Written in 1962, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was one of the most influential texts of the environmental movement in the 1960’s and on. The book reported the adverse effects of pesticides in the environment and what our society could do to dampen the flame. Carson divided her book into seventeen chapters, each of which is an independent essay of its own, nonetheless the chapters fuse together to create a continuous non-fiction novel.
In the first chapter, Carson provides the reader with a hint as to what the rest of her book is to entail by describing a quaint, picturesque town before the use of unnatural products meant to kill pests. As a result of the addition of manmade chemicals and pesticides, the vision of the town shifted, leaving …show more content…
Often times, pesticides are marketed as pleasant and good-natured, which contributes to increase production and raise demand for damaging products. Carson argues that as a result of the growing popularity in pesticides, they end up practically everywhere, in foods cheerfully consumed, and water, as previously mentioned. A clear lack of regulation of pesticides leads to a very serious health hazard. Cancer can be directly linked to specific common household pesticides. To expand on the chemical crisis, many pesticides work in the short term, but the pests bounce back and evolve to be resistant to spraying, and often times grow to a population higher than the …show more content…
When producers such as plants and plankton are treated with pesticides and chemicals and survive, they get eaten by a primary consumer. That primary consumer often times consumes a large amount of the producer, causing a high level of pesticides to accumulate in the individual. If the primary consumer survives, it is eaten by a secondary consumer, and so on. This process is exceedingly dangerous, according to Carson, because Humans are commonly at the top of the food chain. Carson provides an example in Clear Lake, California, where gnats were bothersome to fishermen, so they decided to spray the gnats with a chemical known as DDD in hopes of controlling their population. The plan initially failed, leading to a second dose to be administered more carefully and effectively. This high concentration of DDD made its way into the nearby water and poisoned fish, but not enough to uproot the population. The dosage of DDD accumulated in the western grebe, a large predator of fish in the area, however, the high concentration was enough to completely annihilate the species in the
In the first chapter, Carson provides the reader with a hint as to what the rest of her book is to entail by describing a quaint, picturesque town before the use of unnatural products meant to kill pests. As a result of the addition of manmade chemicals and pesticides, the vision of the town shifted, leaving …show more content…
Often times, pesticides are marketed as pleasant and good-natured, which contributes to increase production and raise demand for damaging products. Carson argues that as a result of the growing popularity in pesticides, they end up practically everywhere, in foods cheerfully consumed, and water, as previously mentioned. A clear lack of regulation of pesticides leads to a very serious health hazard. Cancer can be directly linked to specific common household pesticides. To expand on the chemical crisis, many pesticides work in the short term, but the pests bounce back and evolve to be resistant to spraying, and often times grow to a population higher than the …show more content…
When producers such as plants and plankton are treated with pesticides and chemicals and survive, they get eaten by a primary consumer. That primary consumer often times consumes a large amount of the producer, causing a high level of pesticides to accumulate in the individual. If the primary consumer survives, it is eaten by a secondary consumer, and so on. This process is exceedingly dangerous, according to Carson, because Humans are commonly at the top of the food chain. Carson provides an example in Clear Lake, California, where gnats were bothersome to fishermen, so they decided to spray the gnats with a chemical known as DDD in hopes of controlling their population. The plan initially failed, leading to a second dose to be administered more carefully and effectively. This high concentration of DDD made its way into the nearby water and poisoned fish, but not enough to uproot the population. The dosage of DDD accumulated in the western grebe, a large predator of fish in the area, however, the high concentration was enough to completely annihilate the species in the