Rachel Carson Pesticide Essay

This book was focused on the concern of pesticides that industries, along with us as individuals, have been dumping (both knowingly and unknowingly) into water. Carson was concerned that the chemicals which the farmers spread on their fields, and even the chemicals we use in our homes (among others), in the end, might come back around and harm us. The beginning of the book tells a story of a place, that was once so beautiful, turned dead and ugly due to a “strange blight that crept over the area” and destroyed everything. Later in the book, she goes on to explain that chemicals, particularly one known as DDT, are the major cause of environmental damage and the near extinction of

A major theme throughout this book is about how the acts of humans were changing the balance of nature. Carson makes it clear that the environment has a way of protecting itself without the aid of man, and when humans intervene they can create problems. For example, when there is an increase of one type of soil organism then it greatly disturbs the balance. Things like aldrin, DDD, and heptathlon will disrupt the normally ecologically balanced relationship between fungi and the roots of higher plants (Carson 38). Another huge disruption in the balance nature created was dealing with the elms and robins. To save the elms humans used DDT in attempt to kill the elm bark beetles who were the vectors for a fungus disease. However, detrimental effects rained down on many of the other organisms around the area. Namely, the robins suffered fatal consequences due the bioaccumulation of DDT (pg 61). The balance once again was disrupted at the hands of humans.

She speaks of the nature’s beauty in the town and the animals in it. Then evil invades the town and slowly begins killing off small animals. Suddenly no one ever sees any type of birds, squirrels, or even bees. Chickens no longer hatch, and cattle grow sick. Even the farmers talk about the illnesses in their families. Carson goes on to say this town does not exist but could be our future if we continue to use the dangerous chemicals we so vigorously throw out. She states that the most hazardous thing mankind can do is corrupt the air thus corrupting the water and soil along with it. She speaks of the time it took the world to fully become balanced. Carson states that “man undoes the built-in checks in balances by which nature holds the species within bounds,” meaning we should not ruin the environment by continuing to use a toxin that is killing not just the nature around us but us humans as well. Carson also writes about how not just pesticides, but poisonous herbicides can also attract animals to eat foods they do not normally eat. This affects humans in the same way that the pesticides do slowly creeping up the food chain until it sickens children and

Carson explains that “as the habit of killing grows” more and more wildlife become direct targets and are subject to death by the pesticide companies. By describing the action done by pesticide companies and farmers as a habit, Carson elicits anger by making the killing seem consistent and purposeful. She suggests that the killings completed by pesticides are more direct to wildlife rather than being incidental. Carson also explains how farmers are using this deathly parathion “to ‘control’…birds distasteful to them”, depicting the farmers and companies as being merciless and cruel. Carson demonstrates that this unnecessary poison is not being used for their main purpose, which is to help crops and benefit farmers, but merely as a way to get rid of an “annoyance”.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, first published in 1962, bright light to how the widespread use of chemical pesticides was posing a serious threat to public health and leading to the destruction of wildlife. While numerous philosophers have written on this topic throughout history, Rachel Carson did an excellent job at creating a more basic way for the general public to comprehend the troubles in the environment at the time. This book was no doubt in response to the increasing awareness in the 1960s of the effects that technology, industry, economic expansion and population growth were having on the environment. Carson's thesis that we were subjecting ourselves to slow poisoning by the misuse of chemical pesticides that polluted the

In this book, Carson is mainly mentioning about insecticide. She has been saying that spraying insecticide is harmful. In chapter four, she uses “endless cycle” (46) to describe that effect of insecticides will circulate. For instance, if DDT infected water it will cause fishes and fishes will be eaten by birds, mink, raccoons, and this will circulate forever. Furthermore, she has mentioned that “a heavy price to pay for the temporary destruction of a few insects, but a price that will continue to be exacted as long as we insist upon using chemicals” (198). Which means that effect of killing just tiny insects will last long. By saying that insecticides are harmful from different perspectives, such as water and soil and so on, what she really wants to say is that we are “sharing our earth with other creatures” (296). Therefore, we should not try to control or dominate nature but to have a symbiotic relationship with nature.

The growth of consumerism benefited those white Americans who focused on the immediate future. However, some people began to realize that the Earth will not always have the same resources it would have if they continued to treat the planet carelessly. In 1962, Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” to address the harsh and consistent use of chemical pesticides like DDT: “We are accustomed to look for the gross and immediate effects and to ignore all else. Unless this appears promptly and in such obvious form that it cannot be ignored, we deny the existence of hazard. Even research men suffer from the handicap of inadequate methods of detecting the beginnings of injury. The lack of sufficiently delicate methods to detect injury before symptoms appear is one of the great unsolved problems in medicine.” This book caused a lot of controversy because of the lack of perceived science and knowledge of the general public, therefore, further research continued and sparked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. In addition, Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb created concern about the projection of the planet’s resources due to overpopulation. Whites were disconnected from the possibility of a negative and toxic environment because their neighborhoods and livelihood were never directly affected, however, the threat of a possible

The environmental message of the book is that the unscrupulous proliferation of pesticides and hazardous chemicals is a threat to our natural environment and to human existence itself. Chapter by chapter, Carson clearly articulates this argument, explaining the dangers of expanding chemical use. Her message can be divided into several sections. First, she explains the problem of chemical pesticides and discusses the impacts of pesticides on environmental factors. Second she addresses their impact on living organisms (i.e. plants and animals). Third, she explores the human health impacts of pesticides. Finally, she contends that pesticides actually have the opposite of their desired effect and proposes an alternative to the toxic chemicals.

Due to the regulations on pesticides and other harmful chemicals, over time they have greatly impacted the environment in a negative way. Authors Rachel Carson and Terry Williams, who are both considered to be activists for the environment, use essays to present their thoughts. Carson is the writer of Fables for Tomorrow, she is directly expressing her thoughts about the use of pesticides on the environment. Williams is the writer of The Clan of the One Breasted Women, she is discussing a more personal matter about the creation of nuclear weapons, and the accidental bombs that alarmed any surrounding areas.

Rachael Carson’s motive of writing the book was to send a general image of the impact which the chemicals like DDT are having on our nature. The book opens

Rachel Carson is a famous activist in the environmental movement in the middle of the 20th century. This text, entitled a fable for tomorrow is an excerpt from her most famous book, silent spring. In fact this book raised the alarm about the use of chemicals, especially pesticides, which have a devastating effect on human health and the environment. In this passage Rachel Carson describes a fictitious town in the heart of America where everything is utopian, but in a very short period of time, those nearly ideal conditions of living were disturbed by some kind of white powder. I appreciated this passage for multiple reasons. First of all, the text is simple and easily understandable by the reader. Second of all the author approaches the topic using a fable instead of an argumentative essay.

Carson emphasizes the hazards of parathion by exposing its fatal consequences, by invoking a need for its prevention. For example, Carson claims that the issue of blackbirds eating nearby cornfields could have been more benevolently solved, but farmers resorted to sending airplanes on a “mission of death.” Carson uses warlike imagery through the farmers’ intention for the planes to be used to spread parathion against the birds instead of for transportation..Her dramatic phrasing for the operation depicts danger more seriously than if she had used less stirring language such as ‘to spread the poison,’ bringing public attention to the graveness of the situation and therefore the need to act. Moreover, Carson goes on to state that parathion is “not a specific for blackbirds,” but a ‘universal killer,’ implying that the poison is a threat to almost everything including humans. By providing a detail in the issue that relates to humans directly, she gives even those indifferent

Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, challenged the reader’s perspective between the chemicals we use and its effects on nature. She explains that our world needs balance and pesticides greatly affect that balance. Throughout this book Rachel Carson’s main theme was to explain the importance of life, its effect on the environment, and how the human population can help preserve life with the power of knowledge and action. With all of the knowledge we have now, she instills in the reader that we must come together in order to save the environment because in the end, we’re dealing with life.

Carson initiates a major environmental call to action to address the ongoing problem of farmers harming birds. She persuades her audience of Americans in the 1960’s to stand along side her to ban the use of deadly poisons that harm living creatures. Carson does so through her use of negative diction, imagery and an ethical appeal.

　　Environmental problems caused by pesticides issues, which alarmed people shockingly by the book Silence Spring, written by Rachel Carson, need to be dealt with those two challenges. In the article “A Fable for Tomorrow” from the book Silence Spring, Rachel Carson assumes the probable consequences of overusing pesticides. She imagines a town where “all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.” Then, an unknown disaster sweeps through the town. The vegetables wither, livestock