How 'Silent Spring' Ignited the Environmental Movement
Sept. 21, 2012
On June 4, 1963, less than a year after the controversial
environmental classic "Silent Spring" was published, its author,
Rachel Carson, testified before a Senate subcommittee on pesticides.
She was 56 and dying of breast cancer. She told almost no one. She'd
already survived a radical mastectomy. Her pelvis was so riddled with
fractures that it was nearly impossible for her to walk to her seat at
the wooden table before the Congressional panel. To hide her baldness,
she wore a dark brown wig.
"Every once in a while in the history of mankind, a book has appeared
which has substantially altered the course of history," Senator Ernest Gruen-ing, a Democrat from Alaska, told Carson at the time.
...
...
"Silent Spring" presents a view of nature compromised by synthetic
pesticides, especially DDT. Once these pesticides entered the
biosphere, Carson argued, they not only killed bugs but also made
their way up the food chain to threaten bird and fish populations and
could eventually sicken children
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/how-silent-spring-ignited-the-environmental-movement.html
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