“The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials”
“The contamination of our world is not alone a matter of mass spraying. Indeed, for most of us this is of less importance than the innumerable small scale exposures to which we are subjected day by day, year by year, like the constant dripping of water that in me wears away the hardest stone. ” –Silent Spring, Rachel Carson.
Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, wrote Silent Spring. On this anniversary of the book’s publication, we continue to benefit from her understanding of the impacts of pesticides resulting in long-term health effects (cancer, neurological, reproductive, respiratory and developmental) as well as environmental impacts on our waterways, drinking water and wildlife ‚ issues that are still with us and needing to be addressed more than ever.
Rachel Carson said, “If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals — eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones — we had better know something about their nature and their power”. Silent Spring continues to guide us in protecting public health and our environment.
A New York Times Tribute to Rachel Carson: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/how-silent-spring-ignited-the-environmental-movement.html?pagewanted=all
