The Language of Composition: "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly.

A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature.

Since the mid-1940s over 200 basic chemicals have been created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as “pests”; and they are sold under several thousand different brand names.

Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?

This worldwide migration has been studied and graphically described by the British ecologist Charles Elton in his recent book The Ecology of Invasions.

Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, “idealizes life with only its head out of water, inches above the limits of toleration of the corruption of its own environment....Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”

Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, “idealizes life with only its head out of water, inches above the limits of toleration of the corruption of its own environment....Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”

The crusade to create a chemically sterile, insect-free world seems to have engendered a fanatic zeal on the part of many specialists and most of the so-called control agencies.

“The regulatory entomologists...function as prosecutor, judge and jury, tax assessor and collector and sheriff to enforce their own orders," said Connecticut entomologist Neely Turner.

The most flagrant abuses go unchecked in both state and federal agencies.

I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm.

Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.

When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth.

We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts.