Silent Spring
Environmental concerns in America started to rise in the 1960s. One big reason was Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. This book showed the world the dangers of harmful pesticides. It started the modern environmental movement. Before Silent Spring not many people were concerned about the environment, Silent Spring showed people that it was everyone's responsibility to keep the environment clean and people have the right to know about the dangers of harmful pesticides.
“This is the book that not only started the modern environmental movement; it defined the notions of the 'environment' or 'ecosystem' as we think of them today. Though it's difficult to believe, prior to Silent Spring, those concepts did not exist in public consciousness."(Frances, 2012)
"Hundreds of dollars were spent by the chemical industry in an attempt to discredit the book and to malign the author."(Brooks, & Carson,1987)
"These attacks fortunately backfired by creating more publicity than the publisher could have afforded."(Brooks, & Carson,1987)
"In fact, her book helped to make ecology, which was an unfamiliar word in those days, one of the great popular causes of our time. It led to environmental legislation at every level of government."(Brooks, & Carson,1987)
"These attacks fortunately backfired by creating more publicity than the publisher could have afforded."(Brooks, & Carson,1987)
"In fact, her book helped to make ecology, which was an unfamiliar word in those days, one of the great popular causes of our time. It led to environmental legislation at every level of government."(Brooks, & Carson,1987)
"Despite the competition of a constant stream of new chemicals issuing from the laboratories, arsenic compounds are still liberally used, both as insecticides and as weed killers, where they usually take the chemical form of sodium arsenite. As roadside sprays, they have cost many a farmer his cow and killed uncounted numbers of wild creatures. as aquatic weed killers in lakes and reservoirs they have made public waters unsuitable for drinking or even for swimming. As a spray applied to potato fields to destroy the vines they have taken a toll of human and non-human life." (Carson,1962)