Silent Spring: The Evolution Of The Environmental Movement

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Intro Rachel Carson, a marine biologist who wrote Silent Spring, is considered to be very much influential in the cause for the environmental movement. It is however important to note that she was not the proprietor of this revolution. Prior to Carson and her best-selling Silent Spring in 1962, there were numerous other authors, activists and organizations that spoke out about the issues that plagued the environment. Examples of this include John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club in 1892), Gifford Pinchot (the first head of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905), Fairfield Osborn, author Our Plundered Planet and William Vogt, who penned Road to Survival (Sale 1993). Each of these people established that there were matters to be discussed in the environmental community. To point out Carson’s predecessors is not to discredit her nor her work, but to add perspective to how the revolution for the environment has evolved over time. Throughout this essay, the goal will be to show the evolution of the environmental movement, beginning in 1962 and ending with the present. Era I: Sixties Seedtime (1962-1970) The sixties was what Sale described as the “protest …show more content…

Consequently, this muddles the “purity” and “purpose” of the group paradoxically (Sale 1993). The example that the author gave was this: an organization which focuses on birds and bird habitats switching its purpose to human oriented issues (toxic wastes and population control). Eventually these organizations become hierarchal and centralize. There are too many individuals who are not held accountable for their tasks and as a result, no one has a voice. A member of the Sierra Club Ethic board described it as such: “They’ve all become just like Queen Victoria – old, fat, and unimaginative” (Sale

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