Grieving over the Degradation of Nature in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

Nature, Phosphate, and Harry Crews’s Naked in Garden Hills Keith Huneycutt (bio) In an interview with French literary critic Anne Foata, Harry Crews explained that the inspiration for Naked in Garden Hills (1969) arose as he drove through the phosphate mining country around Mulberry, Florida. Crews describes the scene he encountered on that trip: [T]he sky was a brilliant blue, the air was beautiful, and then way ahead I began to see this awful yellow pall hanging in the sky; then I began to smell it, and the air began to get gritty, and then the landscape became ruined; as far as the eye could see, there were ponds of scummy water, broken tracks, barbed wire…. It looked like war…. Then I began to see the refineries, some of them abandoned, some of them still working. It depressed me and I thought: “Oh my god, here we are again right in the middle of man and what he is capable of on the earth.” (45) Crews transformed this appalling scene into the ravaged natural world surrounding the fictional phosphate town of Garden Hills, the primary setting for Naked in Garden Hills.1 This novel is Crews’s strongest expression of his concern with nature—animals, plants, and the physical earth—and the relationship of humans to their natural environment. The novel uses nature in two ways: to represent the spiritual or psychological condition of the characters and to suggest that the degradation of nature by the phosphate industry has damaged the characters who live in its environs. Crews wrote Naked in Garden Hills at a time when concerns about the destruction of nature were spreading. Crews was most likely familiar with marine biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 landmark text Silent Spring, which meticulously documented and analyzed the harmful effects of chemical pesticides, especially DDT, on wildlife and humans. Silent Spring remains highly admired and widely recognized as ushering in the modern era of environmentalism in the United States. After its publication, public awareness of environmental issues increased, political debate followed, and some important changes took place. The Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, a year after Naked in Garden Hills was published, and crucial legislation followed, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Arch Frederic Blakely, writing in The Florida Phosphate Industry, published in 1973, wrote that “Few informed people would maintain that there is not a real environmental crisis facing the [End Page 258] world today; indeed, the decisions and actions we take now may affect the survival of the human race within a few generations” (xvii). While Harry Crews is most widely recognized as a writer of dark, violent Southern Gothic novels peopled by grotesque characters, his interest in nature has a significant, yet largely unacknowledged, place in his writings. Crews set forth ideas about the natural world in nonfiction writings throughout his career. For instance, in A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (1978), he expresses his attitudes about the relationship between humans and nature developed during his childhood in rural Bacon County, Georgia. Much of this book deals with his growing up in a family of sharecroppers among crops and domesticated animals, a way of life that encourages using resources wisely and respecting life. His time spent exploring beyond the farm further developed his appreciation of the natural world. Although A Childhood leaves out many of the crucial experiences that Crews mentions elsewhere in his writings, such as his lengthy excursions into the Okefenokee Swamp, in this autobiography, Crews fondly recalls fishing and hunting in the wild with his Uncle Alton. He further describes the personal importance of unspoiled nature to him as an adult in his 1997 essay “Swamp as Metaphor.” Here, speaking of his memories of the Okefenokee Swamp, Crews sounds almost Wordsworthian in his passion for nature: This incredibly wild and strange swamp, combined with the madly twisting and turning Suwannee, has made it possible for me to keep writing at times when nothing else can…. These waters and all that grow in them or on their banks, and fly above them, have been an influence on and a constant support of the...

Since the turn of the twentieth century the hunting of migratory songbirds practised in southern Europe occasionally raised vocal criticism in the public sphere of the northern European countries.1 However, in the early 1970s the chorus of moral disapproval about barbarous ‘murder’ and the ‘mass killings’ of small birds gained much greater prominence in the media.2 This was the time when rising environmental awareness was frequently accompanied with apocalyptic apprehensions about the future.3 Fears were widespread that Rachel Carson’s vision of a ‘Silent Spring’ without birds was finally going to come true,4 as the decline in bird populations seemed to predict the extinction of many species. The struggles and scandals surrounding the reform of hunting legislation in Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s triggered additional attention to the issue of hunting.5 Newly formed bird protection organizations in Italy such as the Lega nazionale contro la distruzione degli uccelli (LNDU), the Italian League against the Destruction of Birds, founded in 1966, joined forces with bird and animal protection organizations in northern Europe, in order to raise awareness and put pressure on Italian politicians from the outside.6

Since Rachel Carson’s passionate warning in the seminal 1962 book ‘Silent Spring’, which is now celebrating 50 years from its publication, concern on the steadily increasing accumulation in the environment of chemically robust, biologically persistent and possibly toxic organochlorine pesticides led to their substitution with less threatening products and finally to stop or limit their production and to severely restrict their use. In particular, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS) signed in 2001 banned or greatly restricted 12 chlorinated organic compounds or classes due to their toxicity and ability to accumulate in the environment and to magnify through the global trophic network. Among them are 11 pesticides namely aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachloro-benzene, kepone, lindane, mirex, toxaphene. These pesticides played a historical role in mitigating the health impact of parasite-borne human pathogens such as malaria parasites and in protecting food crops to allow better feeding of an increasingly raising population especially in sub-tropical and tropical areas. Concern for human and environmental health is mainly due to long-term effects of some substances, in particular through endocrine disruption, interference with reproduction, carcinogenicity, although the actual size of effects of real-life exposure is still an active and debated research topic. Risk assessment and risk-benefit analysis of some key pesticides such as DDT still need a thorough understanding of the toxicity mechanisms and of its relevance to humans in the different life-stages. As a consequence of the Stockholm ban, large stockpiles of unusable pesticides accumulate in some countries and thus present considerable threat to the environment and to human health, also due to unavoidable degradation of the active formulated substances into poorly tractable materials. To avoid environmental damage through contamination of water and agricultural land resources by leaching or improper disposal of repositories, inventories of existing stockpiles are needed to plan and carry adequately safe disposal interventions. Methods for disposal need to tackle the peculiar chemical characteristics of these highly chlorinated aliphatic and aromatic compounds, i.e., very low water solubility and an unusual stability towards acid, basic and oxidizing conditions. Research and technology development in this field is currently exploiting the most advanced ‘green chemistry’ approaches, aimed at an as complete mineralization of organo-chlorine substrates with as negligible production of toxic waste. We will draw a brief historical perspective of the genesis of this pivotal environmental problem, review the use of the ‘dirty dozen’ pesticides and their contribution to the Green Revolution improvement of agricultural food availability, the ecotoxicological and human health concern and the current efforts to front the problems raised by their use.

Four Commentaries on the Pope’s Message on Climate Change and Income Inequality. IV. Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, Global Environmental Risks, and the Future of Humanity.

The best-selling book ‘Silent Spring’ (1962, by Rachel Carson) quivered the international awareness about the role of pesticides for fatally damaging the avian population, but, after more than five decades of such information and advent of various other functionally similar chemicals, still there are overwhelming recent reports of toxicity of pesticides. Globally, over 5 billion pounds of conventional pesticides are used annually for various purposes; these contaminants may act as silent killer of birds. Several studies suggest that the different populations of birds such as songbird, peregrine falcons, ospreys, and Swainson’s hawks are unwitting victims of pesticide contamination.

The historical role of elite (elites) in formation of the public ecological consciousness and in solving of environmental problems from the beginning of industrial revolution of 16-17 centuries in England which resulted in drastic impacts on the environment until our days are considered in the article. It was discovered the evolution of the environmental concerns from the worry of the elites about nature to the modern global mass movement. The first concern of elites over the human impacts on nature and over the loss of harmony between man and nature is related to the time of Romanticism. It was articulated in the most expressive form in the English Romanticism (Percy Bashi Shelley, William Blake, George Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Clare) and in the German Romanticism (Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, Novalis). The concern of the public elites (writers, scientists-naturalists, public figures, artists) of the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries over the state of the environment, natural resources depletion, species extinction and over the decline of the natural and cultural heritage in total due to rapid industrialization and urbanization created the preconditions for the modern ecologim. During that period nature is still considered as a source of harmony and stability which is able to resist to destructive power of industrial civilization, which rapidly transforms the environment. Particular features of development of the European movement for nature protection were shaped by the national, cultural, economic and political peculiarities of the countries of the Western Europe, as well as by dominating social moral and aesthetic values of particular country. The joint result of the activities of the broad spectrum of environmental organizations and groups was the adoption of legislative acts aimed at natural-cultural heritage protection of the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in a number of European countries. This created favorable conditions for networking the European environmental movement and for internationalization of its activities and for forming the first phase of the environmental mobilization of the society, initiated by the public elites of the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the Second World War the broad strata of population in the Western Europe and the North America were involved in the environmental movement. At the same time this movement was split in two principal branches, namely: the nature conservation movement and the movement which considers the quality and safety of human environment as a part of human rights in a democratic society. From 1960s there are two relatively autonomous main branches of the public movement, which, however, closely interact with each other. The formation of the second phase of environmentalism is related to the penetration of the ideas of environmental protection in all spheres of social and political life during 1960s-1970s («Silent Spring», the Club of Rome) and celebration of the Earths Day in April of the year 1970. Thus, the elitist movement for nature protection was transformed into the mass movement for human rights to live in the save environment. In spite of the environmental movement has gone the way from concerns of the elites over the growth of industrialization, urbanization and negative environmental impacts of economic growth and, consequently, overconsumption to the mass movement of thousands and millions of people, the elites still continue to play a significant role in it.

<i>Ecosickness in Contemporary US Fiction: Environment and Affect</i> by Heather Houser

Amphibians became the most ancient class of land-dwelling vertebrates when, 360 million years ago, primitive amphibia such as Ichthyostega first hauled themselves out of their aquatic environment.

Much as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was a call to action against the pesticides that were devastating bird populations, Charles S. Elton's classic Ecology of by Animals and Plants sounded an early warning about an environmental catastrophe that has become all too familiar today-the invasion of nonnative species. From kudzu to zebra mussels to Asian long-horned beetles, nonnative species are colonizing new habitats around the world at an alarming rate thanks to accidental and intentional human intervention. One of the leading causes of extinctions of native animals and plants, invasive species also wreak severe economic havoc, causing $79 billion worth of damage in the United States alone. Elton explains the devastating effects that invasive species can have on local ecosystems in clear, concise language and with numerous examples. The first book on invasion biology, and still the most cited, Elton's masterpiece provides an accessible, engaging introduction to one of the most important environmental crises of our time. Charles S. Elton was one of the founders of ecology, who also established and led Oxford University's Bureau of Animal Population. His work has influenced generations of ecologists and zoologists, and his publications remain central to the literature in modern biology. History has caught up with Charles Elton's foresight, and Ecology of Invasions can now be seen as one of the central scientific books of our century.-David Quammen, from the Foreword to Killer Algae: The True Tale of a Biological Invasion

Carson [1] sounded the alarm, people took notice, and a movement was born. In the half-century since Silent Spring, societies have become much more acutely aware of a chronic problem; there are so many of us, approximately 7.2 billion [2], and our numbers will continue to grow to an estimated 9.6 billion by 2050 [3]. In order to survive, we push relentlessly against the boundaries between consumption (or, depending on who you are, overconsumption) and conservation; clearly, one of the biggest challenges humanity faces, one that may mean the difference between our species survival and extinction, is how to best manage the remaining resources available to us. We face challenges concerning ecosystem services, biodiversity, and the production and consumption of energy.

The Black Summer of 2019/2020 saw the forests of southeast Australia go up in flames. The fire season started early, in September 2019, and by March 2020 fires had burned over 12.6 million hectares (Werner and Lyons). The scale and severity of the fires was quickly confirmed by scientists to be "unprecedented globally" (Boer et al.) and attributable to climate change (Nolan et al.). The fires were also a media spectacle, generating months of apocalyptic front-page images and harrowing broadcast footage. Media coverage was particularly preoccupied by the cause of the fires. Media framing of disasters often seeks to attribute blame (Anderson et al.; Ewart and McLean) and, over the course of the fire period, blame for the fires was attributed to climate change in much media coverage. However, as the disaster unfolded, denialist discourses in some media outlets sought to veil this revelation by providing alternative explanations for the fires. Misinformation originating from social media also contributed to this obscuration. In this article, we investigate the extent to which media coverage of the 2019/2020 bushfires functioned both to precipitate a climate change epiphany and also to support refutation of the connection between catastrophic fires and the climate crisis.

Pesticides In 1962, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published, and the world was forced to take notice of the unintended impacts of pesticides on wildlife. Since then, there has been a perceived reduction in the amount of pesticides used and a shift in the kinds of pesticides available. Schulz et al. looked at the type, amount, and toxicity of pesticides applied over the last 25 years. They found that despite decreasing total amounts applied and decreased impacts on vertebrates, toxicity—in particular to insects and aquatic invertebrates—has increased substantially. Science , this issue p. [81][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abe1148

The planet is threatened by rapidly rising population and the accompanying impact on the environment. However, the environment will not be protected unless societies develop a satisfactory level of social and economic capital. The appropriate balance of environmental, social and economic capital is the challenge of sustainable development. The availability of a plentiful and economic supply of energy is a requirement for the economic and social pillars of sustainable development. Oil and gas will be a major component of the global energy mix for many years until alternate sources of energy become available and economic. During this transition period, the oil and gas industry has an important role to play in managing its operations safely and in reducing emissions, discharges and ecological impact while providing energy at a reasonable cost. This paper will review some of the most critical environmental challenges facing the world today including pollution, biodiversity and global climate change, and review the progress and challenges for the International Oil and Gas Industry. Suggestions for the future role of Non-Government Organizations (NGO's), Governments and Industry Associations will also be presented. Introduction The decade of the 1970's was a watershed year for International Environmentalism. The first US Earth day was held in 1970, the same year as the US Environmental Agency (EPA) was created. The first United Nations (UN) Conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972 which lead to the formation of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). During that decade, governments reacted to the public concern about the environment by enacting a raft of legislation. For Example, the US Congress enacted the seminal legislation for clean water, clean air and the management of waste. The hard work of activists and writers such as Rachael Carson with her 1962 book, Silent Spring,1 had started to pay off. The momentum of environmental activity gained even more energy in the 1980's as a result of public outrage over some very serious, environmentally damaging accidents such as Bhopal ('84), Chernobyl ('86) and Valdez ('89). The response by industry to the avalanche of regulation and public concern was to design and implement management systems for Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) to ensure management, shareholders, customers, communities and governments that industrial operations were in compliance with the letter and the spirit of the new laws. Corporate environmentalism was comprehensively incorporated into corporate policies and procedures during the late 1980's and early 1990's. These management systems grew during the 1990's to encompass not only HSE but also social responsibility and ethical issues such as anti-corruption policies. Also during the 1990's, there was growing recognition of the interrelationship between economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice. The term, "Sustainable Development", became the catchword in government and corporate circles to include these three pillars of human development. Sustainable Development or Management of Change The natural history of the world can be characterized by one word, change. Given that change is ubiquitous and inescapable, what then does "sustainability" mean in terms of human development? Consider that there have been at least 5 massive extinctions of species over the past 300 million years, most probably as a result of meteoric impacts2, and over the past 2.4 million years, there have been 17 glacial oscillations30. We are currently enjoying a warming period called the Holocene that started about 12,000 years ago but even during this period of generally rising temperatures, there have been some temperature swings. Between 800 AD and 1300 AD, there was a medieval warm period when the Vikings colonized Greenland. In comparison, around the middle of the second millennium, Henry VIII could build bonfires on the frozen Thames River in a cooler period known as the Little Ice Age. Over the past century, the global average surface temperature has risen about 0.6°C which is the largest increase in any century during the past 1,000 years39, primarily, as a result of human activity.

The history of DDT and pesticides in America is overshadowed by four broad myths. The first myth suggests that DDT was the first insecticide deployed widely by American farmers. The second indicates that DDT was the most toxic pesticide to wildlife and humans alike. The third myth assumes that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) was an exposé of the problems of DDT rather than a broad indictment of American dependency on chemical insecticides. The fourth and final myth reassures Americans that the ban on DDT late in 1972 resolved the pesticide paradox in America. Over the course of the 20th century, agricultural chemists have developed insecticides from plants with phytotoxic properties (“botanical” insecticides) and a range of chemicals including heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, chlorinated hydrocarbons like DDT, and organophosphates like parathion. All of the synthetic insecticides carried profound unintended consequences for landscapes and wildlife alike. More recently, chemists have returned to nature and developed chemical analogs of the botanical insecticides, first with the synthetic pyrethroids and now with the neonicotinoids. Despite recent introduction, neonics have become widely used in agriculture and there are suspicions that these chemicals contribute to declines in bees and grassland birds.

&lt;p&gt;La búsqueda de un desarrollo que sea sostenible ambientalmente implica aceptar la realidad de un mundo de recursos finitos y la necesidad urgente de repensar nuestros hábitos de consumo y, más aún, nuestros procesos manufactureros. Ya no podemos darnos el lujo de un proceso lineal de producción en el cual se extraen recursos, se procesan, se empacan, de distribuyen, se consumen, y se descartan. Este proceso genera dos graves problemas: escasez de recursos (y los picos petroleros, de minerales raros, de tierra agrícola e incluso agua lo demuestran con creces) y enormes problemas en la gestión de grandes y siempre crecientes desperdicios, algunos muy tóxico y contaminación. Esa concepción corresponde a una etapa adolescente en nuestra evolución colectiva como humanidad, de una creencia ciega en un crecimiento económico y demandas humanas ilimitadas, y reducida preocupación por los impactos ambientales de los procesos productivos. Hay que rediseñar los productos manufacturados para que, en su diseño, este previsto que al terminar su vida útil puedan ser todos sus componentes reutilizados o que sean biodegradables de manera natural. Al comprar un televisor uno no compraría la materia prima que lo compone, sino el servicio que ofrece y al terminar su vida útil, la empresa que lo produce debe retomarlo y ver cómo hace para reutilizar sus componentes. Varios países europeos están moviéndose en esa dirección con legislación que obliga a las empresas a retomar sus productos. Al hacer eso, entraríamos a una etapa de mayor madurez y responsabilidad en nuestros procesos manufactureros, de menor orgullo, más humildad y de reconocimiento de nuestra intrínseca dependencia de los ciclos vitales que sustentan la vida en la tierra. Tal vez sea uno de los principales desafíos de la era moderna. El libro de Braungart y McDonell, “De la Cuna a la Cuna” es, así como lo fue “Lo Pequeño es Hermoso” o “La Primavera Silenciosa”, un libro pionero en este sentido y un libro de referencia obligatoria para quienes estén interesados en la búsqueda de un desarrollo que sea sostenible ambientalmente.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Palabras claves:&lt;/strong&gt; Producción lineal, Circular, Diseño tosco, Vida útil, Etapa adolescente y madurez.&lt;/p&gt;