Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson is an author who is credited for helping to launch the environmental movement. She was an ecologist and ecology writer, and wrote several books that helped impact the way people looked at their surroundings. In 1962 she wrote a book called Silent Springs which sparked a shift in people's opinions toward the use of pesticides and DDT. I think that books like this are important because the provoke a necessary wake up call and awareness to people. It causes people to realize that they should question more things because everything affects them. Prior to her publishing, people were not aware that pesticides like the DDT caused harmful affects on wildlife other than the bugs they were designed to kill. Once people found this out they became outraged at the government and that it had regulated this. This shows that people need to be proactive and once again, question what is going on in their world. As she put it, "For the first time in history.. every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death." This also brings about the issue of how future generations are to be affected directly by the actions of the current one , and this also must be addressed. What Rachel Carson brought to the public's attention, is still an issue today. The fact that we as a society still struggle with making choices that have less of a negative impact on the environment. Our current generation seems to be making the most effort in terms of research as our resources are starting to dwindle and more animals are getting harmed and added onto the endangered species list. Obviously we are getting a lot better, but we still a lot more to get done in order to have an ideal balance between progress and a healthy environment. Overall we have Rachel Carson to thank and her willingness to take heat and publish the ideas that helped change the way Americans thought. She definitly is one of the key people to consider when talking about the environmental movement that helped make the world a little better.

"Rachel Carson." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .