Short summary of Silent Spring
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Year Written: 1962
The beginning of the Environmentalist Movement
Short Summary; The pesticides used in an attempt to control insects that were major threats to national and international agriculture and the deadly and lasting results. Rachel Carson elaborates with careful research the harmful effects of pesticides on insects, marine life, land mammals, plant life, soil and humans, which can store the toxins and result in convulsions, bone aches, cancer and death.
Facts; There were two types of widely used pesticide organic phosphates and chlorinated hydrocarbons. Chlorinated hydrocarbons consist of DDT, dieldrin, aldrin, chlordane, hexachlor, lindane, and heptachlor; in the 1950’s through 1960’s these were commonly applied to vast tracts of land in hopes to improve farming by eliminating plant-consuming insects. The legal supposedly safe amount was one pound of DDT per acre or one part per million but it was concentrated as it was moving up the food chain and metabolized. It was later discovered that they had poisoned the bottom of a variety of food chains in the area sprayed. Birds were killed indirectly through eating worms that had absorbed the toxins through decomposing sprayed leaves. Fish were poisoned mainly through runoff of the toxins from areas sprayed locally and by the spraying near water sources for pesky insects. Specific plants that needed removal almost always resulted in the eradications of all local species as well as the desired ones leaving a massive gap in the ecological systems that kept other organisms in check. The organism filled soil receives the most direct poisons and is the base of most life cycles and drastically alters the landscape. Humans and small mammals store these toxins in fat after exposure, which is due to either the direct exposure during the spreading of the chemicals or residue in foodstuffs. Until a certain point it is relatively unnoticeable until it causes acute
Year Written: 1962
The beginning of the Environmentalist Movement
Short Summary; The pesticides used in an attempt to control insects that were major threats to national and international agriculture and the deadly and lasting results. Rachel Carson elaborates with careful research the harmful effects of pesticides on insects, marine life, land mammals, plant life, soil and humans, which can store the toxins and result in convulsions, bone aches, cancer and death.
Facts; There were two types of widely used pesticide organic phosphates and chlorinated hydrocarbons. Chlorinated hydrocarbons consist of DDT, dieldrin, aldrin, chlordane, hexachlor, lindane, and heptachlor; in the 1950’s through 1960’s these were commonly applied to vast tracts of land in hopes to improve farming by eliminating plant-consuming insects. The legal supposedly safe amount was one pound of DDT per acre or one part per million but it was concentrated as it was moving up the food chain and metabolized. It was later discovered that they had poisoned the bottom of a variety of food chains in the area sprayed. Birds were killed indirectly through eating worms that had absorbed the toxins through decomposing sprayed leaves. Fish were poisoned mainly through runoff of the toxins from areas sprayed locally and by the spraying near water sources for pesky insects. Specific plants that needed removal almost always resulted in the eradications of all local species as well as the desired ones leaving a massive gap in the ecological systems that kept other organisms in check. The organism filled soil receives the most direct poisons and is the base of most life cycles and drastically alters the landscape. Humans and small mammals store these toxins in fat after exposure, which is due to either the direct exposure during the spreading of the chemicals or residue in foodstuffs. Until a certain point it is relatively unnoticeable until it causes acute