The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly
to take into account these most fundamental
considerations. As crude as the cave man's
club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the
fabric of life--a fabric on the one hand delicate
and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and
resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected
ways. These extraordinary capacities of life
have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical
control who have brought to their task no
"high-minded orientation", no humility before the
vast forces with which they tamper.
The "control of nature" is a phrase conceived in
arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology
and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature
exists for the convenience of man. The concepts
and practices of applied entomology for the most
part date from that Stone Age of science. It is
our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science
has armed itself with the most modern and
terrible weapons, and that in turning them against
the insects it has also turned them against the
earth.
-Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Despite the power of Carson's argument, despite actions
like the banning of DDT in the United
States, the environmental crisis has grown worse,
not better. Perhaps the rate at which the disaster
is increasing has been slowed, but that itself is
a disturbing thought. Since the publication of Silent
Spring, pesticide use on farms alone has doubled
to 1.1 billion tons a year, and production of these
dangerous chemicals has increased by 400 percent.
We have banned certain pesticides at home, but
we still produce them and export them to other countries.
This not only involves a readiness to
profit by selling others a hazard we will not accept
for ourselves; it also reflects an elemental failure
to comprehend that the laws of science do not observe
the boundaries of politics. Poisoning the
food chain anywhere ultimately poisons the food
chain everywhere.
-Al
Gore
It is the premise of Silent Spring that the Age of Chemicals represents an impending disaster for mankind, that use and overuse of chemical compounds is going to cause enormous health problems by both direct contact and as they work their way up the food chain. Carson seized on declining bird populations as an early warning sign that the effects were already being felt in animal populations. She used the metaphor of a Silent Spring, a Spring without birdsong, to convey the horror of where we were headed. As Al Gore laments above, her warnings were largely unheeded and the use of chemicals has grown rapidly. So, we should all be dead right?
That's the problem with calling this one of the "Best" books of the
century. The title "Best" should indicate that the book conveys some
fundamental and timeless human truths. It would be more accurate to say
that Silent Spring is a "great" book. Even then, Silent
Spring is undoubtedly an important and influential book, but it is
great only in the sense that Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle
of Population (1798) was great (or The
Communist Manifesto and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and Mein Kampf for that matter). It is great because it had
a profound influence on attitudes and actions, despite the fact that it
was completely wrong. At the end of a Century that has seen the widespread
use of chemicals accompany tremendous lengthening of human life spans,
deep cuts in infant mortality rates and the revival of most endangered
species, isn't it time to acknowledge that the argument of Rachel Carson's
Silent
Spring was a complete fallacy? Apparently the intelligentsia
doesn't think so.
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (F)
