring to speak about the harmful effects of pesticides on nature. Carson doesn’t write about birds’ genetic and physical makeup, the role of them in the animal food chain, or even how to identify their unbelievable bird songs, yet strongly attests the fight for a well developed environment containing birds, humans, and insects is just and necessary. To Carson, the war for a natural environment is instantly essential for holding on to her true love for the study of biology. Thus Carson claims that whether it be a direct hit towards birds or an indirect hit towards humans and wildlife, farmers need to understand the effects and abandon the usage of pesticides in order to save the environment by appealing to officials, farmers, and Americans in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. She positions her defense by using rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questioning to establish logos, juxtaposing ideas, and using connotative and denotative diction.
In her essay Rachel Carson targets anyone who will listen as her audience. She wants to inform human beings of the effects chemicals have on the environment. Rachel Carson’s audience had little knowledge of the effects radiation and pesticides might have on nature or to themselves. She successfully enlightened her audience to the harm man was causing to the environment not only presently, she also wrote of future ramifications. She predicts “Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by methods that contaminated the entire environment…?” (Carson 615). This statement might make her audience scrutinize their actions through the eyes of future generations.
Rachel Carson opens her book Silent Spring with a fable that reads, “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.” Carson goes on to describe this town, a place of beauty, situated in the midst of farmlands. But then, she proclaims, “a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change.” Carson states, “There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example – where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices.” Rachel Carson was born into the noise of the industrial age. She grew up in the town of Springdale, Pennsylvania, where she witnessed the once beautiful land surrounding her home rapidly destroyed, polluted by the engines of industry. Carson attended the Pennsylvania College for Women and later went on to receive a master’s in zoology from Johns Hopkins University. Carson then worked as a marine biologist from 1936 to 1952 for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and later, the Fish and Wildlife Service. However, Carson was not only a research scientist but a renowned writer. She wrote several books, that describe in intricate detail the inner most workings of the sea, including The Edge of the Sea, Under the Sea Wind, and The Sea Around Us, for which Carson was awarded the 1952 National Book Award. Truly,
In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson proves that pesticides do more harm than good. She details how ineffective most pesticides are, how toxic they've become, and how they've managed to radically alter entire ecosystems by killing off animals like robins and eagles. Carson begins by noting that attempts to improve the efficiency of pesticides have merely resulted in their becoming even more toxic. As those toxins move up the food chain, they increase in potency to the point of killing many animals, including eagles. Carson also details how pesticides are bad for humans. The toxins are stored in fat, where they linger around in the system, causing many problems, including diseases like cancer.
The book, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, warns people about the use of insecticides. When people use pesticides to kill insects, it leads to problems because pesticides 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 they were found by accident. People started to use pesticides to kill insects, but the pesticides started to make people sick and to kill them. Pesticides enter the bodies of animals, and then they would transfer the pesticide to their offspring of the animals. Also, pesticides enter the bodies of people and they would transfer the pesticides to their offspring.According to Carson pesticides go into the
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.
She makes a point that unwanted weeds and plants can be killed in less detrimental and environmentally harmful ways; and that pesticides, DDT specifically, has many more cons than pros. In the long run, insects just become stronger and eventually become immune to the chemicals that are being sprayed to weaken them. She gives alternatives to pesticides by introducing natural enemies, diseases, and parasites that will ultimately exterminate the targeted insects and even gives evidence of scenarios where these alternatives have been
Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, environmentalist and writer, forever changed the dynamic of the United States. (Growing up) She wrote many books which brought environmental issues to public concern. She passionately advocated for a change in the government’s policy with the environment. Her work was centered on the growing problem of insecticides and pesticides in the general public, mainly DDT.
Rachel Carson is an American Marine Biologist. Rachel Carson is also a conservationists who writes about advancing the global environment. Rachel Carson wrote the book Silent Spring after getting a concern about conservation. In this is shows that she believed that environmental problems were caused by pesticides and other harmful toxins. This book brought attention toward concerns of the environment to American people.
The NPR news piece about the scientist and writer, Rachel Carson, described some of the attacks Ms. Carson received for having written "Silent Spring". Her book was about the connection of pesticides and their relationship to the health of all living things including human life. Ms. Carson wasn't a biochemist; she in fact had a masters in zoology. Consequently, for describing this connection in her book and her educational background, she was attacked by the chemical and agricultural industry, being accused and defamed as a "hysterical woman who is unqualified as a scientist.”. Moreover, the chemical industry accused Ms. Carson’s work as being the cause of many victims of malaria because thanks to her book, that was read by many including both
Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was the start of the environmental movement. She was the whistleblower on DDT in the 1960s. DDT was a harmful chemical that was being used as a pesticide and to try to cure and prevent Polio. She believed that we needed to better control the chemicals that we were using and she warned about sciences ability to alter nature, which she was able to prevent in some ways (Silent Spring Video).
Rachel Carson created a book named Silent Spring, which is a book mainly focused on how pesticides are dangerous for the environment, used Gathering Data through All Senses to innovate how to create a relationship between humans and nature that allows for development of both, and made an impact on society by starting the argument of how humans' activities impact
Pesticides not only have an effect on pests, but also humans. The effect is not physical like that of insects, but rather mental which ultimately can lead to depression and suicide. So pesticides are not only killing off what we don’t want but also ourselves, so we have to make a decision: slowly kill ourselves with pesticides or find other methods of keeping pests away. “We are slowly killing off our species without even realizing it -- some realize it, but don’t have the power to change our world and what we have caused. Our actions have
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was originally published in September of 1962. I was drawn to this book, because it contained many radical ideas, especially for the time, and it was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. With Silent Spring, Rachel Carson was able to make revolutionary changes in the laws affecting the air, land, and water. Many reviews consider it to be “one of the landmark books of the twentieth century”. Carson shows the hazards of the chemicals by painting a picture of an ideal landscape that gets torn to pieces, and the aftermath the wildlife and humans are left to deal with. Throughout the chapters she always refers back to the birds, and other wildlife telling how they are affected and continue to be affected
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