Silent Springs

Micaela Quiroga
Silent Spring Rough Draft
Ms. Evans, AP Lang, pd. 3
September 2012

In America today, many people do not realize the impact they have on the environment. We come from a more educated generation, yes, but many people do not realize, that even just recycling can led to less deforestation, and ensuring that the environment of many animals is still there and safe. Much like how deforestation can negatively affect animals, it negatively affects us, less trees means less oxygen, and less oxygen, less to breathe, causing more. In Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, she attempts to enlighten the reader on how the use of pesticides has an overall negative effect on the environment, animals and humans. Carson draws this conclusion based on her belief that humanity is ignorant, and that we are under the false impression that we are in some way superior. Following this she also suggests that we, as humans, are victimizing nature, and attempting to cure it like a disease. In Silent Spring, Carson addresses her belief that it’s not necessarily human’s incapability of understanding the negative consequences of their actions, but rather the fact that we as humans, are unaware about these consequences and due to this. In the processes ignorance we are not only greatly harming the environment and animals, but also ourselves as well. She suggest that we live under and illusion where we are far more superior to any other species and deserve whatever we view is best for us, regardless of the downfall, were in actuality we are destroying ourselves just as much. It is not only our personal stupidity, and inability to realize that what we are doing is wrong, “the farmers had been persuaded of the merits of killing by poison”, and they were sold under the idea that killing, by poison has advantages and benefits for them advantages. To any rational person, the thought of spreading poison throughout farms seems extremely destructive. Carson believes that “the problem could have been solved easily”, but instead the framers just did what they were told, and were ‘sent in the planes on their mission of death” to “eradicating any creature that may annoy or inconvenience” without having full knowledge and understanding of what they were doing. This mentality also plays into the idea of self-supremacy, and that anything that was an ‘annoyance’ or ‘inconveniences’ should be eradicated because it’s simply troublesome to them, so instead that blast the field with poison. “Workers [that had handled the] foliage…collapsed and went into shock and escaped death only through skilled medical attention” were the negative impacts that resulted from their ignorant actions, and selfish desires to rather destroy for personal gain, that would ultimately result in devastation for both the animals and the human that were involved. Instead of directly and creatively dealing with the problem of animals in farming fields, we looked to a chemical substitute for the answer.
Carson suggests that the only way we saw fit to deal with the issue, and then the flaw, or even consequence of our action, was to further attempt to treat it, or rather, cure it as if it were a disease. This is just turned into downward spiral though, and due to the fact that no one is educated in a way to see that this will just result in an overall negative reaction. So the farmers further tried to cure the problem of animal, ones that they were aware of- and ones they were not, as a disease. Meaning that every animal, insect, or bird in the area was “doomed by a judge and jury who neither knew of their existence nor cared”, this lead to the victimization of the innocence animals, that in reality posed no major threat but were made victim anyways. This also leads the realization that this is only what we briefly know about the negative impacts that that there were probably “other wildlife deaths have gone unnoticed and unrecorded” just like in a disease, or flu, humans attempted to treat the main problem unaware and unconcerned about the other symptoms that they were not addressing, not only were targeted ‘pests’ killed, but any animal that ventured into the area. “Rabbits or raccoons or opossums as may have roamed those bottomlands and perhaps never visited the farmers cornfields were doomed” just due to the widespread area that the poison was sprayed, and even if they did not invade the farms, the poison would invade their homes. “The casually list included some 65,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings” and may other innocent victimized animals that were not accounted for. The victimization was ever growing, who was supposed to “tell the innocent stroller…all their vegetation [is] coated with a lethal film”? There was no one that was nearly educated enough to understand the extent to with the poison was killing, instead, we were left with “lifeless remains of the birds that fell before the unselective bludgeon of insecticide poison”.
After the publication of Silent Spring, the attitude toward the environment by many Americans was altered. The shocking reality of the passage served as a great eye opener to many people. Resulting from all this was an attempted to progress in a more positive way and also, a strong change in agricultural farming, the evidence that’s Carson presented lead ultimately to stricter pesticide regulations. After the publication of Silent Spring, U.S. President John F. Kennedy directed his Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson's claims, after their investigation justified Carson's claims, it ultimately led to an immediate establishment of chemical pesticide regulations. Not only did the book help strengthen regulation of pesticides though; the publication also aided in the formation of the environmental movement in the 1960s. This movement was responsible for introducing green politics, and finally gave the environment the voice it craved.