SILENT SPRING is a book that was written by Rachel Carson, 1962 as she laid open the terrible health

and

environmental effects that “We” humans have brought to ourselves, either intentionally or un

intentionally. Through the introduction of pesticides for the mere attempt to kill little pests, insects and

weeds, we have ended up destroying our lives. Catastrophic hazards are now emerging including skin

cancers to the humans who are in contact with the pesticides, testes and ovaries cancers to the birds

who breathe the polluted air, intestinal cancer to the fishes who swim in the DDT-concentrated water,

and even worse to the plants where most of our food sources come from. Some people were just not

aware of what they were doing, actually most of them. Not aware of what they were touching, what

they drank, what they ate, what they were dealing with. As she writes “man can hardly even recognize

the devils of his own creation”

The circle of man producing pollutants and consuming the same pollutants is a never ending circle. That

is to the point where man could be one of the extinct creatures like the dinosaurs we here about. Carson

saw this coming, and she just couldn’t keep it to herself. Someone had to do something, someone had

to say something. So she rose up and became the voice of the people who had no idea of what they

were made to do. People who contacted the chemicals with neither their knowledge nor their consent.

The farmers who used the fungicides with their bare hands, the livestock keepers who were spraying

pesticides on their cattle “to the limit of their capacity rather than as little as possible”. Maybe people

needed to know the truth, not the sugar coated one but the plain white truth. It was until then that they

would indeed make their own choices, for the choice was theirs’s to make. As the government,

industries and authorities on power did not make any of the details on the effects open, if anything, they

ignored them. Chemicals were given a “go-ahead” and sold under brand names that never really

suggested their true nature.

These chemicals that were planned to control the few species went over and destroyed everything that

got on their way. As they were not made to be specific, nor were they programmed to only kill pests live

everything else. So they went ahead affecting not only human populations like farmers who spray with

bare hands or wet their clothes with the chemicals and all they do is dry them and were them again, or

the innocent industrial workers who were made to work without PPT’s, the livestock keepers who threw

away the pesticides cans to the rivers without knowing of the effect that will cause to the fish, and the

surface water, even the underground water!

The human race could easily be wiped out on the face of the earth if the trend was to continue. Not only

the human population was at risk, but also their dear cattle, their pets; and what about the birds?

Instead of singing and dancing in the sky, they were dropping dead from the sky. Their home was now

invaded by deadly chemicals and lethal toxics. The worms in the soil? They were no more burrowing,

they were dying! And the fish in the rivers were visited by an unwelcomed and a not-so- appealing guest

called DDT.

And if anybody thought of the saying that “Nature will balance itself”, then this time it just couldn’t. It

had reached its threshold level, because “nature’ too was suffering the same fate! The environment was

destroyed too. The water people drank was full of chemicals, killing them slowly but surely. If not the

water that were to kill them, then by all means the fish that they ate. Even if they were to cook them all

day, all night, these pesticides in the fish were there to stay. They weren’t too weak to be rid of by mere

heat. The air in the sky was way too polluted to go out and feel the breeze. Not to mention the land that

people stood on. The land where they planted their crops was inflicted with chemicals. As chemicals

from the polluted air were carried down by the rain to the soil, if not, then the chemicals on the leaves

of the plants would be introduced to the soil as they fall down on any sweet spring (which was no more
sweet). Without forgetting the chemical filled fuels and liquids from factories licking and injecting the

poison to the land in cooperation with the left over pesticides cans thrown carelessly on the land!

The pesticides were in a marathon to end the human race, and they haven’t given up even of this day.

More industries emerge and more keep on “procreating” more chemicals. Some are even used without

investigation of the effects they will bring on. And with great technology, comes great toxicology

(toxics). More wastes from laboratories, factories, hospitals radioactive wastes, and more fall outs from

nuclear explosions. How ironic that “In the name of progress are we to become victims of our own

diabolical means of insect control”

Our Mother Nature which gives us life is dying itself. The Mother Nature that has given us food for

billions of years is starving on its own, the earth that has given us and our ancestors home, is now on its

own, homeless. That is all that man pays after receiving such kindness for generations. And Yes, Carson

was right. As hard as the pill may be to swallow, she was right all along. This will not come to an end

until “we” humans, make a decision to stop it. For even after hearing the whole truth, if we are not

ready to change, nothing will. We will die, we will all die. Us, and our next generation, and the next. As

these chemicals slowly affect our chromosomes, they take the effects to our children through breast

milk; even the unborn ones. They will all die before being born!! It is for sure these chemicals will not

accept to stay in the comfort zone, they will hunt down our children, haunt our grandchildren, and will

look for them, find them and kill them. Until we make a choice. For the choice is ours to make.

References

Carson R. Silent Spring. London: Penguin Books, in association with Hamish Hamilton; 2015.