It is rare that a single book actually changes the course of history. "Silent Spring", by Rachel Carson, did exactly that. It spurred revolutionary changes in government policy toward the environment and was instrumental in launching the environmental movement that has made "ecology" a part of everyone's vocabulary.
Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Since then, the use of DDT was banned but other pesticides have taken its place which are even more dangerous than DDT.
The title of the book suggests a spring that is devoid of bird song and the buzzing of insects and the humming of bees. And it has come true with the catastophic loss of bees that not only give us honey but, far more importantly, pollinate the very food we depend on.
To quote from the book, "The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it also has turned them against the earth."
"Silent Spring" is now sixty years old. In all that time we have been like the frog that's been put in a pot of cold water and slowly had the heat turned up on it until it's too weak to jump out. To find out how we are being boiled to death, read "Silent Spring" here (SIGN UP - it's free! - then LOG IN and BORROW)
