Today is the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson's birth. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the 20th century:
Silent Spring, serialized in the New Yorker in June 1962, gored corporate oxen all over the country. Even before publication, Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid - indeed, the whole chemical industry - duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media. (TIME's reviewer deplored Carson's "oversimplifications and downright errors ... Many of the scary generalizations - and there are lots of them -- are patently unsound.")
By year's end, Audubon and National Parks Magazine had published additional excerpts from the book, and all but the most self-serving of Carson's attackers were backing rapidly toward safer ground. In their ugly campaign to reduce a brave scientist's protest to a matter of public relations, the chemical interests had only increased public awareness. Silent Spring became a runaway best seller, with international reverberations. Nearly 40 years later, it is still regarded as the cornerstone of the new environmentalism. Carson was not a born crusader but an intelligent and dedicated woman who rose heroically to the occasion. She was rightly confident about her facts as well as her ability to present them. Secure in the approval of her peers, she remained remarkably serene in the face of her accusers. Perhaps the imminence of her own mortality had helped her find this precious balance and perspective. In most photographs, the pensive face appears a little sad, but this was true long before she knew that she had cancer. She was 56 when she died in April 1964.
Earth and Sky has a podcast of an interview with Carson's biographer.
You can be sure that her birthday will be greeted with more false claims that she killed millions of people. The fact is that she warned that overuse of pesticide would make mosquitoes evolve resistance. The ban on the agricultural use of DDT that Carson inspired saved lives by slowing the development of resistance. We are all in her debt.
More like this
You should collect a linkfest/carnival today if you have time, linking to all the good blogposts (and MSM articles) covering Carson's birthday.
A Happy Birthday to Rachel here at 'Bad Science':
Misleading Mick Hume (Times) article about DDT
Rats.. messed up the href, here's a tinyurl...
http://tinyurl.com/3acx9w
There seems to be a contradiction here. I am wondering how these people estimate the number of people that 'banning' DDT killed like this statement from one of the references:
"Across Uganda, more than 50,000 children, and 50,000 parents, died from malaria that year--as they do year after year."
They would not be relying on epidemiological studies to estimate numbers. I thought that with the Lancet study of deaths in Iraq epidemiological studies were inaccurate and meaningless.
If they are then right wing think tanks like the CEI are in a bit of a bind. Either properly constructed epidemiological studies are reasonably accurate therefore the Lancet study is probably pretty correct OR they are inaccurate and can't be relied on so the number of deaths from 'banning' DDT is widely exaggerated and wrong just like they claim loudly and shrilly that the numbers of excess deaths reported by the Lancet study in Iraq is.
I sure however, the masters of doublespeak will be able to simultaneously claim that 30000 people died in Iraq AND that millions and millions of people die each year because of greenie terrorists.
on a bright note, here in my rural Japanese town, the local bookshop has a proud stand with Silent Spring, a collection of Carson's essays, and some related environmental books, all rereleased in Japanese translation to coincide with her birthday. So, omedeto Ms. Carson!
"CEI are in a bit of a bind.."
Oh, I doubt if that is the case. I'm sure CEI has examined all the malaria raw data and assured themsleves that: a) the interviewers exist and are outstanding individuals; b) when conducting the malaria survey, there was no mainstreet bias; and c) persons running the malaria survey were Republicans.
Happy Birthday Rachel. Thanks to you, my two year old son already knows what an osprey is, because one nests near our house. He's already stared in wonder at a bald eagle flying not 10 miles from our house, and we live in a suburb of D.C. You were a great person, a great scientist, and a better American than your critics will ever hope to be.