Silent Spring - 50 Years Old

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/09/25/3596835.htm?WT.svl=featuredSitesScroller

This link takes you to an article especially pertinent today, the 50th anniversary of the publicaton of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

Many argue that was the birthday of the modern environment and conservation movement.  The book chronicled the role of DDT in the environment and the damage it was causing from unprincipled use.

DDT is a very effective agrochemical and still has uses today, particularly when impregnated in mosquito bed nets, for malaria control.........it is a great option that really works.  It is just that, in some ways like the use of glyphosate today, DDT was used for everything!  And society did not know enough about the problems that arose until afterwards, and it was hard to get people to listen.

And then came the book Silent Spring.  A slim volume, and I read it, in the mid 1960s studying agrochemical use as an undergraduate in an ag science faculty.  It was a game changer.

It is still in print, and still worth reading if you have not done so before..

It is true to say, the genesis of the environmental movement can be traced to that book release.