Silent Spring Sparknotes

Introduction
Silent Spring is an American non-fiction book written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. The book is not written as a novel, but rather as an explanation and commentary on the harmful use insecticides. Although not a classic style novel, Carson employs literary and story-telling techniques in order to communicate the information and message that she is trying to convey in a more effective and compelling way. While Silent Spring was only one of many books that Carson had written in her lifetime, it was easily her most famous and influential piece and she received high recognition for it, including a Presidential Medal of Freedom which was granted to her posthumously in 1980. As well, Silent Spring has been credited with beginning
the American environmental movement, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the 1972 ban on DDT (McLaughlin 5). In this paper I will first summarize the book and its main themes in order to then evaluate its message, and finally comment on the relevance of this issue today.
Summary
The book begins with a story of a town where nature is in a perfect equilibrium. Humans and nature work together in a way that allows everyone and everything to coexist and enjoy the beauty and growth of spring. Something changes however and things start dying and the land becomes barren. Children began dying while they play outside and there were no more birds. This is where Carson gets the title of her book, because the birds are no longer singing and it becomes a “Silent Spring”. She ends the introduction by describing that this story is used to show what is happening all across America, not just in one town, and that the book will attempt to explain why it is happening, and ultimately, how it can be solved.
Once Carson used the narrative to communicate that there is a problem, she moves into explaining the problem to the reader.
She begins with a description of chemical poisons and how they alter the natural processes of the earth. Carson describes several different kinds of man-made chemicals, and focuses on insecticides – “chemicals created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in modern vernacular as ‘pests’; and they are sold under several thousand different brand names” (Carson 7). She explains where the demand for these chemicals came from and the deadly affects that they have across nature: from water, to soil, to plants, to animals and humans. Once the reasons for the introduction of insecticides and the extremely harmful ways they affect the environment are explained, Carson brings evidence of the terrible affects that large insecticide spraying campaigns have had. Several different incidences are described where governments and institutions tried to solve an insect problem by spraying massive amounts of insecticides over large areas of land. In each case, unforeseen consequences arise that result in death of non-targeted species, ranging from birds, to salmon, to vegetable farms. The book then transitions to insecticides’ direct effect on humans by first establishing that every person on earth has some level of contamination from insecticides. The book describes the possible ways these chemicals can affect humans, including
mutations such as Down’s Syndrome, and a large focus on cancer. Next, Carson describes to the reader the inadequate effect that these chemicals have on their intended target – insects. Carson explains how insects often develop resistance to these chemicals and are able to survive, but their predators and other species that come in contact die. This results in the insects returning in even greater numbers, because there is no longer any way to stop the population growth – natural or man-made.
Finally, once Carson has fully explained the problem that the use of insecticides has created, she ends the book by describing alternative methods of insect control. She emphasizes using natural methods that work with natures built in controls, such as the insects predators, to solve insect problems, rather than man made chemicals. She uses several examples of campaigns in which natural methods were used and were successful, and most importantly did not harm any species other than the target.
Main Theme & Environmental Message I believe the main message that Rachel Carson is trying to convey through Silent Spring is the extreme harmfulness of the irresponsible use of insecticides. She is arguing that the misuse of these insecticides are offsetting the balance of nature and in order to maintain or perhaps reestablish that balance, we must use alternative methods of insect control that capitalize on nature’s built in methods of controlling populations. The message can be summed up in this quote from chapter 2 of her book, which states, “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” (Carson 186).
Evaluation of Message
In order to evaluate the accuracy of Silent Spring or make a value judgment on the book, it is important to first look at the impact that the book had and the response from the scientific community. Since the release of Silent Spring, there has been significant debate over the accuracy and validity of the book. Some argue against the scientific data in the book while others argue that the conclusions she makes based on the information she presents are too extreme. Ultimately, however, Silent Spring was incredibly successful in creating significant change in the public’s view of insecticides, specifically with DDT’s, a certain kind of insecticides used to target mosquitoes and fire ants that Carson targets in her book (Griswold 19). President John F. Kennedy established a presidential committee to investigate the claims that the book made about pesticides, and ultimately their report confirmed much of the information in the book (The Story of Silent Spring 9). Eventually, eight years later in 1972 after Carson had passed away from her fight with cancer, the domestic sale of DDT’s was banned, and Carson received much of the credit for this, both by her supporters and enemies (Girswold 23).
Although this ban would have been seen as a huge victory by Carson if it had come during her life time, the effects on this ban are still debated. Opponents of Carson and Silent Spring claim that the benefits from being able to kill insects that may carry diseases that harm humans outweigh the chemical effects on humans and the environment (McLaughlin 11). Specifically in the fight against malaria, DDT can be very effective, and John Tierney of the New York Times claims that, “The human costs have been horrific in the poor countries where malaria returned after DDT spraying was abandoned” (Tierney 16).
Ultimately, however, Carson never called for the complete banning of all use of DDT (Tierney 17). I do not believe that the message of the book was not to abandon all use of man made chemicals or insecticides; rather it was to reconsider how we are using these chemicals by using indisputable evidence of the harm that misuse of these techniques created. The book condemned extreme uses of these chemicals such as spraying them from airplanes above U.S. cities and communicated these findings in a way that compelled the American people to want to create change. I believe that this message was an extremely necessary and important one to bring to the American people in order to motivate them to care about how the environment as a whole was being treated, not just the use of insecticides, and bring checks and balances to the large institutions whose only motivation was profit.
Environmental Relevance While Silent Spring is still incredibly relevant culturally as it is recognized for the prominent role it played in the start of the environmental revolution, the use of insecticides is still a prominent environmental issue as well. DDT has been included into a group called POPs (persistent organic pollutants) by the EPA and in 2004 at the Stockholm Convention, a treaty was ratified by several countries that restricted the use of POPs, but allowed for a limited exemption for the use of DDT to control malaria (DDT – A Brief History and Status 8). Although this treaty was a great victory, it certainly did not end all improper use of insecticides. John Spengler, the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation in the Harvard School of Public Health performed a study on the high incidence of asthma in Boston public housing and found connections to the high levels of pesticides sprayed in the buildings (Powell 17). So even though there has been significant progress in regulating the use of these types of chemicals, enforcing these regulations and convincing all parties to adapt them is a challenge that is still faced today.
Conclusion
Altogether, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is an incredibly influential book that played a large role, if not ignited, the environmental movement in America.
It uses extraordinary rhetoric and accurate scientific accounts to confront the dangerous use of insecticides such as DDT and the negative impact that they have on humans and the surrounding environment. While there are countering viewpoints that believe that the benefits of using insecticides like DDT outweigh the negative affects they can have, I believe that the main essence that Carson was trying to portray, which is that these man made chemicals can be very harmful if not used properly, is still very accurate and
important.