The Effective Use Of Pesticides In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

During the early twentieth century, advances in chemistry produced a battery of pesticides that were originally hailed for raising crop yields and controlling disease-carrying insects. The most famous of these pesticides was DDT. DDT’s discoverer, Paul Muller, even won the Nobel Prize. However, people were oblivious to the dangers pesticides posed to people and the environment. For example, when DDT is repeatedly sprayed, toxic amounts begin to accumulate in the environment. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, was greatly concerned about such dangers, and wrote Silent Spring to raise public awareness. In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson brought awareness of such dangers, reporting that even small doses of pesticides applied regularly can build up

In her book Silent Spring, Carson warned that “we stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have been traveling on is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress at great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork in the road-the one ‘less traveled by’- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the Earth” (Carson 277). In Silent Spring, Carson warned that if humanity continued along its present course of environmental neglect, there would be disastrous consequences to follow. In fact, Carson described just this sort of disaster, “a strange blight” that mysteriously sickened people and animals alike (Carson 2-3). Consequently, humanity must pick the alternate, environmentally conscious path in order to prevent catastrophe. Carson’s book was popular after its release, but many groups, especially the pesticide industry, accused Carson of hyperbole. As a result, Carson appeared on television to defend her position. The Smithsonian Magazine reported that: “in April 1963, 15 million Americans watched CBS Reports' ‘The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson.’ …Her thoughtful and reserved presentation struck a

Silent Spring “had a remarkable impact, perhaps more so than any other environmentalist book of the last century, and it has remained continuously in print since its publication. Silent Spring is often credited with having changed the scope and nature of the environmental movement, and helping trigger the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)” (Lerner). Silent Spring was a driving force behind the creation of the EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is responsible for regulating and enforcing the myriad of laws that protect our environment today. The FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) was one such law. Originally enacted in 1910, the FIFRA was intended to protect farmers from manufacturers who were selling "adulterated or ineffective pesticides" (Bearden). During this time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture enforced the law. In 1972, FIFRA underwent a major overhaul, and enforcement was shifted to the EPA, due to concerns that pesticides were harming wildlife and consumers. As mentioned previously, Silent Spring was a major factor in bringing awareness to these concerns. The current FIFRA states that “except as provided by this Act, no person in any State may distribute or sell to any person any pesticide that is not registered under this Act. To the