Silent Spring

Introduction

Silent Spring, a book about the dangers of pesticide use on the environment and human health, was written by American marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907–1964). It was first published as a series of articles in the New Yorker magazine, then as a book in 1962. It had a remarkable impact, perhaps more so than any other environmentalist book of the last century, and it has remained continuously in print since its publication. Silent Spring is often credited with having changed the scope and nature of the environmental movement, and helping trigger the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

In the mid-twentieth century, agriculture in the United States and some other countries became highly industrialized. That is, rather than being carried on by a large population of farmers working many relatively small farms using animals for draft (pulling) power in the fields and fertilizing with manure, it became mechanized and reliant on chemical inputs, especially fertilizers manufactured using fossil fuel, pesticides (chemicals designed to poison pests, especially insects), and herbicides (chemicals designed to poison unwanted plants). By the 1950s, hundreds of millions of pounds of pesticides were applied to crops in the United States, as well as to lawns and gardens. Large profits were generated by sales of these chemicals, but little public attention was paid to the harms they might be doing. Rather, journalists tended to celebrate the wondrous new age of high-productivity in industrial agriculture, where farmers driving air-conditioned tractors and harvesters across vast fields could listen to music while raising history’s largest crops of pest-free wheat, corn, and other foods.

Scientists, meanwhile, were gathering a large body of evidence that the uncontrolled application of herbicides and pesticides was causing death and sickness in many bird and animal species, including some humans. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, gathered together much of this evidence and wrote a passionate appeal advocating controls for poison spraying, Silent Spring, that received praise both within the scientific community and the public at large. Carson argued that pesticides were being used recklessly and that this was endangering human health, threatening species of wild animals and birds with extinction, and—if the trend toward greater and greater use of such poisons continued—leading toward a world stripped of much of its life, especially its birds. Her grim vision of a spring with no birds to sing—a silent spring—gripped millions of readers.

The pesticide on which she focused most was DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane), a chemical discovered in 1874, but not used as a pesticide until 1939. DDT and related chemicals are particularly damaging to the environment because they do not break down quickly and can be passed up the food chain, concentrating in the tissues of predators. For example, DDT sprayed on leaves or seeds is first eaten by insects, which are poisoned by the chemical. Before or after the insects die, they are eaten by birds, which build up DDT in their own tissues. At sufficiently high concentrations, the DDT kills the birds; at lower concentrations, it interferes with egg development, causing eggshell thinning and fewer chicks to hatch. Fish that eat DDT-contaminated insects also concentrate DDT in their tissues; eagles eating the fish concentrate the DDT still further. In North America, bald-eagle reproduction rates were depressed by DDT while it was still widely used, but recovered in the years following the banning of the chemical in 1972. The EPA has also classified DDT as a likely human carcinogen (chemical that potentially causes cancer).

Impacts and Issues

Carson’s book was an immediate bestseller and triggered widespread public discussion of chemical pollution, pesticides, and the need for regulation. She was called to testify before Congress, and President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) established a special commission to study whether chlorine-containing insecticides such as DDT should be banned. In 1963, the commission recommended such a ban, and in 1972, DDT was banned by law in the United States.

Carson’s book was attacked angrily by supporters of the chemical industry even before its publication and continues to be reviled today. A number of critics make the argument that use of DDT was halted for insufficient scientific reason, allowing malaria—a disease spread by mosquitoes that causes 1.2 to 2.7 million deaths per year—to spread and kill without restraint. In 2007, the hundredth anniversary of Carson’s birth, a number of editorials in politically conservative journals and mainstream newspapers were devoted to expressing this view. For example, columnist John Tierney wrote in the New York Times that Silent Spring was a “hodgepodge of science and junk science, dubious statistics, and anecdotes…. The human costs have been horrific in the poorcountries where malaria returned after DDT spraying was abandoned.”

In fact, Carson never called for a total ban on DDT, in Silent Spring or elsewhere, and no such ban has ever

WORDS TO KNOW

DDT (DICHLORO-DIPHENYL-TRICHLOROETHANE): One of the earliest insecticides, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, used until banned by many countries in the 1960s after bird populations were decimated by the substance, and other negative environmental consequences occurred. Lately, selective DDT use has returned in targeted areas in Africa in order to eliminate high concentrations of the mosquitoes that carry the parasite that causes malaria.

FOOD CHAIN: A sequence of organisms, each of which uses the next lower member of the sequence as a food source.

FOSSIL FUEL: Hydrocarbon fuel that has been obtained from the death and decay of living matter millions of years ago.

been instituted. The 1972 law that banned DDT in the United States contained an exception for malaria control—never invoked because malaria is rare in the United States. Nor has DDT ever been banned for anti-malarial use internationally (only for agriculture): As of 2007, DDT is again used for indoor spraying in 10 African countries. The global decline in DDT use for outdoor anti-malaria spraying is partially due to the evolution of increased insect resistance to the chemical, a problem with all widely used pesticides. In Silent Spring, Carson advised DDT use to be limited to “Spray as little as you possibly can.” Thus, Carson never advocated a reckless and inhumane ban on using DDT or any other pesticides for fighting insect-borne disease.

In 1980, Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Primary Source Connection

Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was the first meticulously referenced, book-length attack by a scientist on the practices of an entire industry, in this case the pesticide industry. Silent Spring provoked a response that was also the first of its kind, as partly described in the 1962 article “‘Silent Spring’ Is Now Noisy Summer” by John M. Lee. A many-fronted public-relations counterattack on Carson was mounted by corporations displeased by her book.

The full extent of the industry response was not known at the time that Lee wrote his article. Besides the criticisms quoted there (published before the book version of Silent Spring appeared), the chemical and pesticide industry took a number of specific actions againstSilent Spring

IN CONTEXT: RACHEL CARSON

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) is best known for her 1962 book, Silent Spring, which is often credited with beginning the environmental movement in the United States. The book focused on the uncontrolled and often indiscriminate use of pesticides, especially dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (commonly known as DDT), and the irreparable environmental damage caused by these chemicals. The public outcry Carson generated by the book motivated the U.S. Senate to form a committee to investigate pesticide use. Carson’s eloquent testimony before the committee altered the views of many government officials and helped lead to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Before beginning her graduate studies at Johns Hopkins, Carson had arranged an interview with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries for a part-time science writer to work on radio scripts. The only obstacle was the civil service exam, which women were then discouraged from taking. Carson not only did well on the test, she outscored all other applicants. She went on to become only the second woman ever hired by the bureau for a permanent professional post.

At the Bureau of Fisheries, Carson wrote and edited a variety of government publications—everything from pamphlets on how to cook fish to professional scientific journals.

Carson. A group of chemical companies—including DuPont, Monsanto, Shell, Dow Chemical, W.R. Grace, and the members of the Manufacturing Chemists Association—hired public relations experts to question Carson’s credibility and even, on occasion, her sanity. The National Agricultural Chemicals Association spent over a quarter of a million dollars to oppose the book through ads, press conferences, and other public-relations methods.

Velsicol Chemical Company, a pesticides manufacturer, threatened to sue Houghton Mifflin for libel. Velsicol also threatened Audubon magazine with a lawsuit if it published excerpts from Silent Spring, warning that printing “a muckraking article containing unwarranted assertions about Velsicol pesticides [might] jeopardize [the] financial security” of persons employed by the magazine and that of their families. One chemical company threatened to sue the New Yorker if the magazine ran the final installment of Carson’s book. The editor responded, “Everything in those articles has been checked and is true. Go ahead and sue.” In the end, however, no libel lawsuits were actually brought against Carson or anyone else involved in the publication of her book.

‘SILENT SPRING’ IS NOW NOISY SUMMER

Pesticides Industry Up In Arms Over a New Book

Rachel Carson Stirs Conflict—Producers Are Crying ‘Foul’

The $300,000,000 pesticides industry has been highly irritated by a quiet woman author whose previous works on science have been praised for the beauty and precision of the writing.

The author is Rachel Carson, whose “The Sea Around Us” and “The Edge of the Sea” were best sellers in 1951 and 1955. Miss Carson, trained as a marine biologist, wrote gracefully of sea and shore life.

In her latest work, however, Miss Carson is not so gentle. More pointed than poetic, she argues that the widespread use of pesticides is dangerously tilting the so-called balance of nature. Pesticides poison not only pests, she says, but also humans, wildlife, the soil, food and water.

The men who make the pesticides are crying foul. “Crass commercialism or idealistic flag waving,” scoffs one industrial toxicologist. “We are aghast,” says another. “Our members are raising hell,” reports a trade association.

Some agricultural chemicals concerns have set their scientists to analyzing Miss Carson’s work, line by line. Other companies are preparing briefs defending the use of their products. Meetings have been held in Washington and New York. Statements are being drafted and counter-attacks plotted.

A drowsy midsummer has suddenly been enlivened by the greatest uproar in the pesticides industry since the cranberry scare of 1959.

Miss Carson’s new book is entitled “Silent Spring.” The title is derived from an idealized situation in which Miss Carson envisions an imaginary town where chemical pollution has silenced “the voices of spring.”

The book is to be published in October by the Houghton Mifflin Company and has been chosen as an October selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. About half the book appeared as a series of three articles in The New Yorker magazine last month.

A random sampling of opinion among trade associations and chemical companies last week found the Carson articles receiving prominent attention.

Many industry spokesmen preface their remarks with a tribute to Miss Carson’s writing talents, and most say that they can find little error of fact.

What they do criticize, however, are the extensions and implications that she gives to isolated case histories of the detrimental effects of certain pesticides used or misused in certain instances.

The industry feels that she has presented a one-sided case and has chosen to ignore the enormous benefits in increased food production and decreased incidence of disease that have accrued from the development and use of modern pesticides.

The pesticides industry is annoyed also at the implications that the industry itself has not been alert and concerned in its recognition of the problems that accompany pesticide use.

Last week, Miss Carson was said to be on “an extended vacation” for the summer and not available for comment on the industry’s rebuttal. Her agent, Marie Rodell, said she had heard nothing directly from chemical manufacturers concerning the book.

Houghton Mifflin referred all questions to Miss Rodell. The New Yorker said it had received many letters expressing great interest in the articles and “only one or two took strong objection.”

In an interview, E. M. Adams, assistant director of the biochemistry research laboratory of the Dow Chemical Company, said he would be among the first to acknowledge that there were problems in the use or misuse of pesticides.

“I think Miss Carson has indulged in hindsight,” he said. “In many cases we have to learn from experience and often it is difficult to exercise the proper foresight.”

Emphasizing that he spoke as a private toxicologist, Mr. Adams said that in some procedures, such as large-scale spraying, the possible benefits had to be balanced against the possible ills.

He referred to the extensive testing programs and Federal regulations prevalent in the pesticides industry and said, “What we have done, we have not done carelessly or without consideration. The industry is not made up of money grubbers.”

Tom K. Smith, vice president and general manager of agricultural chemicals for the Monsanto Chemical Company, said that “had the articles been written with necessary attention to the available scientific data on the subject, it could have served a valuable purpose-helping alert the public at large to the importance of proper use of pesticide chemicals.”

However, he said, the articles suggested that Government officials and private and industrial scientists were either not as well informed on pesticide problems as Miss Carson, not professionally competent to evaluate possible hazards or else remiss in their obligations to society.

P. Rothberg, president of the Montrose Chemical Corporation of California, said in a statement that Miss Carson wrote not “as a scientist but rather as a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature.” He said the greatest upsetters of that balance, as far as man was concerned, were modern medicines and sanitation.

Montrose, an affiliate of the Stauffer Chemical Company, is the nation’s largest producer of DDT, one of the pesticides that Miss Carson discusses at length. She also discusses the effect of malathion, parathion, dieldrin, aldrin and endrin.

“It is ironic to think,” Miss Carson states at one point, “that man may determine his own fixture by something so seemingly trivial as his choice of insect spray.” She acknowledges, however, that the effects may not show up in new generations for decades or centuries.

The Department of Agriculture reported that it had received many letters expressing “horror and amazement” at the department’s support of the use of potentially deadly pesticides.

The industry had a favorite analogy to use in rebuttal. It conceded that pesticides could be dangerous. The ideal was to use them all safely and effectively.

The public debate over pesticides is just beginning and the industry is preparing for a long siege. The book reviews and publicity attendant upon the book’s publication this fall will surely fan the controversy.

John M. Lee

LEE, JOHN M. “‘SILENT SPRING’ IS NOW NOISY SUMMER.”NEW YORK TIMES (JULY 22, 1962).

Primary Source Connection

The following news article acknowledges the American ornithologist Bridget Stutchbury’s book Silence of the Songbirds, which, like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, discusses how human actions can negatively impact the environment, particularly in relation to birds. Stutchbury makes the connection between consumer choices and the future of the habitat of these birds. Stuchbury holds the Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology at Yale University.

PICKING UP WHERE ‘SILENT SPRING’ LEFT OFF

By now, the litany of human-driven environmental problems is probably beginning to sound depressingly familiar. Coral reefs are bleaching, forests and the wildlife they host are disappearing, and humanity, which has doubled in numbers since the 1960s, is stressing Earth’s resources. Scientists predict that global warming will only exacerbate these problems. Many worry about imminent ecosystem meltdowns. Civilization is inextricably linked to the natural world and as Jared Diamond and others have pointed out, in the past, ecological shifts have coincided with the collapse of entire civilizations.

To this rather grim picture, ornithologist Bridget Stutchbury brings a book about an often overlooked and important denizen of the natural world: the songbird. In Silence of the Songbirds, she explores the reasons behind songbirds’ alarming decline in the past 40 years. She tells of how, flying thousands of miles at nighttime in vast flocks that show up on radar, the little birds connect Canada’s boreal forests with Central and South America’s jungles. She explains how forests rely on them for pollination, seed dispersal, and insect control. With the exhaustive and sometimes plodding style of a good trial lawyer, she documents how habitat loss, forest fragmentation, and pesticides have wreaked havoc on their populations. And she postulates new and fascinating reasons why fragmentation might cause songbird populations to decline: Songbirds avoid forests devoid of other birds. They need habitat large enough to sustain bird communities.

Thankfully, after outlining these problems, Stutchbury doesn’t desert the reader. By connecting consumer choices with harmful land practices in the birds’ wintering grounds, she gives readers an avenue of action. What coffee you choose—organic and shade-grown versus sun-grown and pesticide-treated—can lead to either more or less bird habitat. Even your choice of toilet paper can mean a tree cut down in Canada’s boreal forests, where many songbirds summer. Choose the right products as a consumer, and you can help rather than hurt.

Unfortunately, Stutchbury doesn’t explore possible solutions beyond consumer choice. As she’s well aware, enlightened consumer choices can’t fix everything. The poverty, weak regulation, and nearly nonexistent enforcement of existing laws that drive environmental degradation in Central and South America cannot be remedied only by drinking Fair Trade coffee in Boston. Effective solutions will require both top-down and bottom-up efforts by all those involved. And we are all involved.

So yes: Silence of the Songbirds is another book you probably won’t feel like reading. Who needs to feel forlorn, dejected, and guilty and responsible? But before you move on to more pleasant and probably less relevant fare, let me explain why the book is, in fact, worth reading.

Extinction and ecosystem collapse are part of Earth’s natural history. Species have eaten themselves and others out of existence before and they’ll do so again. And yet, in the current human-driven disturbance, there is a new element to this oft-repeated drama. Probably never before has a species possessed both full knowledge of what was happening and the know-how to avoid it.

And this is why, as both observer and participant, it’s worth being fully apprised of what’s at stake. If we make the wrong decisions, it’s simply nature’s version of “business as usual.” But in a “sustainable” resolution to our environmental dilemmas lies the beginning of something truly unique on earth. For the first time, an organism will have altered its behavior not when catastrophe hit but before. Homo sapiens—Latin for “wise human”—will have truly earned its moniker. This self-adjustment would herald the emergence of a new intelligence in both the human and natural realms.

Moises Velasquez-Manoff

VELASQUEZ-MANOFF, MOISES. “PICKING UP WHERE ‘SILENT SPRING’ LEFT OFF.” CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR (AUGUST 14, 2007).

See Also Agricultural Practice Impacts; Environmental Activism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1962.

Murphy, Priscilla Coit. What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Russell, Edmund. War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Periodicals

Tierney, John. “Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science.” New York Times (June 5, 2007).

Web Sites

People’s Weekly World Newspaper. “Defending Rachel Carson,” by David Pimentel. http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/11914/ (accessed April 12, 2008).

Larry Gilman