Many people may already have heard of this person I want to introduce today, but it was last August in my Environmental Systems and Societies class when I first got to know her. Around twenty of the people in my class were separated into six groups to research about some organizations, people, books, or accidents that raised people’s environmental awareness and share it with the whole class. Although my group researched on another topic, the presentation I was impressed by the most was about a book, Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. An author and a marine biologist, Carson introduced environmental damage and health issues of using DDT in the book. 

DDT is a chemical compound, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. It was first synthesized in 1874 and used in WWII for controlling diseases among troops and civilians, which nearly eliminated typhus in Europe. In the South Pacific at the same time period, DDT was widely used to eradicate malaria and dengue fever though it eventually increased mosquito and parasite tolerance to DDT. Then, in the US, it was released in public sale and was popular as an agriculture pesticide and a household insecticide. Although the use of DDT was promoted by the US government, some scientists were concerned over potential risks associated with it. 

Carson was the person who actually highlighted these hazards by writing a book. Her book reveals that DDT is very hazardous to the environment as it is absorbed by the soil and the sediment, and this causes permanent damage to soil and the sediment, affecting organisms living in the soil. This eventually destroys the ecosystem as plants, food source of the primary consumers, do not grow on degraded soil, so the absence of the primary consumers will gradually break the whole food chain. This is also the reason for the title of her book, Silent Spring, as birds and bees no longer twitter or make sound. According to the Guardian, her book is credited with introducing a new idea of the environment being a system that sustains humanity and we must coexist with, rather than “a mine, dump, or playground”. As a consequence, the book brought about lots of environmental movements and raised people’s awareness.

Other than Silent Spring, Carson wrote several books about the environment such as Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us, and The Edge of the Sea, which all were hymns to the resilience and strength of natural systems and the interconnection of them. Her poetic languages put an emphasis on how nature sustains all living things, bridging the public and those ecological concepts. Thus, I believe that Rachel Carson is definitely the person who has endeavored to better the environment through her books.