Every year millions of American’s purchase chemicals intended to clean their home, remove weeds from lawns, and promise to eradicate various insects and other household pests. It is a deadly love affair with scientific advancements to create larger crops, more appealing food items and the promise of cleaner environments. Yet until recent years and the noticeable focus on organic and natural foods, very few have questioned these advancements. Rachel Carson was one of the people who had the courage and determination to stand up and question just how healthy these new advancements truly were for living creatures. Mrs. Carson’s effort to bring these things to light in her most well-known book, Silver Spring, a book that exposed just how dangerous the chemical dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and other synthetic chemicals was to the environment, animals, and humans. There was much more to her efforts and her concerns than just her coverage of DDT. Through her valiant devotion, Rachel Carson’s work lives on and the world is wiser to the potential hazards associated with scientific chemical advancements. Her life and her work is a reminder that the human populace is not lone entities on this planet.
Rachel Carson’s love for nature started at a very young age and was encouraged and nurtured by her mother, Maria Carson. In fact, it would be Maria Carson who would encourage her daughter in her many academic and scientific interests. From the earliest of ages, Carson wanted to be a writer, and in September 1918 had her first story “A Battle In The Clouds” published in the St. Nicholas League (St. Nicholas Magazine), earning her a silver badge for excellence in prose. The youngest child of three, Rachel Carson was the only chi...
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...]. You Tube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipbc-6IvMQI
Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention. (2008). The POPs. Retrieved from Stockholm Convention: http://chm.pops.int/TheConvention/ThePOPs/tabid/673/Default.aspx
Shapley, D. (2013, August 27). Dirty dozen banned chemicals - Nasty nine added to dirty dozen - The Daily Green. Retrieved from The Daily Green: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/toxic-chemicals-47101403
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. (2013). SETAC/Rachel Carson Award - Society of environmental toxicology and chemistry. Retrieved from Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: http://www.setac.org/?SETACAwardSRachel
Willis, D. (2013, May). Audubon Rachel Carson Awards | National Audubon Society. Retrieved from Audubon: http://www.audubon.org/newsroom/press-rooms/audubon-rachel-carson-awards
The rhetorical occasion of this excerpt is to inform others about the dangers of chemicals on earth’s vegetation and animal life.
Rachel Carson: Witness to Nature, Henry Holt, New York, 1997, Owl Books paperback 1998. Murphy,Priscilla Coit. What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring, Amherst. University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. 2005
Our Stolen Future is a book published in 1996, written by Theo Colborn that details the impact that atmospheric and ocean carried chemical containments have on the development and growth of organisms. This book completely changed the manner in which scientist approach the way in which they determine the impact to the environment due to chemical contamination. According to Our Stolen Future, the endocrine disruption hypothesis states that exogenous or synthetic chemicals can alter hormonal signals that are vital during growth and development. The chemicals mostly associated with endocrine disruption include: persistent organohalogens, certain pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals and alkylphenols.
EPA. (2009, December 29). Retrieved January 15, 2011, from Toxicity and Exposure Assessment for Children's Health: http://www.epa.gov/teach/
Disinfection is applied in water as well as wastewater treatment as a finishing step so as to destroy pathogens but the cause of concern regarding the disinfection process is the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Natural organic matter (NOM) in water has been considered as the predominant DBP precursors. Disinfectants are powerful oxidants that oxidize the organic matter present in water forming DBPs. Chlorine, ozone, chlorine dioxide, and chloramines are the most common disinfectants used nowadays and each produces its own suite of chemical DBPs in finished drinking water (Richardson, 2003). DBPs so formed pose a threat to human health because of their potential to cause cancer and reproductive/developmental effects. Most developed nations have regulated concentration of DBPs so as to minimize exposure to potentially harmful DBPs while maintaining adequate disinfection and control of targeted
VARELA, F. The walking makes the trail. In: THOMPSON, W. (Org.) Gaia; a way of knowing. Political Implications of the New Biology. New York: Lindisfarne Press, 1987. p. 37-45.
Silent Spring is one of the most important books of the environmental movement. It was one of the first scientific books to talk about destruction of habitat by humans. As a result, one can imagine that Ms. Rachel Carson needed to be quite persuasive. How does she achieve this? In this excerpt from Silent Spring, Carson utilizes the rhetorical devices of hyperbole, understatement, and rhetorical questions to state the necessity of abolishing the practice of using poisons such as parathion. Carson starts out by using the symbiotic nature of hyperbole and understatement to paint the whole practice as dangerous and unnecessary. She further strengthens her argument by using rhetorical questions to make her readers see the ethical flaws and potential casualties caused by deadly pesticides.
Darwin would be delighted to find the insect population proves his theory of survival of the fittest. Chemical spraying kills off the weaker insects and allows the stronger ones to survive who are more and more resistant to sprays. It was DDT, Carson says, that ushered in “The Age of Resistance” (p. 233) as the genetics of insects even far from spraying sites registered the information that insecticides were not lethal to them. Resistance is developing so fast it has become a health crisis, in terms of mosquitoes, ticks, lice, cockroaches, and other vectors of disease. One method of dealing with the problem is to keep switching insecticides, but that has a limited success. Chemical companies keep inventing
In his short story, “Top of the Food Chain”, T.C. Boyle effectively argues that humans are destroying their planet with chemicals and that the general consensus of the public is that it is okay. He argues this efficaciously through the use of rhetorical and satirical devices, which are used throughout his story. Overall, I agree with Boyle’s argument that DDT is an especially harmful chemical to our planet, and while it may have had a place at one time, there is no need for it any longer.
In 1962, the publication of Silent Spring Rachel Carson captivated the American public. Carson wrote about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides in the environment, and her writing was very reflective of the events occurring at the time. There is a strong connection between Carson’s writing and the Cold War. In fact, if it were not for the war, the American public may not have responded in the same way to Carson’s writing. Carson used tone and content as methods of getting her point across to the public. Silent Spring shined a light on the damage done to the environment as a result of the Cold War, and this issue was finally being recognized by American public.
I have had many experiences that have shaped my interest in becoming a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar. My first experience in relation to the environment and conservation took place my senior year of high school in my AP Environmental Science class. This class influenced my decision to study the environmental sciences. The class covered all systems on Earth, covered the anthropogenic influences on the environment, and covered various conservation methods for sustainable living. It shaped my interest for the program because it brought to my attention all the possibilities for change and conservation, which influenced what I want to do with my life.
...s are dangerous and toxic. Despite the precaution taken in supplementing these chemicals into water, there still exists the probability that these hazardous chemicals will be reproduced by reactions with bodily fluids in areas where they may cause harm to the individual. The production of these chemicals is outlined in the previous section on Chemistry.
Rachel Carson began her scientific and environmental career at John Hopkins University. Her talent for writing led her to enroll at Pennsylvania College for Women as an English major. However, when her biology professor noticed her unique drive for biology she recommended she switch majors and focus on scientific research. After switching her major, John Hopkins University noticed her unprecedented work in the field and offered Carson a full academic scholarship to the school.10 She worked hard at the university and in 1932 she graduated with masters degree in biology. Carson took on jobs after college solely for money because of her need to support her family,
Chemicals have harmed everyone tremendously over the years. During 2007-2010 there was a huge epidemic of toys that were created with very toxic chemicals. Sometimes we don’t realized or care enough about the amount of damage we to the environment until it hurts the people we value the most for example family and friends. If we had sustainability in our society before this epidemic than we wouldn’t have had these problems with the process of creating safe toys for children. Many lives have been lost or changed
Seabrooke, John. “Crush Point” The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012. Ed. Dan Ariely. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, 190-205. Print.