2007 is the centennial of Rachel Carson's birth. The Rachel Carson
Homestead Association is planning four major events throughout the
year including a May 27 birthday party and sustainable feast at her
birthplace and home in Springdale, Pennsylvania.
Rachel Carson was born on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She
graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College),
earned a Masters in Marine Biology at Johns Hopkins, taught Zoology at
the University of Maryland, and eventually took a job with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. While there, she wrote three books about
the sea which gave her the financial independence to quit her
goverment job and begin the book which made her famous -- and
infamous.
Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after
World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn
the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In
Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural
scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way
humankind viewed the natural world.
Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as
an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a
vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the
rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson
called for new policies to protect human health and the environment.
Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against cancer. Her
witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new
generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.
Even before Silent Spring was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962,
there was strong opposition to it. As Time Magazine recounted in 1999:
Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision,
including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical
woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was
organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid - indeed,
the whole chemical industry - duly supported by the Agriculture
Department as well as the more cautious in the media.
Houghton Mifflin was pressured to suppress the book, but did not
succumb. Silent Spring was positively reviewed by many outside of the
agricultural and chemical science fields, and it became a runaway best
seller both in the USA and overseas. Again, Time Magazine claimed
that, within a year or so of publication:
"all but the most self-serving of Carson's attackers were backing
rapidly toward safer ground. In their ugly campaign to reduce a brave
scientist's protest to a matter of public relations, the chemical
interests had only increased public awareness."
Adopting Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a way you can help
yourself by helping the environment. IPM addresses pest problems
through a step by step process, with the least toxic response as a
first step. Pesticides are toxic, we use lots of them, we are exposed
to many different kinds and we do not know much about their long-term
health effects, especially in combination with each other and other
chemical exposures. Home and garden applications account for more
pesticide use on a per acre basis than agriculture. In the United
States, non-farmers use over 163 million pounds of pesticide active
ingredient, spending more than $2.1 billion per year
sources:
http://www.rachelcarsonhomestead.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson
http://www.ecotopia.org/ehof/carson/bio.html
******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm *
******************************************************
|
