Pesticides Used In Silent Spring

1. Once pesticides were applied to the “pests”, the chemicals proceeded to terrorize the entirety of the environment. At the time, spraying was declared safe by scientists because it was only applied to a certain object or target. However, this misconception is completely false due to the water cycle. The water cycle is the continuous movement of water throughout the environment. Its steps — evaporation, condensation, and precipitation — allow this resource to constantly cycle from the clouds to the ground. There is no fear that water will ever run out because of the conservation of water law. Because of this, water is reused. As it moves it carries with it bits and pieces of everything it encounters. This could include dirt, waste, and even

It has gotten to a point that scientists cannot even identify each one, so they call them “gunk.” In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson discusses how dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT for short, in particular moved throughout the environment in this way. Another chemical, permethrin, would travel in the same way. Permethrin is an insecticide used mostly for mosquito control, crops, lawns, and animals. It is very common, being used in many forms within over 1,400 products. However, the molecules within permethrin are the polar opposite of those in water; so permethrin and water do not mix very well. This means that it does not contaminate groundwater, but it still moves throughout the water cycle. So, how this process works is, water falls in liquid or droplet form from clouds. As it hits the ground, it drains into larger bodies of water. This is where permethrin comes in. No matter what form this chemical is in, it will eventually find its way into these bodies of water as well. There, it mixes with the rainwater. The sun’s heat causes the water and whatever is mixed into it to evaporate into the clouds as a gas, where the entire process starts

Within an ecosystem, there are many factors that allow it to thrive. The producers are the organisms who function solely as food for other organisms. These organisms are plants who obtain energy through photosynthesis, which is eventually cycled throughout the entire food chain. Next in the food chain are the consumers, who are organisms that obtain food by eating producers or other producers. Both of these organisms are part of a food web, which is a model that shows the predatory relationships of various organism within an ecosystem. In other words, it maps out which organisms eat each other. In addition, there are trophic levels that show the positions of organisms in a food chain. They are represented by a pyramid with producers on the bottom, followed by consumers herbivores and carnivores above them. Another way of representing these relationships is through a food chain, or a hierarchy of consumers and producers in an order that shows the flow of energy between them as they are consumed. Pesticides have a large role in disrupting natural food chains. When pesticides are applied to a producer, rainfall does not wash away all of their residue. That which remains eventually becomes ingested by an unknowing consumer, poisoning it and sentencing it to a certain death it could not have avoided. Just like the flow of energy, whichever consumers eat these contaminated consumers are subject to the pesticides being passed down to them and suffering in the same way. For