Forty years ago today the world was changed by a book.
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was published on Sept. 27, 1962, giving an impassioned, yet well-reasoned voice to the argument in favor of conservation over chemicals, and people over pollution.
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Rachel Carson holds a copy of her 1962 book on the dangers of pesticides to the environment, "Silent Spring." (1963 photograph by the Associated Press) |
It moved the environmental debate from the fringes of political, social and scientific discourse to one of central importance to human health and the future of this green and blue planet.
The book sparked controversy and a worldwide environmental movement. It was a major factor in the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and improvements in air and water quality. In 1972, eight years after her death, it resulted in the banning of the pesticide DDT in the United States.
Most important, the clear, eloquent text by the Springdale native and 1929 graduate of what is now Chatham College continues to inspire people to care for the natural world and their own health.
Carson's alma mater will mark the anniversary today by announcing a series of environmental initiatives that the college will take, including purchasing wind-generated electric power, switching to nontoxic paints and phasing out toxic cleaning supplies and pesticides.
The college is also bringing in Monica Moore, executive director and founder of Pesticide Action Network North America, as a keynote speaker for the anniversary.
Moore said that Carson, "through faultless research, beautiful writing and inspiring arguments ... raised questions and promoted the idea that we have a choice and have the right to make that choice."
Moore, an internationally recognized expert on the chemical industry, pesticide regulation and alternative strategies for reducing use of toxic chemicals, will speak this evening, capping Chatham's daylong program commemorating publication of "Silent Spring."
The school will also announce:
Starting immediately, wind generation will be used to provide 10 percent of the school's electric power -- the highest percentage of any college or university in the state -- with a goal to boost that to 15 percent by 2015.
Use of toxic cleaning chemicals and bleached paper will be phased out in favor of nontoxic cleaning supplies from a Philadelphia company, Green Village Inc. The college hopes to save $15,000 a year through the switch, more than enough to pay for the purchase of the slightly higher-priced wind energy.
In a partnership with PPG Industries, the college will switch to using paints, thinners and solvents free of volatile organic compounds -- VOCs -- which have been found to be toxic, carcinogenic and contribute to the production of unhealthy smog.
It will revamp and place greater emphasis on its nearly 2-year-old campus recycling program.
It will eliminate use of herbicides, beginning with the immediate banning of Roundup, a broad-range herbicide made by Monsanto.
"I think it's untenable that the college of Rachel Carson would use products from Monsanto, the firm that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to discredit her and her research," explained Ellen Dorsey, director of Chatham's Rachel Carson Institute.
Dorsey said the cleaning product, paper, paint and pesticide changes are part of the college's ongoing Toxic Reductions & Alternatives on Campus initiative, which will continue to identify additional products that could be replaced with nontoxic alternatives.
"We didn't anticipate that we would find products this good that would also save us money this quickly," Dorsey said.
But the economic benefits are icing on the anniversary cake. The primary aims of the initiative are to improve the campus environment and protect workers' health while implementing "Silent Spring's" precautionary principle, which called for long-term research on chemical products before they are introduced for public use and consumption.
"What Carson said in 'Silent Spring' is that there are alternatives and we have the capacity to modify and limit our exposures with such simple steps," Dorsey said.
Carson, a zoologist and marine biologist, learned about pesticide problems during the 17 years she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Written from 1958 to 1962, "Silent Spring" reviewed the effects insecticides and pesticides were having on songbird populations throughout the United States. Their declining numbers produced the silence of the book's title.
The book, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., describes how pesticides and insecticides were applied almost universally to farms, forests, gardens and homes with little regard to environmental degradation, contamination of food sources, or destruction of wildlife.
"Carson put things in ways that people could understand," Moore said, "not just about the hazards of pesticides, but on the deeper question of whether it makes sense to pursue a chemical warfare strategy as a basis for our relationship with insects and other species and nature itself."
Despite a concerted, well-financed and certainly sexist campaign by the chemical industry to discredit the book and its author -- as a rare female scientist, her findings were called "hysterical" -- the immediate public response to "Silent Spring" was enormous.
Advance sales totaled 40,000 copies. Another 150,000 copies were purchased by the Book of the Month Club.
Then-President John F. Kennedy read "Silent Spring" and publicly cited it for raising previously unvoiced concerns about chemical pesticide use.
He ordered the Department of Agriculture and the Public Health Service to review the issue and had his science adviser prepare a report that noted that "until the publication of Silent Spring, people were generally unaware of the toxicity of pesticides."
Ironically in this 40th anniversary year for "Silent Spring," recent outbreaks of pest-borne disease -- malaria in Africa and West Nile virus in the United States -- have caused new interest and use of chemicals and spraying to suppress mosquito populations.
Moore said that strategy is shortsighted and bound to fail since no pesticide will kill all mosquito populations and the diseases can be carried by other animals.
"Spraying indiscriminately is risky to those same human populations -- the very young and the old -- that are at danger due to West Nile," she said. "It takes a smarter strategy. New York started spraying but has now switched to going after the larval stage of the mosquito with more targeted pesticides."
Moore said the Stockholm Conventions, which call for the phasing out of chemicals like DDT that build up in the environment, have caused some nations concern because it would remove a low-cost mosquito and malaria control. Zimbabwe already has begun to reintroduce DDT and other nations in sub-Saharan Africa have expressed interest.
"The debate has actually spurred more funding to find alternatives to broad-based pesticide spraying," Moore said. "We always need alternatives. That's what Rachel Carson said."
Moore will speak at 7 p.m. today in the Welker Room of Laughlin Music Hall on the Chatham campus in Squirrel Hill. it is free and open to the public.
Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
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