Article II: Silent Spring

Read and reflect

Watch this short clip below on how launched the environmental movement, the attacks launched against her after Silent Spring was published.

From PBS timeline of the environmental movement: June 1962 -- Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is published. Acclaimed as the catalyst of the modern environmental movement, Silent Spring condemns the overuse of pesticides. Between 1950-1962 the amount of DDT found in human tissue had tripled.

After the chemical industry denounces Carson’s book as a “gross distortion of actual facts,” President John F. Kennedy charges his Science Advisory Committee to review the book’s claims. The Committee reports that the conclusions in Silent Spring are generally correct, and by 1972 DDT will be banned in the U.S.

Complete the following four items:

Read Chapters 1-2 here
Watch this short clip (4:48)

For extra credit: Watch this clip (12:30 min) on how some critics blame Rachel Carson for the rise of malaria around the globe.
For extra credit: Meet with your professor in office hour and/or on the class slack "student hour" to discuss your answers to these questions:
1. What are your thoughts after seeing both video clips and reading the chapters? Do you agree with Rachel Carson and her supporters or the critics of her work? Or do you have a position in the middle? Support your answer with evidence from the films or work from these two weeks.