APES- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
CHAPTER 10 SUMMARY
Aerial spraying of pesticides has very rapidly become common practice, and is largely unquestioned and indiscriminate. However, recent, disastrous campaigns - against the gypsy moth in the Northeast and the fire ant in the South - have caused some understandable public misgivings about such programs.
CHAPTER 16 SUMMARY
As Charles Darwin predicted with his theory of evolution, the fittest have survived: pests are getting stronger and more resistant with incredible speed. Many of the insects developing immunity to pesticides carry infectious diseases. Awareness of this problem has been slow to spread, but resistance among insect populations has not. Dr. Charles Elton called this issue "the early rumblings of what may become an avalanche..."
CHAPTER 9 SUMMARY
Carson begins with a nostalgic description of the idyllic salmon breeding grounds of the Miramichi, a river in New Brunswick, Canada. She describes their journey from the Atlantic upstream to their spawning grounds in rich detail, before revealing that pesticides have had a destructive impact here, too. Spraying to prevent the spread of budworm populations in Canada's balsam forests doused millions of acres with DDT in 1954, including the Miramichi.
CHAPTER 17 SUMMARY
Carson makes reference to the well-known Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken" to urge her readers to take the road "less traveled by" instead of the smooth superhighway of modernity, which leads down the path of escalating aggression against the natural world, which could backfire on humanity. She argues that the public has a right to know the frightening risks associated with chemical controls.
CHAPTER 12 SUMMARY
Carson's contributions to our modern understanding of environmental health cannot be underestimated. She provided an early platform for the idea that, in this new era, the greatest threats to human health were the toxins created by humans themselves. This is a warning to the public, whose awareness of the dangers of radiation should be extended to dangerous pesticides.
CHAPTER 13 SUMMARY
From the macro scale of entire ecosystems, Carson has narrowed her focus first to the human body and now to the functioning of individual cells. This is part of her project of education, as she gives a popular voice to the work of scientists around the world. That pesticides could affect our bodies on even this cellular level is another reason for treating them with extreme caution.
CHAPTER 8 SUMMARY
Here, Carson returns to the symbol of silence, and to the threat of chemical "biocides" against birds, whose absence is often most acutely felt by locals. She cites local accounts from all over the country of dwindling bird populations after spraying against elm disease or fire ants, giving voice to residents who mourn the loss of the color and songs of birds.
CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY
In the first chapter of her book, Carson introduces her point through a short imaginary story of a "town in the heart of America". She describes this town as full of life, with blooming flowers, numerous plants and animals and creates a peaceful and relaxed image in her audiences mind. She uses this illustration as a form of a "before", emphasizing the serenity of undisturbed nature. Soon after, Carson takes on a dark turn and describes a sense of decay and an eradication of life that was once abundant in this town. She describes how the animals have disappeared and how the land that used to be green and painted with the colors of life have faded and dried into a dull and lifeless dirt. Her exigency is revealed when she contrasts this image resembling an "after" with that of the before and clearly states that this death and decay was at the hands of the human race. In telling the story of how humans have destroyed much of the beautiful nature that once thrived in the land we now live in, Carson places a sense of responsibility on her audience to encourage them to stay informed about the environmental issues the world is facing and to take action to reverse and prevent the horrors she presented.
CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY
In the first chapter of her book, Carson introduces her point through a short imaginary story of a "town in the heart of America". She describes this town as full of life, with blooming flowers, numerous plants and animals and creates a peaceful and relaxed image in her audiences mind. She uses this illustration as a form of a "before", emphasizing the serenity of undisturbed nature. Soon after, Carson takes on a dark turn and describes a sense of decay and an eradication of life that was once abundant in this town. She describes how the animals have disappeared and how the land that used to be green and painted with the colors of life have faded and dried into a dull and lifeless dirt. Her exigency is revealed when she contrasts this image resembling an "after" with that of the before and clearly states that this death and decay was at the hands of the human race. In telling the story of how humans have destroyed much of the beautiful nature that once thrived in the land we now live in, Carson places a sense of responsibility on her audience to encourage them to stay informed about the environmental issues the world is facing and to take action to reverse and prevent the horrors she presented.
CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY
In this chapter, Carson discusses the impact that the contamination of soil has on the environment as a whole and how that in turn affects the soil. She describes the life of soil and the organisms that make it a main building block in the environment. She talks about how the organisms such as bacteria, fungi, algae and more are what helps the cycle of life move. They enrich the soil with numerous minerals, fix nitrogen, and play an important role in decomposition which all gives rise to the recycling of matter and the creation of new life. The insects found in soil such as earthworms also help create the richness in soil that helps to support all life. While this cycle has been maintained throughout the history of life on earth, it has been disrupted by the spread and contamination of chemicals. The chemicals that are used in pesticides not only kill the insects it targets but also other organisms. The chemicals affect all forms of life it touches and when pesticides are used on insects in farms, it travels down to the soil and affects the organisms and microorganisms there too. As humans continue to poison the life around them, they create a new and rapid cycle of destruction.
CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY
In this chapter, Carson discusses the specific contamination of water. As water makes up 71% of the earth's surface and is connected in various ways, it is not hard to believe that the contamination of one body of water contaminates all. This pollution results from radioactive wastes, chemical wastes, and run-off which gets into our water sources. Some of this pollution goes unnoticed to the common eye but as soon as major effects start to show people realize the problem. The water is so deeply contaminated by numerous chemicals that it easily travels from one water source to the next, being slowly diluted but still causing dangerous problems. One example she gives of how water contamination affects all is how a plant located in Colorado was able to contaminate farm wells, miles away, with 2, 4-D. What's more absurd is that this lethal chemical was formed from the mixture of other chemicals, showing how the carelessness of humans with nature and their environment can lead to toxic and dangerous accidents. Furthermore, Carson also provides examples of how deadly the contamination of water is. She does this by giving examples such as the findings of dead creatures in highly contaminated bodies of water. She claims that humans must stop their actions and consider the cycle of life and how everything is all connected, if water resources are made unusable and uninhabitable, then the organisms it supports will all die.
CHAPTER 11 SUMMARY
In this chapter, Carson examines the effects of modern life—which she shows now entails a slow, prolonged exposure to a constant drip of chemicals—on the state of human health. Frustratingly, from Carson's perspective, these death-dealing materials of insecticides are marketed cheerfully to consumers, without traditional poison warnings.Because of the hard to see, unpredictable, and delayed effects of absorbing small amounts of pesticides over time, it can be easy to ignore the problem. Humans seem programmed to shrug off disasters in the distant future, concerned only with those effects that can be seen immediately. Still, we are vulnerable in the same way the robins were, as part of an interdependent system that scientists call ecology. Whenever some part of this ecology is disrupted, its potential negative effects on the other parts are difficult to predict.
CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY
Ishmael, his brother, and their friends walk for days in hunger and silence. They pass through abandoned villages and see houses ransacked and dead bodies everywhere. Their hunger becomes all-consuming, and they are forced to return to Khalilou's house for money and provisions. They find the house destroyed, but Ishmael's tiny bag of money is still stashed under the foot of the bed. To seek safety, the group must cross a clearing filled with dead bodies. During the crossing, something falls out of a pocket and makes enough noise to alert the rebel guards in a nearby tower. Ishmael, who has already reached the other side, watches his brother pretend to be dead among the bodies so that the guards don't shoot. Though the boys now have money to buy food, they find that the neighbors in the nearby villages won't sell to them. Either there aren't enough provisions or the villagers are stashing supplies for their own later struggle to survive. Ishmael and his band steal food in the night.
CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY
Man cannot exist without plants, but we have a narrow view of their usefulness and are quick to label them as undesirable - and attempt to eradicate them - if they serve no immediate, obvious purpose. However, each plant is part of a complex web of life, and the essential relationships between actors in that web should not be disturbed without careful thought. Unfortunately this is not the normal procedure with modern spraying practices. The attempted eradication of the sagebrush from the West is a perfect case study. The sage is a result of long ages of experimentation by nature, and is perfectly adapted to its unique, harsh environment at the edge of the Rocky Mountains. It lives in concert with other creatures in its environment, like the sage grouse, a bird that, during mating season, loosens the soil beneath and around the sage so that grass can grow.When farmers decided to clear away the sage with pesticides to create more grazing land, the other organisms that had grown up alongside it, including the sage grouse, the pronghorn antelope, and sheep, for which sagebrush was an important grazing material in its own right, immediately suffered. The grass that the sage had sheltered also disappeared, crippling the farmers' plans. Further, without sage there was nothing for livestock and wild grazers to eat during the harsh winters. Another case comes from Supreme Court Justice and environmental writer William O. Douglas, who tells the tale of herbicide sprayings in Bridger National Forest in order to try to eliminate the sage. Untargeted spraying for sage also killed the willows, which had been home to the rare and wonderful moose, and disrupted beaver communities. Without the beaver dams, a beautiful trout lake at the end of the stream drained away, and this natural jewel and popular destination was lost.
CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY
Mankind's brutal legacy of destruction of other species, from the slaughter of the buffalo to the near extermination of the egret, is being repeated in pesticides. It would seem that nothing takes priority over the spray gun. One question is whether to believe the agencies in charge of insect control, who insist that no losses occur outside of the targeted pest, or wildlife biologists and witnesses who assert that destruction from spraying has been catastrophic. Surely, answers Carson, the scientists and locals on the ground are more trustworthy witnesses than chemical manufacturers and government regulators. These local parties have often expressed sadness or anger at the destruction of the wild places and animals they held dear.
What did you learn about Rachel Carson's early life?
Rachel Carson spent her early years in nature, often studying birds, insects, and flowers. She had a passion for writing and would publish magazines to St. Nicholas. Her experiences from living in Pennsylvania around nature and animal life led her to her long- standing love for nature. Carson's passion for writing and studying biology influenced her and created her to publish books while continuing to study biology. Rachel Carson's passion to inform the public and others about science life.
Carson's first chapter explains the title of her book. Why is it called "Silent Spring"?
Rachel Carson titled her book Silent Spring because DDT usage caused a noticeable effect both beneficial and harming insect species and birds. Normally, when you think of spring season you think of birds chirping, warm sunny weather, bugs coming out, but when DDT takes effect the "voices" you would hear in spring have become silent. Thus, is why she titled her book Silent Spring because DDT causes spring time to become silent and inform people of the harm we have caused.
What were Rachel Carson accomplishments?
She spent most of her professional life as a marine biologist and writer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
CHAPTER 15 SUMMARY
The ever-shifting balance of nature is threatened by modern insect control programs, which cannot foresee their complex effects on a living community of interdependent creatures. In fact, the 'resistance of the environment,' of natural predators and prey operating in a system of checks and balances, is the only really effective, natural measure for fighting infestation, and this natural resistance is only weakened by indiscriminate spraying. And so the final irony is that, even as we have risked so much in an attempt to control nature, our efforts have inevitably failed.
CHAPTER 14 SUMMARY
This chapter takes up the question of pesticides' carcinogenic (cancer-causing) effects. The first awareness of environmental cancer-causing agents was in 1775 when Sir Percivall Pott made the link between scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps and the arsenic laden soot that they interacted with so much as part of their jobs. Arsenic was also found to cause cancer among copper smelters and mine workers during the early days of the industrial revolution. As the industrial era progressed, more occupational exposures to industrial chemicals were identified as cancer-causing.
