"Carson's particular genius was in making science come so alive that the reader did not think of it as science," notes Mr. Souder. "Silent Spring" was only one of many such polemics, but it is the one that got read. This is an important point. All sorts of people were warning of potential dangers of synthetic chemicals, the science of which was only vaguely understood at the time. Six months before "Silent Spring," Knopf published "Our Synthetic Environment," about chemical toxicity in food and the environment. It sank like a rock.."
Because I am re-discovering that American South bugs can be the size of Cessna single-engine planes in the summer, I can understand why society was driven to scatter deadly toxins in order to kill the common housefly.
I grew up on a swine farm in the 1970s, and let me tell you there were times when my parents would have used anything to knock down the swarms in the hoghouses. Including fogs of DDT.
No comments:
Post a Comment