Rachel Carson Pesticide

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"In nature, nothing exists alone". These are the words Rachel Carson uses to share her observations she has made about the effects of using insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides on the environment. DDT was a popular insecticide created in 1939 by chemist Paul Muller. The insecticide was widely used especially with farmers who coined DDT as the “wonder insecticide" and was “credited with saving thousands of human lives” (Reinhardt). However, the “wonder insecticide” was banned in 1972 after the disturbing effects it had on the body such as damages to the reproductive systems, liver, nervous system, and can also cause cancer . Rachel Carson shares her views in Silent Spring about how DDT has affected not only plants, but animals, humans, …show more content…

What is the other road? The “other road” Carson describes is the road to alternatives in which people can use different methods to control pests. Her solution to the problem is to battle the pests not by use of chemicals, but by using them against themselves and nature through biological control. She suggests options such as male sterilization, lures, attractants, bacterial control, and the use of other insects and animals through predator versus prey, because it is “the most immediately useful result of this exploration of insect secretion” (Carson 285). The idea of biological control was developed to assist the eradication of the screw worms found in North America. Edward Knippling and Raymond Bushland developed this way to help eliminate screw worms by male sterilization. The problem with biological control is that it could cause difficulty for some insects because of the complexity each individual species’ anatomy. Entomologist would have to discover unique ways to sterilize the individual insects causing the process to prolong for an extended amount of time. Although Rachel Carson stated that the “control of nature is a phase conceived in arrogance… when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man” (Carson 297) in actuality she is aiding the situation in controlling nature by offering other

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