“Rachel Carson’s sensational book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, and questioned the scope and direction of modern science, initiated the contemporary environmental movement.
In her books on the sea Carson wrote about geologic discoveries from submarine technology and underwater research — of how islands were formed, how currents change and merge, how temperature affects sea life, and how erosion impacts not just shore lines but salinity, fish populations, and tiny micro-organisms. Even in the 1950’s, Carson’s ecological vision of the oceans shows her embrace of a larger environmental ethic which could lead to the sustainability of nature’s interactive and interdependent systems. Climate change, rising sea-levels, melting Arctic glaciers, collapsing bird and animal populations, crumbling geological faults — all are part of Carson’s work.”
“Rachel Carson, The Life and Legacy.” Rachel Carson’s Website, http://www.rachelcarson.org. Accessed 17 Dec. 2021.
Links:
Rachel Carson & Mary Scott Skinker:
“A Web of Complex Relations”: The Many Loves of Marine Biologist, Writer, and Environmentalist Rachel Carson – Eileen McGinnis
In 1980, my mother-in-law stood in the back of University Church in Syracuse, NY, holding her infant son and contemplating nuclear war. She was attending a talk by the local chapter of an anti-nuclear group called Physicians for Social Responsibility. As she cradled Sol (my future husband) and exam
If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.
Rachel Carson –
Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952)
Rachel Carson on PBS:
Chapter 1 | Rachel Carson | American Experience | PBS
Rachel Carson is an intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world. When Silent Spring was pu…