DDT

One particularly notorious pesticide was called DDT. DDT was developed as the first synthetic pesticide and was used, with outstanding success, to ward off harmful insect borne diseases. Despite all of DDT is especially harmful to the environment due to biomagnification. “Biological magnification (or biomagnification) is the buildup of certain substances, such as DDT, in the bodies of organisms at higher trophic levels of food webs.” (McGraw). DDT would build up inside of organisms and over time…

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…

Silent Spring, a book by Rachel Carson, is a book that explains the harmful effects that deadly chemical have on humans and the environment. Carson tries to persuade people to change the way they live. Has Carson succeeded in her attempt to change people’s behavior involving environmental issues? There are many ways that Carson has made changes in how people think about the problem of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides. You may ask, how is Carson successful in her attempt? Carson has…

written by Rachel Carson about the effects of DDT on animals, plants, and even humans. To this day, fifty years later, the book has still received criticism for exaggerating and misinforming the readers about the real effects of DDT. Rachel Carson, while exaggerating information, is correct in her studies of the effects of DDT. Rachel Carson states fairly early on in Silent Spring that when DDT is sprayed in large areas it can easily run in water. DDT is a mist-type spray sprayed over crops and…

environmental issues. In the 60’s, when people became aware of the life threatening uses of DDT and how they endangered wildlife and impacted people, they worked together to ban the toxic chemical (Which took nearly 10 years to ban). If humans were capable of working together in this specific case to ban DDT, then why can’t people do the same with global warming? Miss. Carson inspired people to confront the issue of DDT and many environmentalists followed her lead by making changes towards…

chemical dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). At the time, DDT was believed to be the answer to insect problems in the United States and was used extensively. However, Carson explains DDT reaches species not targeted by the chemical and hurts the environment as a whole. Rachel Carson proves, through a number of instances described in her book, that DDT is a quick fix chemical created by big businesses. The author irrefutably demonstrates how the intent of DDT was greatly outweighed by the…

fly. People began to use DDT to help stop this epidemic and the results were startling. Five years after Africa stopped using DDT, the number of cases had risen to 500,000. In the late 1980s Madagascar stopped using DDT and the resulting death drop to fell too 100,000. I strongly believe DDT should not be used, because it ruins homes, plants and most importantly the economy. (all according to The DDT Story. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8 2015) The first reason why DDT should not be used…

At the time of its discovery DDT was presumed safe to apply for an array of uses. At the end of that very same paragraph we learn in 1947 synthetic pesticide use in the United States soared from 124,259,000 pounds to 637,666,000 pounds in only 13 years. Those numbers equate to a five-fold…

increasingly unappreciative public. This trend was especially true with the introduction in the 1940s of the pesticide DDT, a chemical that killed massive populations of birds and wildlife and proved to be harmful to humans as well. Appalled by the rapid deterioration of nature, Rachel Caron, a marine biologist and conservationist, wrote the book Silent Spring, urging for a ban on DDT. The title of her book is an ominous evocation of a silent, lifeless future stripped of the beautiful music…

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is a clear, tasteless, near odorless organochloride made famous for its insecticidal properties and resulting environmental impact. In 1939, the Swiss chemist, Paul Hermann Muller discovered DDT’s insecticidal properties. In World War II DDT was used to control malaria and typhus among civilian troops. It was later used as an agricultural insecticide and as it popularity increased, it gained commercial use. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a…