Off Our Bookshelves

The first book we are reviewing is the first for several reasons...

• It is the book credited with kick-starting the environmental movement in the 60' and 70's


• It's written by the woman recently voted the top Earthshaker by The Guardian


• The author is named 'one of the most influential women' by the NYT, and was in the TIME 100.

Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

The short review:

Scary indictment of pesticides that changed laws and may have inspired a global movement.

The long review :

Who was she?- Aqauatic Biologist with an MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins - Worked at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries - Died of breast cancer in 1964, shortly after the publication of Silent Spring.

What did she say?- Pesticides and chemicals were being used indiscriminatley and without regard to their impact on nature and health. Sound familiar? It is because she wasn't the first to say it and wont be the last, but she did make it clear and hard to ignore. She calls for restrictions on, safe disposal of and wise use of chemicals.

She is criticized by the chemical industry for being responsible for a DDT ban (which came about because the President's Science Advisory Committee reported on the dangers of indiscriminate use). Her book however is more than just about one pesticide, and any reading of it will show.

"Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid - indeed, the whole chemical industry - duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media." Time Magazine, 1999 quoted here.

Her book mentions Dieldrin, Aldrin, Toxaphene, Chlordane, Heptachlor, Lindane and many other chemicals proven to cause damage to living organisms..

The NRDC has this to say:

"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 notesand 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."

More research on hormone disrupting chemicals we use so frequently and thoughtlessly have proven that chemicals in our food, our pesticides, cleaning chemicals and clothes have had a serious effect on human health. One area we in Kuwait should be specially concerned with is the fact that they cause Diabetes, cancer and ADHD.

Recognition:

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Rachel Carson Room at the EPA
The Rachel Carson Prize in Norway
Rachel Carson Bridge in Pittsburgh
The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge

If you can only read one chapter:

Chapter 7 'Needless Havoc'- Tells the tale of pesticide spraying of entire communities like the Aldrin spraying of Michigan suburbs, the heptachlor spraying of Joliet Illinois, the dieldrin spraying of Sheldon Illinois, and many other cases where wildlife and health were affected by pesticides.

Quotes from the book:

"This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged"

"We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge..."

Quotes from others:

"It really scared me", she admits, "At the time hundreds of big wild birds were dying in Sweden. I couldn’t understand why, and then I realised that they were eating polluted seeds in the fields". EU Member of Parliament talking to WWF about Silent Spring.

"DDT has been collected. It is highly toxic to fish and invertebrates, can cause sex changes and eggshell thinning in bird species and damage the heart, liver, and nervous system in mammals. DDT has also been associated with reduced lactation in human mothers and is thought to cause cancer." WWF

"until the publication of Silent Spring, people were generally unaware of the toxicity of pesticides." The President's Science Advisory Committee report, quoted by Frontline.

Sensible or fanatic? Book of proofs or just a hysterical account? Make your own mind up, read the book... Silent Spring

Related reading:

Toxic Sludge is Good For You- The Plutonium files - A Civil Action (and the film version of it)