Additionally Silent Spring suggested a needed change in how democracies and liberal societies operated so that individuals and groups could question what their governments allowed others to put into the environment. Far from calling for sweeping changes in government policy, Carson believed the federal government was part of the problem. Funding to support the advancement of the chemical sciences through research projects. ACS-Hach Programs Learn about financial support for future and current high school chemistry teachers.
Commemorative Booklet PDF. These discussions led to new policies that protect our air, our water, and, ultimately, our health and safety. If a civilization is judged by the wisdom of its ways, the 21st century owes considerable gratitude to one woman, Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring , published in , revolutionized how people understand their relationship with the natural environment.
Specifically, Silent Spring explained how indiscriminate application of agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and other modern chemicals polluted our streams, damaged bird and animal populations, and caused severe medical problems for humans.
But her treatise did much more. Silent Spring introduced a paradigm shift in how chemists practice their discipline and how society at large relates to science. To understand how radically her book changed the modern mindset, we have to go back to the time between World War II and the late s when Carson first decided to write Silent Spring.
New technologies flourished during the war as biologists, chemists, physicists, andothers were enlisted to aid the military. After the war, science and industry translated these developments and others into commercial products aimed at improving the quality of life for civilians. DDT 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-di 4-chlorophenyl ethane, also known as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane is one such example.
A potent insecticide, DDT was effective at preventing the spread of typhoid, malaria, and other diseases transmitted by insects, and it saved countless lives during the war.
After the war, the U. Department of Agriculture and corporations promoted DDT and other powerful chemicals to increase domestic productivity and combat a variety of ills. Carson, who was employed with the U. Fish and Wildlife Service FWS from until as a field scientist and writer, was acutely aware of the policies and practices of the day.
In her view, government leaders and industry were eager to create sweeping change, but advanced new technologies without knowing the full implications of their decisions. One was nature writer Edwin Way Teale, who warned, "A spray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy.
Ninety percent of all insects are good, and if they are killed, things go out of kilter right away. The magazine rejected the idea. First serialized in The New Yorker in June , the book alarmed readers across America and, not surprisingly, brought a howl of indignation from the chemical industry. Some of the attacks were more personal, questioning Carson's integrity and even her sanity.
Her careful preparation, however, had paid off. Anticipating the reaction of the chemical industry, she had compiled Silent Spring as one would a lawyer's brief, with no fewer than 55 pages of notes and a list of experts who had read and approved the manuscript. Many eminent scientists rose to her defense, and when President John F.
Kennedy ordered the President's Science Advisory Committee to examine the issues the book raised, its report thoroughly vindicated both Silent Spring and its author. As a result, DDT came under much closer government supervision and was eventually banned. In , questions were raised about bisphenol A BPA , a compound released by certain plastics into food and by many treated cans into canned food. Of particular concern was BPA released by plastic baby bottles.
The increase of endocrine disruptors in food and water has raised suspicions that they are responsible for a multitude of perplexing new problems: genital deformities in increasing numbers of newborn boys, earlier puberty in girls, declining sperm count in adult males, rising rates of prostate and testicular cancer, and problems in sexual development and reproduction.
Other possible health effects include abnormal brain development, obesity, and diabetes. In addition, endocrine disruptors like BPA enter the environment and disrupt fish and wildlife. Scientists have documented numerous effects. Studies have found male fish with female sex characteristics in the Potomac River, Florida alligators with stunted genitals, and amphibians with extra legs, all due to concentrations of endocrine disruptors in water. The world today is awash in a sea of chemicals never before seen in nature.
No one really knows the long-term effects of these substances, individually or in unpredictable combination, either on human health or on the health of the ecosystems upon which we, and all life, depend.
The chemicals are not the same as the ones Carson indicted in Silent Spring , yet they are produced, sold, and used on an unsuspecting public by the same interconnected complex of profit-driven companies and government authorities.
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