Tongas National Forest

born of the Neanderthal age of biology."
― Rachel Carson.

Fifty years ago, on September 27, 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a culture-crashing exposure of chemical pollutants and their impact on Earth's ecosystems. Carson's book examined thirty-five birds species threatened with extinction due to chemical biocides, including organo-chlorines such as DDT.

Prior to Carson's book, chemical companies had disregarded the impact of toxins on living ecosystems. Carson's work brought caring about nature back to the western industrial world. Her book alerted society to its relationship with our habitat, awakened our higher angels, and launched the modern environmental movement.

Of course, the chemical corporations of her age vilified her. Today, polluters and their paid mouthpieces have spun out a new Rachel Carson smear campaign, blaming her for malaria deaths because, allegedly, we haven't sprayed enough organochlorines around the world, when, in fact, Carson supported responsible disease control, with restraints on agricultural use, which only helped malaria mosquitoes grow immune to pesticides.

An attractive sort of person

Rachel Carson was born in the spring of 1907, on a family farm in Pennsylvania, in the United States. Her mother instilled love and curiosity for nature, with daily reading and exploring the Allegheny River valley forests. At 10, Rachel published her first story, "A Battle in the Clouds," in a local magazine.



Bringing nature to the people

Rachel Carson loved literature and wrote skillfully, but found her passion in the living world. "Biology," she wrote to a friend, "has given me something to write about. I will try in my writing to make animals in the woods or waters, where they live, as alive to others as they are to me."

In 1941, Carson published her first book, Under the Sea Wind, a narrative journey along the ocean floor. She completed a "sea trilogy," by publishing two more books about ocean life. In 1951, The Sea Around Us won a US National Book Award, and in 1955 she published The Edge of the Sea, about intertidal marine ecology.



A revolution of consciousness

After World-War II, the US military funded research into synthetic pesticides, and chemical companies sought markets for the compounds. In 1957, the US Department of Agriculture attempted to eradicate fire ants with DDT mixed with fuel oil, a precursor to Agent Orange used by the US military during the Vietnam War. The US government agency produced a film, "Fire Ants on Trial," which Carson called "flagrant propaganda."

Meanwhile, researchers found the carcinogenic herbicide aminotriazole in the U.S. cranberry harvest. Carson attended the US Food and Drug Administration hearings, and witnessed how chemical industry lobbyists attacked data, attacked scientists, and promoted "expert" testimony to contradict her research.



Carson biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle recalls that Carson "self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress." After Silent Spring, chemical companies no longer enjoyed a free pass to introduce toxins into the environment. Carson's book changed the course of history, and some people were not happy about it.
Industry attacks backfire



DuPont (DDT and 2,4-D manufacturer) and Velsicol Chemical Company (chlordane and heptachlor manufacturer) – threatened lawsuits against Houghton Mifflin, The New Yorker and Audubon magazine, in attempts to suppress Silent Spring.

The chemical company American Cyanamid proved particularly aggressive. Company biochemist Robert White-Stevens wrote, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth."


In Silent Spring, Carson recounts laboratory animal tests in which "DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some 'justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas.' Dr. Hueper now gives DDT the definite rating of a 'chemical carcinogen.'"

The chemical lobbyists retaliated with insults. In one of his more livid moments, Robert White-Stevens called Carson, "A fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature." Erroneous attacks claimed that Carson sought elimination of all pesticides, including those used for disease control, deceits still repeated today. Carson, however, encouraged sensible chemical disease control. She wrote clearly about this in Silent Spring (p. 266):


Since indiscriminate agricultural use of DDT had strengthened the malaria mosquitoes, Carson wrote that "pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible." In retaliation, Monsanto distributed brochures mocking Carson and parodying Silent Spring. However, in the end, the chemical industry campaign backfired. Their attacks on Carson's book increased public awareness regarding pesticides and public health. In 1963, a television special, "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson" reached some 15 million people. The book inspired a congressional review, a US President's Science Advisory Committee report that backed Carson's scientific claims, and inspired the US Environmental Protection Agency. US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called Silent Spring "the most important chronicle of this century for the human race."


Rachel Carson's courage ignited an ecological awareness that burns to this day. She reminded the world:
