|
In 1962, Rachel Carson
published a book which would soon challenge the public’s trust in scientific
"marvels" such as pesticides and began the tide of concern for
the environment which presently swept through the developed world. In
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson shocked readers by making them visualize
a place where no birds sang, hen’s eggs never hatched and apple trees
bore no fruit – a place where cattle died mysteriously in the fields and
children fell dead on the playground. Then she told them the place was
real, if only in composite: Its description was drawn from real-life incidents
that actually happened in the United States and in other countries where
artificial pesticides were being used.
Silent Spring alerted
millions to the dangers of the toxic substances that in recent decades
had become commonplace on farms and in households around the world. Agents
of agribusiness and the chemical industry, thrown off by Carson’s fine
prose style, attacked her scientific credentials. In fact, she was a respected
marine biologist who’d carefully traced the destructive effects of two
major pesticide groups, chlorinated hydrocarbons and organic phosphates,
as they worked their way though the ecosystem.
But Carson did not
want a total ban but argued instead for controlled use. She revealed that
DDT (one of the most popular poisons) could now be found at the ice caps.
She explained how insecticides residue on treated produce is stored in
human tissues and passed from mother to unborn child. And she helped launch
the modern environmental movement.
A Kennedy administration
study confirmed study confirmed Carson’s report and in 1972, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT. Many other countries followed
suit. Even so, the use of pesticides on food continued to grow, reaching
nearly a billion pounds annually in the United States alone by the 1980s.
|
