In the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson the thesis was that pesticides were harming the environment and wildlife, especially birds. Carson focused her attention on the pesticide DDT, which was first made in 1874. DDT was used heavily during World War II to try and control the diseases typhus and malaria. So she presented research that pesticides can cause cancers, other ill effects and how they can gather in animals bodies through a process called bioaccumulation.
Rachel Carson was a biologist and worked sixteen years for the Fish and Wildlife service, so beforehand she had a strong and long background in the science that she documented for her book. Carson had been concerned about the utilization of pesticides since the 1940’s and due to her concerns, she had made a point of following court cases that battled the utilization of …show more content…
Carson was a scientist and a citizen, and she was able to catch the attention of the public. She argued that these toxins make their way into the very fiber of the plants that we eat, into the animals which eat them, into the soil, and into the air, spreading massive amounts of harmful chemicals across the earth and causing long-term devastation the likes of which this planet had never seen.
An effective part of Silent Spring is how Carson decides to begin the book. She uses a tale of a mythical American town that is abruptly struck with a strange disease. Carson uses this image of missing birds, "The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were dying; they trembled violently and could not fly." She uses vivid and startling images to really make the audience try and imagine this. The tale presents the consequences of pesticides in startling and concrete terms that make the concept of the dangers of pesticides more accessible to the
Rachel Carson was a biologist and worked sixteen years for the Fish and Wildlife service, so beforehand she had a strong and long background in the science that she documented for her book. Carson had been concerned about the utilization of pesticides since the 1940’s and due to her concerns, she had made a point of following court cases that battled the utilization of …show more content…
Carson was a scientist and a citizen, and she was able to catch the attention of the public. She argued that these toxins make their way into the very fiber of the plants that we eat, into the animals which eat them, into the soil, and into the air, spreading massive amounts of harmful chemicals across the earth and causing long-term devastation the likes of which this planet had never seen.
An effective part of Silent Spring is how Carson decides to begin the book. She uses a tale of a mythical American town that is abruptly struck with a strange disease. Carson uses this image of missing birds, "The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were dying; they trembled violently and could not fly." She uses vivid and startling images to really make the audience try and imagine this. The tale presents the consequences of pesticides in startling and concrete terms that make the concept of the dangers of pesticides more accessible to the