by Miriam Stone
While
checking Rachel Carson’s insightful website on the use of lawn pesticides I
became aware that 2012 is the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring, her groundbreaking book
regarding the use of pesticides.
Carson
was aware of the use of pesticides, but the consequences of their use hit home
for her in 1958. Her friend Olga Huckins
had a bird sanctuary with three small ponds behind her home. The bird sanctuary
and ponds were devastated by aerial spraying of DDT mixed in fuel oil by the
State of Massachusetts in the summer of 1957. The birds died terrible deaths.
Huckins called upon Carson to help her try to find someone who could stop the
spraying of poisons.
At
first she didn’t intend to write a book about pesticides. She approached others
but no one was interested in doing the research. She finally decided that it
was a topic she had to address. She said, “I may not like what I see, but it
does no good to ignore it.”
At
the time that she was doing her research and writing Silent Spring she was ill with cancer and she knew she was dying.
Taking on this monumental effort would tax whatever strength she had left and
would occupy her until she would become too sick to continue. She knew all
these things but she began anyway and she fought this fight until she was
unable to continue.
When
published in 1962, Silent Spring was
savagely attacked due to the nature of its subject. The book was seen as an
attempt to turn back the clock and deprive humanity of chemical pesticides
which, when used in the right way are a powerful tool. But Carson did not call
for the abandonment of all chemical pesticides. She asked for a ban on DDT and
asked that other chemicals be used more judiciously and that regulations for
their manufacture and sale be considerably tightened. Finally, she asked that
scientists redouble their efforts to find alternative methods for fighting
pests.
Carson
has said, “Only within the moment of time represented by the present century
has one species – man – acquired significant power to alter the nature of his
world.”
It
is now fifty years later. Carson’s breakthrough book opened the door and others
took up the fight she began. A woman
named Linda Lear, along with others began the rachelcarsoncouncil.org. Whenever
I go to that website, I can literally stay on it for hours. There is so much
information there and there is a statement that whatever you find there may be
freely reproduced and used as long as you give credit to Linda Lear and the
website.
The
following are statistics from present day:
Farmers,
golf-course attendants, lawn-care service workers, dogs and children whose
parents apply pesticides for a living and dogs whose homes are located near
marshes have an increased chance of developing certain types of cancer. Infants
and children as well as young pets appear predisposed to higher levels of
cancer in conjunction with household pesticide exposure.
Pesticide
product labels do not include information on what may be a carcinogen. Most
food labels do not now indicate when carcinogenic or pesticide residues may be
present from agriculture.
This
is just a sampling of the problems of pesticides and it is very one sided – my
side, not my neighbors. There are ways in which to use household products that
may be a little safer. There are also household products on the market today
that are non toxic such as Seventh Generation Free and Clear or Greenworks,
a product of Clorox that claims to be 99% naturally derived. Both have
websites. www.seventhgeneration.com and www.cloroxprofessional.com
The
Environmental Protection Agency has a lot of current information on pesticides
and alternatives to using them.
Information
on pesticides and the dangers associated with specific chemicals is available
from the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) 1-800-858-7378..
The
Rachel Carson Association was founded for the integrity of the environment and
the survival of living organisms. Everything on this website is free for the
public to use and there is a fountain of information there.
Ask
our Yocum Reference Librarians to assist you in using our online databases and
our card catalog. The information that is available there is amazing.
If
you use a lawn service, make it your business to know what is being put on your
lawn. Don’t expect it to be readily labeled. The majority of chemicals used on
people’s lawns to keep their grass green are the same chemicals that are
sprayed on farmer’s crops. The difference is that when these chemicals get
sprayed on crops, farmers have to stay out of the area for 72 hours and nothing
can be sprayed within a 2 - 3 mile radius of homes, schools, and churches.
Rachel
Carson said “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself – What if I had never
seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?
Rachel
Carson was acutely aware of the fact that the very things she was fighting so
hard to protect were things she would never see again.
You
can find Silent Spring on the third
floor of the library under the call numbers SB959 .C3 1994. We will be glad to
help you if you can’t find it.
