Book 268. Also 36/100 books that changed the world. Rachel Carson. "Silent Spring took Carson four years to complete. It meticulously described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals, including human beings, and caused cancer and genetic damage. A single application on a crop, she wrote, killed insects for weeks and months—not only the targeted insects but countless more—and remained toxic in the environment even after it was diluted by rainwater. Carson concluded that DDT and other pesticides had irrevocably harmed animals and had contaminated the world's food supply. The book's most haunting and famous chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow," depicted a nameless American town where all life—from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children—had been "silenced" by the insidious effects of DDT."
Jo Barkworth do you know this book? ( )

Important book. Many of the behaviors that she revealed over 60 years ago are still going on. The book is easy to read, interesting and appalling on every page. ( )

Detailing how attempts eliminate various insect species with chemical spraying end up killing birds and mammals, including humans, instead. Carson's beautiful writing made the horror stories easier to read and increased my appreciation for nature. I read part of it in a forest, listening to a jackdaw colony overhead and letting six mosquitos gather on my arm before deciding it was time to get up.

it was interesting to read this both in an historical context, and to realize how much still needs to be done. but seeing where we were when this was written, and how brutal the effects were on the insects, birds, fish, etc, and how long it took them to do anything was honestly astounding (while also not being surprising at all). i can see why this was so necessary and world shifting/changing.

This book should be required reading in all high schools before graduating, if just to keep generations from repeating the same mistakes. I'm sure students would get more out of this reality book over any other required fictional story any day. It is definitely a classic, written in 1962, the author brought together all deadly and lethal facets of broad-spectrum chemical sprays on this earth, in regards to all living creatures, great and small. She’s very plain spoken and easy to follow and understand.

Unfortunately, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, didn’t live long enough to see just how important her book was going to be to the world, and to see it jump-start a social revolution against broad-spectrum spray programs, and against all insecticides and herbicides being used so haphazardly throughout the world. She died in 1964, at age 56, of breast cancer, just 1-1/2 years after this book was published. The front cover states: “The Classic that Launched the Environmental Movement”. Silent Spring was definitely the catalyst that created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 1970, to which the Department of Agriculture would rightfully pass over their so-called job of “pesticide oversight”, and the Food Safety Inspection Service would also be transferred to be regulated by the EPA. Read this book SLOWLY! You might want to purchase this as an eBook to highlight and mark it up with notes. Unfortunately, mine was a library book.

Although, hopefully, most of these earlier highly toxic insecticides and herbicides have since been banned, every word written still applies today because we have only moved onto more "new and improved"…different chemicals, still spraying the crap out of everything, if it doesn’t eat us first, and still trusting the word of the federal government that all pesticides are “safe”, if applied in small doses.

You will be astounded with the liberties our government has taken with the use of hazardous chemicals over the years. The number of times they have used broad-spectrum spraying techniques to try and eradicate an infestation of just a single insect at times all across America, only to have it completely fail. The chemicals would end up only killing the enemies of the pest, and not the pest, themselves, opening the door for them to multiply beyond imagination, doubling and tripling the damage that was being done before. And not to mention the total disregard to the devastation to the wildlife and fish across America. This will really get your attention! She includes an extensive list of quality sources used, 54 pages worth, at the back of the book, organized by chapter (p. 301-355).

I’m not sure where we are at today, but even before the 1960’s, scientists were already beginning to find out about and test more biological controls, using parasites that are the enemies of the pests. They absolutely worked in most areas tested. Chemicals provide a temporary comfort, but, as we see and hear about even today, we lose out to even more resistant strains of weeds or other insects that are now free to move in and devour, when previously they were held in check by the balance of nature's system. ( )