The Obligation to Endure

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Recommended: Impact of pesticide use in agriculture

“The discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life.” (Arthur Keith)

Civilization began with agriculture, and agriculture continues to be an integral part of our lives. Civilization brought knowledge, knowledge brought technology, and technology brought chemicals and pesticides to “improve” our world. “The Obligation to Endure” is an excerpt from Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” a passionate and masterful work on the results of civilization’s efforts to control pests and insects. These effects include destruction of the environment, alteration of gene structures in plants and animals, water contamination, and an upset of nature’s delicate balance. This article is an impassioned plea to the world to understand the threat and demand the information necessary to make an informed consent on use of these deadly substances.

In August 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When she began writing Silent Spring in the 1950s, Carson was acutely aware of the short and long term impacts of these events (Carson, 1962). As a naturalist and scientists, she worried about the long term effects of nuclear fallout and the misuse of pesticides. Her work for the U.S. Department of Fisheries gave her unique insight into the rapid ecological system changes due to pesticide use and our own culpability in creating the insect and pest problem to begin with (Biography, 2011).

Her audience is anyone who cares about the world we live in and its long term health. “The world we live in” is a vast category, which includes our entire ecosystem as well as animals and humans. The essay also targets producers and users of chemicals and pesticides used for insect and pest control. In “The Obli...

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...ortation of plants, fruits, vegetables, and animals. Indiscriminate pesticide use kills the good with the bad. Long term and wide spread pesticide use poisons underground water sources, which, in turn, poison plants, animals, and humans. And, finally, by our uninformed actions, new super races of pests continue to evolve and create even greater dangers than the original.

Works Cited

Carson, R. (1962). “The Obligation to Endure”. From Silent Spring. Retrieved from http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.silentspring.2.htm

Janick. J. (2011). Center for New Crops & Plant Products - Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University. Retrieved from: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop

Rachel Carson’s Biography. (2011). Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives Connecticut College. Retrieved from: http://www.rachelcarson.org

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