The deafening hush tuneless
Our world out of tune
In 1962 Rachel Carson published her seminal work, Silent Spring, which pointed out the dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, with a particular emphasis on dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known as DDT, a type of synthetic pesticide which works by attacking the nerves of pests. Although Ms. Carson was demonized by the chemical companies as a bogus female quasi-scientist alarmist, her well-researched study of our pest eradication methods at that time was convincing enough to get a nod from President Kennedy, had the public feeling uneasy about the practice of aerial spraying of pesticides and eventually led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, established during Richard Nixon's tenure. Quite an accomplishment for one lone woman in a wilderness of money, machismo and corporate machinations. While Ms. Carson died prior to much of the hooplah and banning of DDT, still she saw that her carefully drawn work did hit a nerve and did get a conversation going from the urban centers to the rural hamlets. Environmental awareness was outed and our citizenry became interested and some progress was made. Then suddenly something happened. That something was NOTHING. We got lazy and content with not knowing nor caring and started trusting the fox in the henhouse, the corporations and government to have our best interests at stake. Now the henhouse is in a shambles, the hens are dying and the foxes are fat. It's time to pick up A Silent Spring and give it another look before we are all forced to fly the coop.
