Silent Spring: Sixty Years Later
First published in 1962, Silent Spring has become one of the foundational works of the modern environmental movement. Initially written to protest the indiscriminate mass use of poisonous pesticides and warn against their harmful impact to wildlife and human health, the book continues to have significance over half a century later.
With the mastery of an experienced storyteller, Rachel Carsen tells an all too familiar tale of the incompetence of fractionalized government, intentional ignorance and cynical disinformation by vested interests, collusion of public regulators and private corporations, the hubris of humanity, and our ignorance of nature’s delicate balance. The book could be as much written about climate change as it is about the bioaccumulation of toxins in increasing concentrations up the food chain.
The reader cannot help but feel shock, horror and sadness at humanity’s clumsy attempts to control pests, the common distribution of powerful chemicals for household use, and the wholesale condemnation of innocent and unsuspecting wildlife simply for being in the way. Even the names of the fluorinated hydrocarbons, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), chlordane, dieldrin, aldrin & heptachlor, sound like a suite of plagues. One wonders how we could so thoughtlessly apply these chemicals to our landscape, our food and ourselves and expect there to be no negative consequences?
Carsen carefully crafts a narrative to build a case against the chemical companies and pest control authorities, who colluded to literally spray poisons across huge swaths of the landscape from the air. The author describes how the chemical companies deliberately misinformed the public about the health hazards of their products and ignored mounting evidence of calamitous collateral damage. Carsen explains how the government accepted the manufacturers claims at face value and embarked on an enthusiastic and widespread reign of destruction without undertaking sufficient due diligence. From cigarettes to asbestos and insecticides, Silent Spring forces us to consider what other harmful products we still use without question, and who is (not) protecting the animals, people and planet.
At one point in the book, Carsen asks a powerful rhetorical question: if the Bill of Rights exists to protect Americans right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, surely they have the right to be protected from harmful aerial toxic sprays against their will and without their knowledge? This question is met with deafening silence. To explain why the government failed to do its job and protect public health from harmful toxins, Carsen illustrates how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) worked at cross-purposes to the Department of Agriculture.
While the FDA was aware and intolerant of DDT in human foods, it possessed no means to regulate the Department of Agriculture. In turn, the Department in Agriculture was fired by a zealous crusade to exterminate insects without bearing responsibility for the environmental or human health consequences. It would take until 1970, six years after Silent Spring sparked a public outcry, before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created to straddle both jurisdictions. The government dysfunction and finger pointing in Silent Spring bears an awful resemblance to the disjointed and delayed approach to climate change mitigation and bodes ill for the efficacy of our current policies.
Carsen’s style can be repetitive and exhaustive, separately detailing the impact of synthetic insecticides on birds, fishes, wildlife, crops, grazing animals and humans. Some of the chapters blend together and repeat what was said earlier in the book. This style is Carson’s attempt to build an irrefutable wealth of evidence and recreate in literary terms the dreadful repetition of the aerial spraying program and its horrific and indiscriminate consequences. The idea of finding a thousand dead and dying birds lying in a field is too terrible to imagine.
The chapter titled ‘And No Birds Sing’ describes the impacts of insecticides on birds and is not to be missed. With her heartbreaking and elegant prose, Carsen describes the tragic destruction of the birds, which are particularly sensitive to DDT and other insecticides, and the jarring loss of their colour and variety. Inspiring the book’s title, Carsen challenges the reader to imagine a spring without the joyful symphony of birdsong. This horrific achievement was nearly brought to fruition through a mixture of human ingenuity and recklessness.
The chapter titled ‘Needless Havoc’ describes the careless exposure of humans to insecticides via bioaccumulation in food, and is a skillful diffusion of the author’s supposed enviro-centrism. Carsen details with devastating frankness how poison mixed with fuel oil was literally sprayed from the air on people, children, livestock and produce. The recommended ‘safe’ dosages were often ignored and people were misinformed that the chemicals were harmless. The idea of the government enthusiastically and mindlessly poisoning its citizens from the air is incomprehensible, at least genocide is intentional. Throughout the entire chapter, Carsen underscores that the threats of toxic insecticides extend to humans too, not just to wildlife.
When Silent Spring was published, the chemical manufacturers and proponents of aerial spraying launched a vicious attack in an attempt to discredit Carsen. Similar to today, her critique of science came at a time when techno-optimism was at its peak. Powerful and vested interests attacked her gender, hysterical femininity, amateur credentials and imagined communist sympathies. She was criticized for her use of metaphor and literary flourishes, which by no means detract from the authority of the text and serve to make the book more accessible to the concerned lay-person. Once more reminiscent of the fossil fuel industry’s campaign to discredit climate scientists, the attacks largely centered on Carsen’s legitimacy as a source more than the claims presented in her book.
Carson’s detractors often labeled her as an extremist and hippie environmentalist, attempting to simplify and polarize her presentation of the issue. In fact, Carson worked as a marine biologist in the US Fish & Wildlife service and was the author of several critically acclaimed books. As a talented wordsmith, lover of nature and scientist, she was the ideal champion for the animal and human communities that did not have the knowledge or capabilities to protest. At no point did Carsen call for an outright ban on chemical insecticides and she conceded that they were useful in limited, targeted applications. Rather, Carsen advocated for the use of chemical insecticides only as a measure of last resort due to their high toxicity and indiscriminate effects. Carsen repeatedly points out that unwanted pests can often be controlled by introducing natural predators or diseases, measures which are more effective, inexpensive and self-sustaining.
The chapters often conclude with Carsen’s frustrated hopefulness: if only people knew, they would demand action. At the end of the second chapter, Carsen demands that the people be told the truth:
“There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. 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. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquillizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the current road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.” (Silent Spring, page 30)
To reach the public and give them the facts, Carsen cleverly employed a variety of communication strategies to persuade farmers, parents, physicians, birdwatchers and taxpayers that their lives were being negatively impacted. She attacked the contemporary insecticide practices as unhealthy, immoral, wasteful, ineffective and costly. These tactics were successful and resonated with many communities. The campaign to discredit Carsen unintentionally boosted her fame and led to further dissemination of her cry to arms. Tragically, Carson died of cancer less than two years after publishing Silent Spring and did not live to see the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, or the ban on DDT use in the United States in 1972.
Since Silent Spring was published, the public has become more sensitive to the risks of insecticides. Government regulators scrutinize the chemical manufacturers more closely, and there is a shift toward using naturally occurring bacteria and fungi to control invasive species. In 2009, the EU finally banned all aerial spraying, also known as crop dusting.
However, the more things change, the more they stay the same. DDT was banned in the US in 1972 but it is still used globally. The Trump presidency gutted the EPA and did its best to defang the agency and its ability to regulate industry. Aerial spraying practices are still used in North America, particularly against mosquitos bearing West Nile virus. In my hometown of Toronto, the authorities periodically authorize aerial spraying of BtK to control Gypsy Moth infestations. BtK is a supposedly selective bacterial infection which only targets the Gypsy Moth, but the uncertain long term efficacy and inconclusive impacts to health and safety warrant further investigation (Levin, 2009).
In short, we continue to seek quick solutions in repeated applications of chemicals rather than find natural predators for pests and reach a symbiotic balance. We continue to threaten bird populations with mass extinction by eradicating their sources of food. We continue to be insufficiently mindful of the potential for synergies between ‘safe’ insecticides and other chemical products such as fertilizers, which pollute watercourses and threaten aquatic life (Weston et. al, 2006).
It is an oft repeated cliché that Silent Spring changed the world, and it did, for a time. Few other books were so polarizing and pervasive immediately after being published, but many of the practices Carsen campaigned against are still in use today. Humans continue to practice clumsy, indiscriminate and ineffectual attempts to control pests with synthetic chemicals, thereby poisoning ourselves and our environment in the process.
Carsen was attacked for telling the truth and imploring her fellow citizens to listen and demand more from their government. Climate science today continues to be questioned by deniers, delayers and inactivists. The vitriol and tactics of climate change skeptics bears uncanny resemblance to the attempts to delegitimize Carsen. It is heartening that the attack on Carsen failed to silence her message, and worth noting that governments and businesses can lie and ignore the problem for only so long. Change will occur once the public begins to feel affected and notices the impacts. We must hope that this paradigm shift occurs in time to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Learning from the way Carsen targeted a myriad of diverse stakeholders, we must employ broad communication strategies to reach as many audiences as possible.
The central lesson from the saga of Silent Spring is that battles to save the environment, once won, do not necessarily endure. Laziness, carelessness and greed are always near at hand to encourage a retrenchment to undesirable and dangerous behaviour. We should be wary of attempts to backslide on commitments to reduce emissions. Despite the recent conclusion of COP-26, we are still pouring carbon into the atmosphere at an increasing rate. It is also more true than ever that humans live within nature, not without. If we succeed in destroying the environment, we will surely destroy ourselves. Carsen’s dire warning resonates sixty years later. We must draw inspiration from her courage to continue the struggle, no matter how thankless the task.
References:
Carsen, R. (1962), Silent Spring. Penguin Modern Classics.
Levin D. (2009) ‘Human Health Effects Resulting from Exposure to Bacillus thuringiensis Applied during Insect Control Programmes’, Use of Microbes for Control and Eradication of Invasive Arthropods. Progress in Biological Control, vol 6. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8560-4_16
Weston, D., Amweg, E., Mekerbri, A., Ogle, S. & Lydy, M. (2006) ‘Aquatic Effects of Aerial Spraying for Mosquito Control over an Urban Area,’ Environmental Science & Technology, 40(18), pp. 5817–5822. doi: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es0601540
