Use Of Pesticides In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Question 1.
In Rachel Carson’s most influential book, Silent Spring, she addresses the issue of killing insects and other pests with poisonous chemicals in the form of pesticides and insecticides to help produce more crops. The basic thesis in Silent Spring is that the prolonged use of pesticides in uncontrolled amounts is directly responsible for many extreme health hazards and even the death of animals and humans. Carson begins the book with a chapter describing the beauty of an area where everything seems to be working in harmony, until a sickness strikes the land. This sickness utterly destroys everything good about this once harmonious land; the beauty of the wildlife and crops wither and not a bird can be heard. The idea of no birds singing is the concept of a “silent spring,” an area where nothing lives due to the …show more content…
The first alternative mentioned was a project dealing with sterilizing large numbers of the unwanted insect and then introducing those into the ecosystem. The goal is that they will take over population and lay their sterilized eggs and, in turn, exterminating the current population. This was actually a success and they sterilized the insects, screwworms in this case, through X and gamma ray radiation. Another option is based on the idea that insects have their specific attractants, repellents and venoms. If we can find a way to use their secretions we may be able to use them as specific insecticides. There has been success with this alternative as well. In the Bonin Islands, the melon and oriental fruit fly were found to be very attracted to an attractant scientists developed. When combined with a poison, they were able to kill more than ninety nine percent in just one year. A disadvantage of this alternative is the fact that not all insects are attracted or repelled in the same way, if at