A philosopher? The author of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, is definitely an environmental activist. She cares more about the environment than people, and makes several points defending the environment for the sole benefit of the environment.
She believed that people resisted this type of thinking because of how people destroy the environment and don't care about the effects of harmful chemicals used in them like pesticides. Carson invokes the term "ecology" (p. 189) to describe "the web of life-or death..."
Carson isn't opposed to all toxins, she's only opposed to the toxins that kill all life and hardly get rid of the problem in the process. What is uniquely problematic about DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons?
The moral dilemma Carson's worried about is the fact that the pesticides might kill more than just the pest. I wholeheartedly share her view, as killing other species just to take out a single pest might end up causing more problems in the long run. Carson's discussion of Dutch Elm disease leads her to advocate "the conservation of variety."
Carson proposes the alternatives of sterilization and removal of invasive species, such as the budworm. This makes sense in the context of agribusiness, but they would be much more labor-intensive and would require more people to complete. in the use of toxins as well as technical problems of environmental management.
Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed "biocides" because their effects are rarely limited to solely targeting pests.
DDTThirteen years later, in 1958, Carson's interest in writing about the dangers of DDT was rekindled when she received a letter from a friend in Massachusetts bemoaning the large bird kills that had occurred on Cape Cod as the result of DDT sprayings.
Writing was Rachel Carson's greatest skill and Silent Spring was her most important contribution to the world since it launched the global environmental movement today. Carson worked to purge the United States of deadly pesticides like DDT that were used everywhere across the U.S. in agriculture and elsewhere.
Marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson is hailed as one of the most important conservationists in history and is recognized as the mother of modern environmentalism. She challenged the use of man-made chemicals, and her research led to the nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides.
Best Rachel Carson Quotes“A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement." ... "In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life."More items...
National Book Award for Nonficti...Presidential Medal of FreedomGuggenhe... Fellowship for Natural...Rachel Carson/Awards
Interesting Facts about Rachel CarsonCarson didn't call for a ban on all pesticides. ... The book Silent Spring came under attack by the chemical industry. ... In 1973, DDT was banned in the United States. ... She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.More items...
Carson proposes an alternative approach to pest control that poses no risks to both the environment and humans. These alternatives are called "biotic controls", and are divided into three specific methods.
Share Link. In many of the chapters of Silent Spring, author Rachel Carson ends by speaking of methods of pest control that are alternatives to using toxic chemicals . One example is seen in Chapter 9 in which Carson speaks of the problem of keeping the budworm controlled; budworm caterpillars are considered...
One method of biotic control is sterilizing male insects. Carson states that G. A. Runner reported in 1916 the successful sterilization of the cigarette beetle using X-rays. Lab studies in the 1920s reported successfully sterilizing a dozen different insect species using both X-rays and gamma rays. In 1954 Texas Department of Agriculture scientists began a field experiment of releasing screwworms over the island of Curacao and sterilizing them, leading to the eradication of all induced infestation. Upon success of the field experiment, in 1957-58, a similar program was initiated to sterilize and eradicate screwworms in the southeast of the United States since screwworms contributed to a loss of $20 million in livestock profits each year. The program was so successful that an animal infestation of screwworms has not been reported since 1954. Carson also reports that since then, laboratories have been experimenting with using chemicals rather than radiation to produce insect sterilization. While some of the chemicals are dangerous, scientists hope that experiments with the current dangerous chemicals will lead to the discovery of safer chemicals to use for the same purpose.
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Some alternatives that Carson proposes to the use of chemicals to control unwanted pests and plants are to import species that would end up controlling these pests/plants due to their predatory properties, as well as natural parasitism: to deploy a infertile group of the same invasive species to slowly convert the entire population to become infertile, killing it from the inside.
This is an important part of Carson's critique because of how she considers that nobody can fully operate in life; there needs to be some sort of "teamwork" connected with everybody. Her view of the many relationships in nature is based on what would happen if some species were to thrive while their counterpart species was left for dead; the thriving species would end up slowly dying due to lack of food (overpopulation), while the other species becomes extinct.
The moral dilemma Carson's worried about is the fact that the pesticides might kill more than just the pest. I wholeheartedly share her view, as killing other species just to take out a single pest might end up causing more problems in the long run.
Carson invokes the term "ecology" (p. 189) to describe "the web of life-or death..." What role does this concept play in her analysis?
The role of local activists was to try to stop the chemical industry from producing insecticides. The role of government officials was to fund scientists for research on insecticides, but ended up supporting the chemical industry. The role of the chemical industry was to make as much money as possible selling insecticides, no matter how ruined the environment became.
Runoff contains a lot of resources that shouldn't be dumped in rivers/oceans: petroleum, litter, chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. With all of these things going into our waters, it can cause some serious water pollution.
Carson's discussion of Dutch Elm disease leads her to advocate "the conservation of variety." What does she mean by this?
13. Carson invokes the term “ecology” (p. 189) to describe “the web of life–or death...” What role does this concept play in her analysis?
8. Carson’s discussion of Dutch Elm disease leads her to advocate “the conservation of variety.” What does she mean by this?