Silent Spring By Rachel Carson Persuasive Essay

Improved Essays
In the world today, pesticides are mostly known and agreed to be dangerous. There have been several actions against them including global pesticide bans. For example, this past year we were able to ban pentachlorophenol (PCP) which was primarily used as a wood preservative (Chandra par. 1). More people began paying attention to the effects of pesticides when Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring came about. It was about the commonly used pesticide DDT and her book had sparked the environmental movement. Carson pointed out major problems about the use of pesticides like how they have harmed the health of the environment and many of its species. Soon, people started to realize how damaging they have been. Rachel Carson thoughts on the use of pesticides were that we shouldn’t be using them. She thinks that there are more sustainable ways to effectively get rid of unwanted pests. She believes and has sufficient proof that they have contaminated our entirety. Due to the amount of data and facts proving the toxicity of pesticides, I agree with her thoughts. Additionally, I believe that there should be some more advocacy about the use of pesticides. Still, there are some people out there who think there are …show more content…
That is including some of their most popular teas like Monkey Picked Oolong and Gyokuro Imperial. The other tea samples the research company had tested were Silver Yin Zhen Pearls, Dragonwell, Black Dragon Pearl, Sencha Jade Reserve, Capital of Heaven, Emperor’s Cloud, Golden Jade, Golden Monkey, Silver Needle, Phoenix Mountain, and Copper Knot. The average number of pesticides detected was eleven. The tea sample that had the most pesticides identified is Teavana’s most popular one, Monkey Picked Oolong with twenty-three pesticides. Now, that is a lot of chemicals one person could be putting into their body and chemicals that the whole world could be affected

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Outline About Parathion

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I. Introduction a. Background information parathion and use of pesticides in the 1950-1960s b. Information about the environmental movement that happened after the book was published THESIS: In the excerpt from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, she states that the use of spraying pesticides is not worth the damage done because of the poison's widespread damage to nature and farmers' ignorance to the dangerous effects parathion has on humans and their worker's lives. II. Body Paragraph 1 a. Carson describes parathion's widespread danger by presenting much of wildlife that was killed as a result of spraying the poison's damage as innocent and describing other deaths as an attempt to change the audience's view to have sympathy for these unintended deaths that do…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rachel Carson in her article “The Obligation to Endure” argues the impact that pesticides/insecticides had upon the environment and the human health risks that were caused because of the harmful pesticides/insecticides. Carson made some interesting points which led me to think about how man is actually destroying the earth, with the help of science because of the harmful chemicals that are being used in pesticides. Society fails to realize that the pesticides being used are actually killing other animals and human species through the contaminations in it, that’s made by man on earth because we humans and the animals eat those crops. The quote, “The central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total with substances…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Rachel Carson, a scientist and writer of "Silent Spring". She was very criticized by Chemical and Agriculture Industries and called as "hysterical woman who is unqualified as a scientist". In addition, politicians such as Tom Coburn announced his intention to block a proposed bill to honor Carson, he called her book a junk science and blame Carson for the Malaria Epidemic worldwide. Her suggestion about the indiscriminate uses of pesticides destroying the life and the ecosystem as well, was title as "Absurd ".…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout “The Obligation to Endure,” there are several reasonable points Carson makes on the dangers of pesticides. However, she lacks enough credible facts and statistics to back those points up. What little facts she does have are drowned over by her harsh and relentless judgements that make themselves evidently known. Her article’s strength is shown in the amount of emotion she puts in with the tone. So much so that it tend to come off cold and unsettling.…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    I think the pro of using pesticides is of course that it allows less crops being lost to insects, which yields more food. So, pesticides allow us to produce more food, which in turn then cuts the overall cost of the food. The big con of using pesticides is what else are these chemical affecting and what they might be doing to our bodies. The run off water from the agricultural farms can contaminate our groundwater, and the video showed the results of the infertility issues of workers from their various pesticide exposure. My son did a social studies project a few years ago that showed how it is believed that pesticides called neonicotinoids which are applied to crops seeds are killing honeybees, which is causing less pollination and therefore…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rachel Carson’s “Obligation to Endure” is a well informative piece about the hazardous effects implemented by the careless distribution of pesticides in an uneducated society. She exposes the dark side of these chemicals with an overall goal to raise awareness and regulate control of the substances by the government. The first goal of Rachel is to make the citizens, pesticide companies, and government aware of this serious threat. Her second goal is to not ban these insecticides, but to persuade a regulation on what amount is reasonable. Carson uses her own credibility, along with logic, and statistics to create a strong and successful argument.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The structure of an essay is very important. It helps a reader easily follow an author’s message. The structure of Rachel Carson’s essay was successful in informing its readers of the effect chemicals have on nature and how this would affect the future of the human race. “Chemicals sprayed on croplands or forest or gardens lie long in the soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death” (Carson 613). This statement explains to the reader the effect of chemicals on all living beings.…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As Chapter 7 mentions, nothing can “get in the way of the man with the spray gun,” as evidenced by the recent slaughter of buffalo on the Great Plains or the even more recent crusade of pesticides. However, not all humans are willing to watch this happen, as evidenced by conservationists and environmental experts that condemn unnecessary losses. These supporters of the environment and the government are often at war trying to prove or disprove the destruction of our Earth through pesticides. The chapter goes on to cite specific examples of the destructive nature of pesticides, such as the suffering of Sheldon, Illinois and its battle against the Japanese Beetle. By 1961, about 131,000 acres of land had been chemically treated with dieldrin.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson was the spark to a great controversy over the use of pesticide ever since it was published in 1962. This novel was a great influence over the abuse of chemical insecticides and succeeded in banning some dangerous chemicals such as DDT from the United States. Even though Silent Spring chastised the use of these chemicals, Carson never intended that all of the pesticides should be banned, instead the use of them should be controlled to prevent harm to the ecosystem. “‘It is not my contention that chemical insecticides should never be used,” she wrote. “I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potential for harm...…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After reading, The Obligation to Endure by Rachel Carson, it definitely consists of a lot of facts and evidence to state her argument. Carson’s thesis is informing the audience the dangers of pesticides and explaining how it does more harm than good. “In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of us” (Carson 358). She wants us to be more informed and wants us to change our ways because pollution is irrecoverable, and living things are, for the most part, irreversible. Carson wants her audience to feel angry with themselves because not only are there people that are employed to create these chemicals, they…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pesticides can do many things that make human’s lives easier. They can kill unwanted bugs, which are called insecticides, they can kill unwanted plants, which are called herbicides, and they can kill fungi, which are called fungicides. There are many more pesticides out there as well, each with a different job. These pesticides are meant to help make human lives better, but do these pesticides really make our lives better? In Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson, pesticides are examined and shown how pesticides cause environmental issues far worse, than the pests humans are trying to kill.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Manufacturers should also learn from Carson and concentrate on manufacturing pesticides from natural substances. The industry should also borrow a leaf from silent springs and make more herbicides since they pose little or no effects to…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article, “The Obligation To Endure” by Rachel Carson the author focused on explaining the consequences of human behavior. She explains how much harm we have done to our environment by the use of pesticides specifically referring to DDT, a pesticide that is not only poisonous to insects but to our Ecosystem as a whole. These pesticides instead of helping humanity they are having the opposite effect and are altering our nature. She could not be more accurate, pesticides tend to settle into our soil, from there they are transferred to our water supply creating a chain reaction, therefore contaminating wild life, plant life, and our water, etc. Therefore, regardless of some of the benefits that DDT can have, such as the ability to prevent…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1962, noted biologist Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring that told of the different effects poisons, such as parathion, have on the ecosystem. Soon after being published, her book gained the attention of the American public and helped to transform their attitudes towards the environment. In the excerpt Carson advocates for the ban of parathion by describing the farmers’ use for the poison as warlike, by faulting the ignorant public, and the negligent government for the poison’s harmful environmental impact on afflicted areas. Carson describes the farmer’s use of parathion as warlike and inhuman, in an attempt to persuade her readers to condemn the farmers’ action. Carson explains that a group of farmers from southern Indian…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The components that make up a Pesticide are designed to poison or kill. In the event of this reality, it is not healthy to buy food that is laced…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays