`Silent Spring` by Rachel Carson

Themes of Rachel Carson 's Silent Spring

Prior to the introduction of major legislation concerning the environment , it had been a popularly accepted notion that our utilization of the earth would be subject to no limitations . Our manifold purposes , pertaining to the expansion of commercial industries the procurement of lands for residency , the optimization of geological settings for pedestrian needs and the constantly swelling demand for space upon which to drive had for many years after the start of the Industrial Age taken precedence in our notion of sociological advancement . The

overarching notion that the earth belonged to man to do with as he d was given little contest in the public forum , with large economic , political and cultural contingents generally conceding to the argument that this was the best avenue to serving the public interests

Decades of industrialization , however , leading into the economic boom which followed World War II and saw America into its first great age of consumerism , began to take a legitimate toll on the natural landscape of the nation . Especially in the United States , which was so valued a land asset in its founding due to the seemingly endless wealth of natural resources and species diversity , it had been perceived that such bounties were at our disposal in perpetuity . In 1962 , marine biologist and environmental activist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring , a work that opened the first round of fire against that perception . A book rife with frightening contentions about the irreparable damage with which we have already lashed the earth , Silent Spring is a sensible point of entry into the discourse over environmental preservation . As one of the first popular works of non-fiction to promote the idea that ecological decline will inevitably lead to a decline in the survivability of man , Carson 's book touched off a public awareness of the need to apply new strategies to extending environmental conscientiousness

Carson 's book centers on the ill effects which the commonly accepted use of pesticides in agriculture were having on the health of environments which hosted all manner of life , among them humanity Decrying the absence of regulation against the use of such dangerous chemicals , Carson 's work points to some of the major environmental contingencies of our failure to prevent this poisoning of our ecology

She depicts a town where mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens the cattle and sheep sickened and died . Everywhere was a shadow of death . The farmers spoke of much illness among their families . In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients (Carson , 2 That the correlation between these collected symptoms and the use of pesticides in our predominantly agricultural towns had yet to be recognized is important to consider . Though today it still receives troublingly little acknowledgment , the exponential rise in the consumption of organic produce in recent years is indicative of a graduating cognizance of that which Carson 's work brought to the forefront of...