Research paper on Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

The main aim of this assignment is to review the book Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson in 1962. It is important to understand all the problems discussed in the book, and to observe human impact on the environment.

To begin, we can state that Carson’s Silent Spring shows evidently the ways we poison our planet and the whole creation on this planet. The author’s message is maximum clear because all the facts, which forced people to begin operate for the sake of maintenance of our ecosystem, are presented. Of course, it is a truth that the book Silent Spring gave many causes for criticism, but to criticize the book possible only in the case when the person does not understand the sense of the book’s warning. It is possible to mention that many people do not understand the book even nowadays because any other reason can not explain a strange fact that ecological activists are in a position of “partisan” till now, having the aim to save our planet for all people.

Reviewing the book, it became obvious that the author made a lot of researches on the topic of human impact on the environment, and Carson brought a rare mix of different approaches to her research such as true dedication to research, a kind of scientific training, and a special literary flair. The book Silent Spring begins with a fable of a rural town that quickly and unexpectedly suffers different damages such as sickness, blight, and death. The tragedy is in the fact that some white powder, which covered the town for several weeks, poisoned all flesh. Cattle, sheep and birds fell ill in some illness unknown to that time and died in a very short period of time. There were no bees in gardens, and there were no fruits. All fish died in the rivers and the town was covered by frightful and dead silence. Thus, the book describes terrible troubles which the humanity brought upon itself by reckless use of chemicals and different pesticides in agriculture. The town’s people began to realize that they already poisoned everything all around them by the own deeds, but it is hard to change something being at the last stage of damage.

The author gave a lot of scientific evidences of the fact that pesticides destroy the nature and impact on human health, eliminating not only vermin, but also making a big harm to birds, animals, etc. Moreover, Carson also explained how pesticides impact on food chain, beginning with plankton and ending with birds. People cannot control nature in a full degree using strong pesticides against vermin because the stronger vermin need stronger pesticides to destroy them, while it is impossible to eradicate some species we do not like without making a lot of harm to other useful and important species. Everything is tightly connected in our world, and destroying one species by strong compound of DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane), we impact on the own health in a very dangerous way. Thus, the author presented and supported a system of integrated management, which included a minimum use of chemicals and a maximum implementation of different ways of cultural and biological control.