Defending The Earth

Biologist Rachel Carson hoped her book would raise awareness about the dangers of chemicals and the delicate balance of ecosystems.

AP File photo

By KURT LOFT The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 27, 2007

TAMPA - Rachel Louise Carson refuses to fall silent.

One hundred years after her birth, her words still echo, etched in the minds of millions who care about the health of our lands, waters and skies. With her seminal book of 1962, "Silent Spring," Carson set in motion the modern environmental movement and transformed the relationship between people and nature.

Carson isn't around to celebrate her birthday today - she died of cancer in 1964 at age 56 - but she's very much alive in classrooms and the dialogue of science.

Her central theme of the human control of nature resonates for students of Melissa Grigione, who teaches environmental science at the University of South Florida.

"Beside the fact that she was a visionary, I use her work to draw an example of the linear relationship between pesticides and wildlife," Grigione says. "The book is legendary and should be assigned reading for everyone."

"Silent Spring" struck like a thunderbolt 45 years ago, when the country was still conducting atmospheric nuclear tests and controlling insects with a toxic arsenal of synthetic compounds without fully understanding the long-term consequences.

The book's message about manipulation of nature, the dangers of chemicals and the delicate balance of ecosystems continues to shape our environmental world view, says Jack Davis, a professor of environmental history at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"I think her book is one of the top 100 most important books of the 20th century," he says. "She raised awareness about the dangerous environmental change that was horrible not just to the nonhuman side of nature, but to humans themselves. The book made the connection between humans and nature by placing humans in nature."

"Silent Spring" often has been misinterpreted as a polemic against the use of pesticides. A biologist, Carson didn't oppose insect control, only the "indiscriminate use" of chemicals. She argued for an educated public because the public - not pesticide companies - must assume the risks involving toxins in the food chain. The book stresses how people are part of that chain and influenced by everything within it.

"She showed how contamination of the food chain would reach the top," Davis says. "And that's us."

Carson was well-prepared for her career calling. Born in rural Springdale, Pa., on May 27, 1907, she grew up with a deep love of nature, and her quiet, reflective demeanor soon found a home in writing.

After graduating from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) at age 22, she took a biology job at Woods Hole Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts (now Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Within three years, she earned a master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins.

Carson became the first woman scientist hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she wrote radio scripts, and earned extra cash freelancing feature stories on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. By the late 1930s, she was editor-in-chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a position of considerable influence over how Americans viewed their natural resources.

In her spare time, she wrote a trilogy of books on the sea, blending hard science with a lyrical writing style. These books secured Carson's reputation as one of the country's leading naturalists and gave her the financial freedom to retire from government service in 1952 to devote herself to research and writing.

Although she wrote numerous essays during her solitary time - she never married - much of her effort through the 1950s would set the stage for her magnum opus. "Silent Spring" brought to fruition her concerns over pollution, the hubris of the postwar military-industrial complex and society's lack of environmental vision.

DDT Was Her Target

But Carson needed a specific target at which to aim her arrow, and she found it in dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT, a synthetic pesticide developed during World War II to combat mosquitoes that spread malaria. It later was used heavily as an agricultural pesticide.

The more Carson learned about the effects of DDT, the more dedicated she became in her crusade: "What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened," she wrote in an independent essay, "and that nothing I could do would be more important."

Carson found that DDT in small doses can be an effective pest-control chemical, but indiscriminate use accumulates in the soil, where it reaches a threshold of absorption that contaminates the food chain. DDT is "persistent and long-lasting," she wrote, "and each application is merely added to the quantity remaining from the previous one."

DDT was believed to be linked to cancer. When it enters the body, it finds its way to organs rich in fat, especially the liver, where it attacks healthy cells by entering their plasma membranes. By the late 1950s, Carson reported, DDT was prevalent throughout the food chain, with alarming concentrations in milk.

For the first time in history, she wrote in Chapter 3 of "Silent Spring," "every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death."

Carson, who also wrote "The Edge of the Sea" and "The Sense of Wonder," wasn't without her detractors. After "Silent Spring" was published, the pest control lobby rallied, accusing her of liberal bias and bad science. The insecticide industry called her misguided, arguing that uncontrolled (chemical-free) insect populations would denude farms and throw America's food bounty into chaos.

But too many people read "Silent Spring," which appeared at a time of growing mistrust for government science and a widening gap between economics and environmentalism.

"We still talk in terms of conquest," Carson wrote. "We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature."

It took 10 years, but in 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency declared DDT a toxicity class II substance and banned its use. Time magazine later named Carson one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

Carrying On The Cause

Carson's influence, and her clear, compelling writing, galvanized a legion of environmentalists and educators, including Nanette Holland O'Hara, public outreach coordinator for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

"Although I did not know it at the time, reading 'Silent Spring' as a teenager sparked a passion for protecting the environment that would become both a lifelong vocation and avocation," she says. "Carson made me aware, maybe for the first time, of the profound power human beings wield over the natural world."

Christopher M. Reddy, a marine chemist at Woods Hole, says Carson wrote a heavyweight scientific book for lay readers, convincing them of the subject's importance. "'Silent Spring' is powerful because she eloquently described a scientific problem and mobilized people to do something about it," Reddy says. "She was a very good writer and had a pressing topic."

Carson was not a radical. Her approach was tempered by good science, common sense and a compassion for nature. But she was relentless in her quest to show the difference between thought and thoughtlessness, between managing and mangling the environment. "Silent Spring" made the connection.

"The more clearly we focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us," she once said, "the less taste we shall have for destruction."

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.