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An essay about who rachel carson is
Who is rachel carson essay
An essay about who rachel carson is
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Rachel Carson lived a life full of passion for the environment. She enjoyed the nature and beauty that the Earth offers. Carson used her passion and enthusiasm to create an environmental change that no one could have predicted. In the book Silent Spring the author, Rachel Carson, describes how nature and our community are greatly affected by harmful chemicals, such as the pesticide DDT. Society was naïve to the affects these pesticides were causing. Even though the chemicals seemed necessary for modern life. Rachel Carson creates the idea of a dystopian world caused by the the use of pesticides, provides data and case studies as examples, and informs the public about the harsh affects from the chemicals. She initiated an environmental movement …show more content…
Carson began to notice that farmers then were using these chemicals as a dual purpose, killing off many birds. The birds were becoming a “direct target of poisons rather than an incidental one” (375.) The farmers turned their heads the other way to any of the affects these chemicals were causing on nature since their crops were doing just fine.
Carson questioned human safety from these pesticides in the fields. “Who guarded the poisoned area to keep out any who might wander in, in misguide search for unspoiled nature...to tell the innocent stroller that the fields he was about to enter were deadly?” Non-human and human life were both being killed by the use of these chemicals, yet they were still being used. Carson believed the problem could easily be solved just by a “slight change in agriculture practice” (375.)
Carson strongly questioned the government and why they allowed such harmful chemicals to be used. She asks “Who has Decided-Who has the right to decide?” (376.) Why are poisons that are extremely dangerous to everything living and even non- living being used so carelessly. She wanted society to realize that this is not ok, and to change the way nature was being treated before it was too late. The more truth being shared about the negative effects of these poisons will not only save the environment, but lives as
The rhetorical occasion of this excerpt is to inform others about the dangers of chemicals on earth’s vegetation and animal life.
She continues to make us question our decisions on the use of pesticides by telling us more about how it will eventually “contaminate the entire environment” and bring on the “threat of disease and death” (Carson 360). However, she backs up her claim by giving us some facts. She points out that the real problem is overproduction and goes on to say that “our farms, despite measures to remove acreages from production and to pay farmers not to produce, have yielded such a staggering excess of crops that the American taxpayer in 1962 is paying out more than one billion dollars a year as the totally carrying cost of the surplus-food storage program” (Carson 361). Carson gives us examples of how this product we’re using is actually costing us more than we may think in ways we probably didn’t even imagine. Her tone goes to be more lighthearted explaining that she doesn’t think that there is no insect problem just that we need to figure out a better way to control it, “all this is not to say there is no insect problem and no need of control. I am saying, rather, that control must be gathered to realities, not to mythical situations, and that the methods employed must be such that they do not destroy us along with the insects.” (Carson 361). She says that “I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons
Rachel Carson, before publishing Silent Spring, would major in marine zoology at Pennsylvania Women's College, where she would develop her interest in the naturalism and conservation going on at the time (Lear, 23). After graduating, she would take a job at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she would write about different issues concerning the environment at the time. After writing several books to some success, she would begin work on Silent Spring, as she would find her naturalist causes to be her impetus. She even later on in her life wrote to her friends, What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do would be more important. " (Carson, 17)
After Carson conveyed and explained her bias, she begins to ask questions with only one real answer. This is an effective format as readers will feel they are drawing their own opinions at the end, but are really being spoon fed Carson’s bias. One specific rhetorical question - “Who has made the decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this ever-widening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a pebble is dropped into a pond?” - is particularly effective as it contains a simile. This simile adds very vivid imagery and marks the beginning of a list of rhetorical questions all pertaining to who is to blame for the death and injures by poison. It is enough to push some people to bold action against the use poison to eradicate pests, as they don’t want this unsettled blame to fall upon them. They are encouraged to prove they aren’t ignorant or contributing to this problem.
Rachel Carson establishes ethos to begin constructing her argument against poisonings. In lines 8-12, she cites the Fish and Wildlife Service to demonstrate that her concerns extend to credible organizations and are not unfounded. She documents an example where farmers in southern Indiana “went together in the summer of 1959 to engage a spray plane to treat an area of river bottomland with parathion” (lines 12-16). To further establish her ethos and authority to speak on this topic, she also supplements this example by explaining a healthy, eco-friendly alternative to how the farmers could have responded. In lines 17-22, she states that agricultural practice revisions would have sufficed for a solution, making the poisonings unnecessary. By offering a solution, Carson not only
Carson writes with meticulous detail with almost all of her scientific facts and explanations. She compels her readers with keywords and phrases to gravitate her audience towards her side of the argument. Carson gives an example explaining that “in this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world –the very nature of its life…chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in the soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death”(43). To begin, Carson skillfully argues her point by describing chemicals as “sinister” which grabs her reader’s attention, and presents her evidence comprehensibly so that her variety of readers feel well informed, rather than stunned and confused. Carson could have simply stated that chemicals can transfer from soil to living creatures and save time without disclosure; however, she instead reaches the decision to describe the process with powerful, yet understandable vocabulary that provides emotional appeal in her argument. By presenting scientific evidence and explanations in a compelling and sentimental manner, Carson’s audience is able to connect with her argument. Every fact and description that she gives deems useful in her argument that pesticides should not be used for the treatment of
Rachel Carson is well known for writing the book, Silent Spring. This book, which was written
“Carson used the era’s hysteria about radiation to snap her readers to attention, drawing a parallel between nuclear fallout and a new, invisible chemical threat of pesticides throughout Silent Spring,” (Griswold 21). She described radiation as the creation of human’s tampering with nature, and warned that similar dangers would become inevitable with the continued use of pesticides (Carson 7). Carson also knew that a large percent of her audience would be housewives, who she could use as example of those who found poisoned birds and squirrels in their gardens. She angled much of Silent Spring towards this audience, which helped her book become the catalyst for environmental change (Griswold
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.
In the article "The Obligation to Endure", an excerpt from "Silent Spring", Carson focuses on her major concerns with the environment. For millennia, Mother Nature was the lone modifier that possessed the ability to shape the environment. In turn, this caused species to adapt for survival. However, with the birth of man, the delicate balance has shifted. Humans now possess the ability to alter the makeup of their environment. This is a power that shouldn 't be taken lightly or abused. However, humans are often blind to corruption until it 's too late, and so the inevitable happened. Man abused its power and failed to see the consequences. This is an overarching concern of Carson, "The most alarming of all man 's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials (Carson)." The chemicals dumped into rivers the pollution pumped into the air. The toxic radiation released from nuclear explosions in the form of Strontium 90. The endless pesticides sprayed on crops and trees. All of these are the weapons used in "man 's war against nature
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.
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.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revolutionized the American point of view concerning the environment. It rejected the notion that pesticides and chemicals are the right choice for “controlling” various animals that are seen as an inconvenience. Carson writes about the dangers of pesticides, not only to nature but man himself.
I remember when I first thought about the power one person could have to create change. I was a teenager growing up in the South when I read Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”. This beautifully written book is a powerful indictment of the widespread use of pesticides. Rachel Carson criticized the chemical companies for claiming that pesticides were safe despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And she criticized public officials who accepted the chemical industry’s claims.
Carson was the only environmentalist and the only woman featured in the entire issue. Evidently, her impact in the world of "scientists and thinkers" was a tremendous one, and, as mentioned in Matthiessen's Time article, her book, Silent Spring, is "nearly 40 years later . . . still regarded as the cornerstone of the new environmentalism."1 Matthiessen goes on to write that "one shudders to imagine how much more impoverished our habitat would be had Silent Spring not sounded the alarm."2 This is indeed a worthy claim by Mr. Matthiessen, but he correctly uncovers a bigger and more alarming truth when he says, "the damage being done by poison chemicals today is far worse than it was when she wrote the book."3 In fact, since 1962, pesticide use in the US has doubled.4