Silent Spring

The CLASSIC that LAUNCHED the ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT A small dedication to Silent Spring and Rachel Carson's idea of ecology click below to

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Class Project Websites

Here is the complete list of websites for other projects completed by the same class this semester for EWP 290 at SUNY ESF. 

Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire

http://desertsolitaireewp290.tumblr.com/

Rachel Carson Silent Spring

http://chmaldon.tumblr.com/

Al Gore: Earth in the Balance

http://earthinbalance.weebly.com/

Aldo Leopold A Sand County Almanac

http://asandcountyalmanac.weebly.com/

Richard Luov Last Child in the Wilderness

http://lastchildinthewoods.webs.com/

Michael Pollan The Omnivore’ Dilemma

http://notfallen4u2.wix.com/httpmichaelpollanauthorcom

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Crocus (by Dendroica cerulea)

[diy]

“bee box" made by goshawk on DIY.

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Something simple to help promote life in all it's forms. 

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President Obama has budgeted $1.1 billion for the Bureau of Land Management in Fiscal Year 2015, which would enable the BLM’s 10,000+ employees to continue to manage the responsible development of conventional and renewable energy on public lands, conserve valuable wildlife habitat as well as cultural and historic resources, and implement innovative landscape scale management approaches.

Read the FY 2015 BLM Budget in Brief  for a snapshot of the agency’s priorities including: safe and responsible energy development; decision-making based on sound science and innovative data analysis; and national partnerships that support mission activities that benefit the American people.

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Ben Zink, 2014

     With the boom of the biotech industry, genetically modified crops have gained much publicity. Much testing must be done in a new field such as this, which is often over looked. A test that has unknown results could be very dangerous to environmental and human health. This is evident from the agri-biotech companies in Hawaii as addressed in the article Trouble in Paradise. Agriculture companies such as Pioneer test pesticides on their GM crops, and are covering it up with a peculiar scent. One resident states, “This week would make it six weeks straight that they've been spraying. It’s been 13 years and they are still doing it.” He lets out a sharp, frustrated breath. “Nothing has changed.” These chemicals have a putrid smell to them, and the companies are covering up the smell with a bubblegum scent inside. “The first time I smelled it I thought my neighbor’s house was burning down. Now they use a bubblegum scent to cover it up.” Kabutan’s respiratory issues have landed him in the emergency room several times, though the doctors could never figure out what the problem was…” This article, published more than 50 years after Silent Spring shows the power of the chemical and agriculture industries have.

Work Cited:

Mitra, Maureen Nandini. "Trouble in Paradise." Earth Island Journal Spring 2014 (2014): n. pag. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

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Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area turns 24 today!

On March 5, 1980, President Jimmy Carter amended the National Parks & Recreation Act of 1978 to establish Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon. 

Today, the site hosts 350,000 visitors a year who come to see the reclaimed quarries. Its rock faces and offshore islands are host to a peregrine falcon pair, bald eagles, and a plethora of marine birds who use the area as a nesting site.  In addition, the BLM manages pristine tide pools and provides guided tours of the historical lighthouse. Visitors can now hike the Salal Hill to enjoy the surrounding views of the Central Oregon Coast.

Learn more about the Yaquina Head Oustanding Natural Area, established this day in history: http://on.doi.gov/1lZfhcC

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Meet the World’s Smallest Rabbit.

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbits are the world’s smallest and among the rarest. 

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Turns out this little guy is making a comeback thanks to a few helping hands. Along with sage grouse, this is a species which reflects the health of the United States sagebrush ecology through its population. It's interesting to think this wasn't a particular species which was mentioned in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), but the ecology and issues of sage brush is still consistent with today it seems. 

Here's some more information:

United States Fish and Wildlife Service Bio

WAZA Breeding and Reintroduction Project

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Silent Spring Excerpt

This excerpt of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 11. Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias, captures the essence of the whole text in one swift motion. 

"The system by which the Food and Drug Administration establishes maximum permissible limits of contamination, called "tolerances," has obvious defects. Under the conditions prevailing it provides mere paper security and promotes a completely unjustified impression that safe limits have been established and are being adhered to. As to the safety of allowing a sprinkling of poisons on our food -- a little on this, a little on that -- many people contend, with highly persuasive reasons, that no poison is safe or desirable on food. In setting a tolerance level the Food and Drug administration reviews tests of the poison on laboratory animals and then establishes a maximum level of contamination that is much less than required to produce symptoms in the test animal. This system, which is supposed to ensure safety, ignores a number of important facts. A laboratory animal, living under controlled and highly artificial conditions, consuming a given amount of a specific chemical, is very different from a human being whose exposures to pesticides are not only multiple but for the most part unknown, unmeasurable and uncontrollable. Even if 7 parts per million of DDT on the lettuce in his luncheon salad were "safe," the meal includes other foods, each with allowable residues, and the pesticides on his food are, as we have seen, only a part, and possible a small part, of his total exposure. This pilling up of chemicals from many different sources creates a total exposure that cannot be measured. It is meaningless, therefore, to talk about the "safety" of any specific amount of residue. "

- Rachel Carson, Silent Spring - 11. Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias

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Silent Spring and Current Ecology

Alex Kellam, 2014 

    Silent Spring brought the term and concept of ecology to the general public for the first time. It helped to make people realize that humans are part of the ecological system and they have a responsibility to take care of it. It’s important to remember that without Carson’s book, today’s regulations and tests done on chemicals put into the environment and food supply would not have been done or would have taken years longer to come into fruition. Carson and Silent Spring are credited for being the main launchers of the modern environmental movement. To this day environmental activists still look to Carson’s work for inspiration.

      Just like in Carson’s time there are still toxic chemicals that pose a threat, such as BPA and endocrine disruptors. As noted in Silent Spring, these chemicals pose a threat to wildlife and humans, yet companies still use them to increase their profits. Thanks to Carson, people are more aware of these chemicals and can use their voices to speak out against them. Recently, BPA for example, has been banned from many products such as water bottles and baby products. While these are steps in the right direction, man still has a long way until they are moving towards the imaginary perfect world as in 1. A Fable for Tomorrow.              

   Works Cited:

Hickman, Leo. "What Is the Legacy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring?" Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

Levine, Jenny. "FDA's BPA Ban: A Small, Late in the Right Direction." US PIRG. N.p., 17 July 2013. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

Stoll, Mark. "RACHEL CARSON'S SILENT SPRING, A BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD." Legacy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Environment and Society Portal, 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

"Silent Spring and the Birth of the Modern Environmental Movement | The Paley Center for Media." The Paley Center for Media. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

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Silent Spring Rhetorical Precis

Benjamin Zink, 2014

     In the informative book, Silent Spring (1962), author Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and conservationist, asserts that we are poisoning the natural world and argues that DDT and other pesticides, herbicides and various chemicals which are the root of health issues in humans, animals, the surrounding environment and ecosystems. By supplying the reader with information about the chemical industry and pollution, Carson builds her claims about environmental poisoning using her own research, reliable governmental sources and facts, and public economic information. Carson’s purpose is to bring forward issues such as a prioritization of economics over human health in order to ensure the protection of future generations. The author’s audience consists of a broad spectrum of professionals and amateur scientists passionate for environmental awareness and can also appeal to those without college degrees as the language is simple yet powerful; she addresses readers with a tone that is persuasive and informative.

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Silent Spring Literature

Benjamin Zink, 2014

     Rachel Carson brought forward issues that were already prevalent in her book Silent Spring. The issues were not created by her, but brought to light through her literature. It could be seen as a vector leading to the “green” era we are now experiencing. Information around the issues presented in the book was not mainstream news prior to publication, so they were often over looked. Carson synthesized and summarized information from various sources and presented it in a way which shocked the American nation as a whole, with effects felt around the globe. A new understanding was instituted about the alteration and destruction of necessary life processes. As she states in her book Silent Spring, “what is safe today may be very dangerous tomorrow” and this understanding has continued to develop and change in the fifty years since the publication of Carson’s thought provoking book.

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Silent Spring Annotated Bibliography

A brief annotated bibliography of select, widely used sources in Silent Spring by Jessica Stottlar.

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Brown, William L., Jr., “Mass Insect Control Programs: Four Case                     Histories,” Psyche, Vol. 68 (1961), Nos. 2-3

    This source provides information about the government funded insect programs using toxic chemicals on a large scale. It also includes information about the success of failure of such programs; both examples in Silent Spring were failures.

Elton, Charles S., The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. New           York: Wiley, 1958

    This source discusses the spread of disease through insects and the apparent need for insecticides.

Wallace, George J., “Insecticide and Birds,” Audubon Mag., Jan.-Feb.              1959.

      Wallace in the article discusses the effects of chemicals on sprays like insecticides on song birds. A robin is one of his main examples and he shows the effect of earthworms contaminated with DDT on the robins. He discovered that the robin poisonings and many other song bird poisonings linked back the spraying of Dutch elm trees. In the article Wallace defines his findings saying he attempted to stay as factual as possible concerning his research.

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Language of Silent Spring

Alex Kellam and Jess Stottlar, 2014

        In Silent Spring Carson opens with the description of a beautiful peaceful town, but soon the town is overcome with “a shadow of death” and she tells of how everything is dying. She explains at the end of the chapter that this town doesn't actually exist, but that soon many towns will match its description. This leaves a lasting impact on the readers for the rest of the book. As the book progresses she becomes more factual and uses her knowledge to tell the reader of environmental tragedies. She tells the reader that the current chemical use needs to be fixed, explaining that it has lead to localized die-offs of animal populations where the chemicals have been used. She stresses that if the mistreatment of the environment continues there will be dire consequences. In this way she phrases her book dramatically without emotionally expressing her opinion.

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Tone of Silent Spring

Alex Kellam, 2014

     Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring discusses the dangers of putting insecticides and herbicides into the environment in a new way. Though this is an urgent topic Carson was able to put the facts together in a way that seems to the reader as though she is telling a story. Carson’s tone is formal, appealing to the educated, but is written in such a way that nearly anyone can read it. Carson’s writing inspires her readers to see the beauty, harmony, and importance of nature.

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Thanks to Heather Creech, Director, Global Connectivity and staff and associates for the following excerpt which is the start of a timeline dedicated to sustainable development on a global level.

"1962 Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, brings together research on toxicology, ecology and epidemiology to suggest that agricultural pesticides are building to catastrophic levels, linked to damage to animal species and human health."

Based on this timeline, Silent Spring launched the evolution of ecological consciousness. This added value and validity to the publication as a source of inspiration to a broad spectrum of varying environmental movements, despite contrasting thoughts. This single publication was the root of sustainable development according to Creech, allowing for growth in a field now known to be incredibly influential to the modern human. 

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     In 1962 when Silent Spring was published it helped to open people’s eyes to the danger of chemicals and helped to create a new attitude towards protecting nature. Even in more modern times people still respect the message Carson puts across in her book. Silent Spring has been ranked in many best book lists of the century and even of all time. On Random House’s Modern Library list of 100 Best Nonfiction books of the twentieth century it ranked 5th, it even made the conservative National Review’s same list. Silent Spring still gets such praise and attention now because the messages Carson gives in her book are true now more than ever.

     The book is timeless in the influence it has on others, inspiring greater leaders such as Nobel Prize winner Al Gore to spread the word about being conscious of the environment. Even giant corporations and chains have been affected by Carson’s movement that started almost half a century ago. Giant supermarket chains and even Walmart stores carry organic foods to give people the options of food without risk of chemicals, organic food now counts as a large sector of agricultural production. The perfect example of how significant Carson still is at this day and age is the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an international center for scholarly study started in 2009. This center represents the power of her writing to bring about change and how it still has a lasting impact today.

   Brief Annotated Bibliography of source with link to author biography:

Stoll, Mark. "RACHEL CARSON'S SILENT SPRING, A BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD." Legacy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Environment and Society Portal, 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

     Details the outcomes of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and her influence in helping to shape the modern day organic food movement and FDA regulations. This source is recent, within the last two years, accentuating its reliability. 

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How ‘Silent Spring’ Ignited the Environmental Movement

Article By ELIZA GRISWOLD, NYT; 2012

Photo by Valero Doval