Celebrating Rachel Carson

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Author and biologist Rachel L. Carson.

By Bernard Unti

With the publication of "Silent Spring" (1962), an impassioned warning about the dangers posed by biocidal chemicals to the natural world, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) transformed the modern environmental movement. It is less well known that Carson, born one hundred years ago on May 27, was an animal welfare advocate who participated in efforts to improve the lives of animals in agriculture, laboratories and the wild. At ease and well-regarded within the fields of wildlife biology, conservation and humane work, Carson transcended the largely separate spheres of environmentalism and the animal welfare movement of her day.

Carson, a biologist, learned of the devastating impact of pesticides invented in the post-World War II era through her work at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. An accomplished author of three works on the ocean—"Under the Sea Wind" (1941), "The Sea Around Us" (1952), "The Edge of the Sea" (1956)—she became active in a crucial information network of scientists and others focusing on pesticide use during the late 1950s. Deeply disturbed by what she learned, she decided to write a book that would bring the facts "out of the obscurity of biological literature."

The central argument of "Silent Spring" was that chemical pesticides developed in the postwar era were being used recklessly and were threatening human health and the balance of nature through the poisoning of wildlife, soil, air and water.

"The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized," Carson wrote. "These insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid. Each of them is used for the simple reason that it is a deadly poison. It therefore poisons all life with which it comes in contact; the cat beloved of some family, the farmer's cattle, the rabbit in the field and the horned lark out of the sky. … By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished as a human being?"

Carson quickly became the subject of vicious attacks by the petrochemical industry. Industry spokesmen strongly rejected her charges concerning DDT, an eggshell-thinning pesticide whose adverse effects Carson highlighted, and their comments frequently became personal. Confident and unflustered, however, Carson answered back, cautioning the public against inordinate trust in scientific authority.

"Silent Spring" was a pioneering work in the sense of being the first to incorporate threats to people, animals and nature into its analysis. It also reflected Carson's commitment to make the science behind her claims intelligible for a general audience. As all her earlier works had done, the narrative made it clear that her sympathy for animals was rooted not simply in scientific knowledge about them but through emotional connection to them.

This drove Carson's steady contributions to the animal welfare movement during the late 1950s and early 1960s, too. During those years, Carson moved within an animal welfare vanguard that included journalist Ann Cottrell Free and Christine Stevens of the Animal Welfare Institute. In their animal welfare work, Free, Stevens and their colleagues sought to cast cruelty to animals as an ethical, political and environmental question, as well as to situate humane concern within a framework of scientific advancement.   

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Rachel Carson and Bob Hines conduct marine biology research.

Carson dedicated "Silent Spring" to Albert Schweitzer, whose reverence-for-life philosophy influenced many animal advocates of the mid-twentieth century. Accepting AWI's Albert Schweitzer Award in 1962, Carson called him "the only truly great individual our modern times have produced. If, during the coming years, we are to find our way through the problems that beset us, it will surely be in large part through a wider understanding and application of his principles."

It took four and a half years for Carson to research and write "Silent Spring," and she learned early in the process that she had cancer. In April 1964, less than two years after its publication, she died.

She had lived long enough to see her claims amply vindicated by events and action, however. More than 250,000 hardcover copies of "Silent Spring" sold during its first year in print, a virtually unprecedented achievement for a scientific work, and in 1963 President Kennedy's science adviser said the uncontrolled use of poisonous chemicals was "potentially a much greater hazard" than radioactive fallout. Over the next several decades, many of the "chain of death" pesticides discussed in the book—DDT, dieldrin, endrin, aldrin, heptachlor and chlordane—were prohibited in many parts of the world.

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Carson at work.

Within the United States, the legacy of "Silent Spring" also includes the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air and Water Acts, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. It also spurred the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act  which introduced a requirement for environmental impact statements for every proposed federal action that could have an effect  on the quality of the human environment.

Carson's legacy to animal welfare is also substantial. Today, there is an increased awareness that cruel practices and environmental damage are often intertwined. And there is a stronger commitment to address both problems through scientific approaches, public policy initiatives and a compassionate moral perspective.

Carson's ecological emphasis on the web of life added something to the humane movement's traditional focus on pain and suffering, too.

"For each of us," she wrote, "this [pesticide use] is a problem of ecology, of interrelationships, of interdependence."  Today, the insight that all life, human and nonhuman, is interconnected, is a foundational premise for animal protectionists throughout the world. And in a world facing the threat of climate change, extinction and the continuing despoliation of the natural environment and its inhabitants, it remains the most profound of notions.

Bernard Unti, senior policy adviser and special assistant to the president, received his doctorate in U.S. history in 2002 from American University. His book, "Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Humane Society of the United States," is available from Humane Society Press.