When Progress Turns Toxic: Rachel Carsons Fight Against Pesticides

For hundreds of years, our air, water, and land have been polluted. While humans have found countless ways to evolve, our planet has been used as a waste bin for our innovations. Plastics saturate our oceans, killing marine life and causing clean water shortages. Factories and vehicle exhaust fill our air with carbon emissions, depleting our ozone layer. Landfills continue to grow, forests are harvested, and land is taken for selfish use. The types of pollution and contributions to climate change continue to expand. Unfortunately, it took society up until the 1960s for attention on environmental protection to gain traction. The environmental movement was built on the drive of strong environmentalists who spoke for a land with no voice. One of the founders of this movement is Rachel Carson, a nature writer and marine scientist. Known as the “mother of the environmental movement,” Carson used her talent as an author to highlight a different type of pollution – pesticides. Despite pesticides being one of the least talked about pollutants in climate change discussions, their effect is not slight. Pesticides are one of the most harmful pollutants and should have the same urgent attention as waste pollution. 

Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring sparked global environmental awareness.

On September 27, 1962, Rachel Carson published her fourth and final book Silent Spring. In contrast to her previous books focusing on marine life and ecosystems, Silent Spring brought the damage pesticides and other commonly used chemicals can cause to light. Up until her findings were published, there was insufficient knowledge of the pesticide’s potential for disaster. The use of pesticides became popular in agriculture for its success in protecting crops from insect foraging. The practice of such chemicals dates back to the 8th century, however only after World War II did it become so abundant and widespread. Carson acknowledged the many parts of our ecosystem that faltered from pesticides, including soil and waterways. Since our ecosystems depend on the interactions and circle of life within living things, if one component is affected, all else is too. An example of this is depicted in a study led by Michigan State University and University of Maryland. The research team took interest in Panama snakes and the reasons behind their disappearance. After an invasive fungal pathogen had wiped out a large population of frogs in the area, snakes lost their primary source of food. Consequently, the snakes suffered. After years of observation, over half of the 36 snake species in the area were spotted once or twice. This goes on to prove how the downfall of one species, regardless of how small, may trigger an ecological collapse.

In her book, Rachel Carson argues that pesticides unfortunately do much more than protect crops. The chemicals in these cropland sprays make their way into our waterways, polluting our rivers, lakes, and oceans with much more than trash. However, pesticides reach water sources not limited to farm use. In chapter four of Silent Spring, Surface Waters and Underground Seas, it is noted that pesticides are “deliberately applied to bodies of water to destroy plants, insect larvae, or undesired fishes”. Carson recognizes the severity of water contamination writing “Ever since chemists began to manufacture substances that nature never invented, the problems of water purification have become complex and the danger to users of water has increased.” Polluting the planet's 1% of clean drinking water is affecting not only humans but also other life forms. In a source from the University of Birmingham, results of a study show how artificial intelligence has helped create a “Biodiversity time machine.” Scientists were able to obtain 100 years’ worth of data from a Denmark lake, simply from the lake's sediments. The data allowed the researchers to determine levels of biodiversity through the years, and what factors caused declines. Unsurprisingly, the biggest factor in the lake's loss of biodiversity was pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides. These chemicals cause an increase in water temperatures, by as much as 1.5 degrees. Like Rachel Carson's views, researcher Luisa Orsini on the study acknowledges that there’s no solution that fully protects all life while advancing human technology. However, she claims there is still an opportunity to guide the regulation of these pollutants to protect the most precious of our ecosystems. 

Increasing water temperatures across the globe as part of global warming is a significant issue that has every form of life depending on its recovery. To find that pesticides are one of the top contributors means that pesticides must be a top concern amongst environmental conservationists. To provide another example of how rising water temperatures affect biodiversity, Griffith University recently published their study on how green sea turtles are coping. Green sea turtles are animals that rely on temperature-dependent sex determination, meaning that the temperature of the water where they lay their eggs determines whether female or male hatchlings are born. Currently, there is worry regarding the extinction of the species from poaching and ecosystem destruction, putting the turtles on the red list of endangered species. Adding this new pressure onto the animals to maintain consistent breeding does not provide relief to worries of extinction. With pesticides raising the temperatures of waters even more, there are now thousands of females being born for every one male in certain reefs. 

Thankfully, since the release of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson has drawn attention to the use of DDT, a commonly used pesticide, and other chemicals of a similar nature. Regulations have been placed to ban the use of the most harmful pesticides and determine how they are to be used moving forward. However, the use of regulated pesticides still has the potential for great damage and pollution to our land, water, ecosystems, and public health. There must be more education on the topic of pesticides and their contribution to global warming. To halt the accelerating progress of climate change, it is essential that all forms of pollution are considered and dealt with. To be aware of all the effects and potential harm of a substance is crucial before allowing its use on our beloved planet we call home.

Works Cited

“‘Biodiversity Time Machine’ Provides Insights into a Century of Loss.” ScienceDaily, 7 Nov. 2023, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231107105401.htm.

Carson, Rachel. “Silent Spring.” Copeia, vol. 1963, no. 1, 1963, p. 207. https://doi.org/10.2307/1441323.

Children, National Research Council (US) Committee on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children. Background and Approach to the Study. National Academies Press (US), 1993, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236265/#:~:text=Pesticides%20have%20been%20used%20by.

“Disappearing Snakes and the Biodiversity Crisis.” ScienceDaily, 13 Feb. 2020, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200213160126.htm.

“Endangered Turtle Population under Threat as Pollution May Lead to Excess of Females Being Born.” ScienceDaily, 13 Nov. 2023, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231113111719.htm.

Lear, Linda. “Rachel Carson, The Life and Legacy.” RachelCarson.org, 2019, www.rachelcarson.org/.

“Pollution | National Geographic Society.” Education.nationalgeographic.org, National Geographic, 14 Dec. 2022, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/pollution/.

Synthetic Pesticides. www.bt.ucsd.edu, http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/synthetic_pesticide.html#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20synthetic%20pesticides.

Weyler, Rex. “A Brief History of Environmentalism.” Greenpeace International, 5 Jan. 2018, www.greenpeace.org/international/story/11658/a-brief-history-of-environmentalism/.

Air Pollution. World Health Organization, 2023, www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1.