Silent Spring

It's about time I got around to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Having worked in an Environmental Charter School for most of the past three years, I really should have read this book at some point in time. In its time, Silent Spring revolutionized how Americans interact with the environment. Now, almost 50 years later, much of her book still rings true.

Carson's primary purpose to writing this book was to inform the world of the negative consequences of using chemical insecticides. She walks through several arenas, looking at how chemicals impacted wildlife, water, soil, and humans. She also proposes several solutions. She is best known for exposing DDT as a toxic killer, particularly of our national symbol, the bald eagle. Thanks to her book, DDT was banned, and now the bald eagle is no longer on the endangered species list. She also warns of several other formerly common insecticides.

Some of the material in the book seems like common sense. Unfortunately, both farmers and homeowners still apply chemicals as a form of insect control. It should be (but isn't) common sense that a chemical that kills insects just might be harmful to humans (or other wildlife).

But, objectors say, how can we control harmful insect populations? Aren't chemicals the easiest, most effective, and cheapest way to control insect problems? Carson has answers to that. It's not the cheapest method - natural solutions such as crop rotation or the introduction of a predator of the insect can be just as cheap if not cheaper. Sterilization of male insects can also be cheaper in the long run. Most effective? Hardly. Most insects rapidly (in the span of a decade or less) can develop resistance to virtually every chemical used to get rid of them. In some cases, application of pesticides has increased the insect population because it was more effective at killing a pest's predators than the pest itself. Studies have also shown sterilization of males and the introduction of a new predator as being far more effective. Easiest? Perhaps. But chemicals are often required year after year, whereas some other methods are only needed once every 10 years or more.

Some people criticize Carson for not using proper scientific research. I'm not sure where that comes from - she read quite a lot in preparation for this book. Her sources are in the back of the book (not footnoted) but include several references per page in many cases. It wasn't meant to be a research paper, but a compelling review of the science out there on the impact of chemical pesticides on the environment.

The book is well written and usually engaging. There were a few dry spots in my reading, but that may have been due as much to my prior knowledge as anything else. For a science book, it holds up remarkably well to the test of time.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

35 books, 133 days...at this rate I'll read 96 books