Silent Spring

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Summary: DR. HULDA CLARK'S PREDESSOR
Review: I am pleased to write this very short review of Carson's book. I have joined an eco reading group in hopes of saving at least two or three of human kind to continue life on this planet. Carson has set the background for what my favorite scientist/writer of the 21st century, Dr. Hulda Clark has dovetailed on. It comes as no surprise that Dr. Clark books which were written starting 1993 were met by the same kind of corporate outcry and government disclaimer as what happened to Rachel Carson. I hope society learns something from how they mistreated Carson and not make the same mistake with Dr. Clark.

I am a strong supporter of Dr. Clark and her protocols for curing/preventing/treating many of the ills,--cancer, hiv/aids and immune system destroying diseases--as Carson fortold in her books some 42 years ago.

Presently, the government is dragging Dr. Clark to court because they do not want her work to be recognized for improving the health of many Americans. I SCREAM FROM THE HIGHEST TOWER THAT HER SCIENCE HAS SAVED MY LIFE AND I AM ETERNALLY GREATFUL.

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Summary: Surprising!
Review: I didn't think that this book was very interesting and I didn't think that this book was very dull either. It made me think about some of the current issues of today that deal with pesticides. Rachel Carson talks about how insecticides are sprayed to kill insects, but they not only kill the target insects, but also those that no one wants to kill. Now, in present day, there have been sprayings to get ride of the mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus. I was wondering what other insects/animals we are killing. Even though the West Nile virus is a serious disease, it does not affect the majority of the population. Less then one percent! Is that enough to risk endangerment of hundreds of animals? Or even humans that will come in contact with the insecticides?
Also, she talks about how once pesticides are in the water; it is very hard to get rid of them. This reminded me of a present day issue about the "Frankinfish." They are putting pesticides into the water to try to rid this area of the fish, but are they thinking about the other animals that they are endangering? We are already destroying habitats of animals that we have not even discovered, why do we want to kill more?
All in all, this book made me wonder about how all of this is still relevant to life in the twenty-first century and what we can do to get the results that we want without using harsh chemicals.

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Summary: Silent Spring Critical Review
Review: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring captures audiences into a world passionate about the environment with her detailed descriptions on the threat of DDT. Carson appeals to the reader's emotions by first describing a calm, undisturbed land. She then illustrates the destruction caused by DDT, short for dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane, and how it affects plant, human, and animal life. Through her delicate balance of emotion vs. science, Rachel Carson proves that scientific theories can be easily understood by the average reader though a book.
Carson's strong scientific background knowledge is evident from the beginning of Silent Spring. The first chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow," is by far the most powerful and thought provoking chapter in the book. This chapter outlines a fictional town, but the town she describes is easily believed by the reader to be their own. The belief that this poison could harm this simple little town has imprinted the significance of DDT from the start. Her foundation and background were so skillfully laid that the reader is already curious in her ideas and excited to read on.
Carson clearly presents her problem of DDT poisoning in the third chapter. From then on, the idea of DDT is the main idea of all of her chapters, stories, and experimental data. Each chapter lays out a particular theme, such as soil destruction, water poisoning, animal poisoning, and so forth. After these individual ideas are explained, Carson begins to logically tie them together in the middle of the book by explaining each one's role in the food chain.
Rachel Carson is very passionate about her topic of the destruction caused by DDT. Because of this, each chapter is full of reasons why each and every person should be actively involved in the fight against insecticides and poisons. The significance is that she alerts us that each and every plant, animal, and human is at a potential risk for poisoning. She carefully outlines how each are destroyed, have been destroyed, and what we can do to prevent it. The book also uses emotional devices such as story telling and hypothetical situations to draw the reader closer to the topic.
The author's diction and tone is right on target with the average reader's intelligence. She does not include lengthy, scientific words and she explains every abbreviation. She also balances her amount of detail and description with the reader's previous knowledge. Carson includes details that can be understood, and leaves out those that could be misunderstood or complicated. However, to fully grasp the understanding of each chapter, it may be necessary to reread it to fully comprehend the literature.
Rachel Carson's book is filled to the brim with opinions, stories, and warnings, but it is also filled with factual information. With 50 pages of works cited, Carson has not only proved herself, but has proved her information to be reliable and accurate. Her book is a far cry from others that are simply an overabundance of opinion that lack facts. Carson's hard work and dedication have paid off and has created a timeless non-fiction piece that stands the test of time.

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Summary: Review of Silent Spring
Review: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is an excellent book. Although Carson published the book over 30 years ago, its message about the dangers of pesticides and man's attempts to control nature are true today. Clearly an environmentalist, Carson presents a balanced picture of how pesticides contaminate our water, atmosphere, and food. For example, she examines how DDT used to control worms, ants, and grubs ultimately kills birds and other mammals and enters our streams and lakes from runoff and kills fish. She examines the history of Clear Lake, California, where scientists used a pesticide to destroy a small gnat that annoyed fishermen. The pesticide was later found in birds, fish and larger predators. Scientists discovered that initial small doses of the insecticide increases as it is consumed along the food chain and that as waters are contaminated with pesticides, there is a danger that cancer-producing substances are being introduced, too.
While Carson accepts some limited pesticide use, she fully supports biological solutions which she feels can be used to control unwanted insect and plant populations without compromising our health. For example, she points out that in California, scientists brought in two species of beetle to control the unwanted Klamath weed. She uses our fight against the Japanese beetle as another support for biological solutions to unwanted insects. In the East, scientists used an imported parasitic wasp and the milky spore disease to wipe out the Japanese beetle. In Michigan and Illinois, scientists dusted with aldrin and dieldrin to control the beetle. The pesticides only endangered birds, rabbits, muskrats, fish and people and did not solve the Japanese beetle problem. Carson notes that insects are becoming resistant to pesticides and that nature, not man, is the best control of unwanted pests.
While her book was attacked and discredited by the pesticide industry, her findings have been confirmed and today environmental issues are a major national concern. The book is easy to read and contains excellent examples and explanations of the interrelationships in nature. Anyone who is interested in the environment should read this book.

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Summary: Silent Spring Review
Review: Silent Spring is a book that has been read by many people and is written by Rachel Carson. In this book she writes about the disturbances that had been created in nature, and almost all of them created by humans. The use of pesticides has been a terrible damage to animals, plants, and even persons, as a result, in the time where this was seriously happening, like about in the 1960's, there was a huge decline in some of out beautiness of our nature, as birds and other animals that ineract with each other. Rachel Carson wrote this book so everybody could see how those pesticides or chemicals were destroying our environment and for people to realize what we need to think before we destroy our place, and for companies to rebuild an idea of what they're making. Silent Spring talks about an specific pesticide that was the first originated and that caused a lot of damage, panic, and troubleness among people and species, that was the use od DDT, this was a phenomenom that wasn't easily to get rid off and to fins s solution to the long effects that caused, such as the different diseases in persons, etc. I think that Silent Spring is an interesting book that students in high school should read, if interested, to realize what were the views over 30 years ago, and that we now can still see them, of the damage in the environment and the species in general.

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Summary: Silent Spring was Amazing, but...
Review: Silent Spring is, without a doubt, the most amazing book I have ever read. Though it is gut-loaded with facts, Carson' s ingenious wording makes reading it a somewhat enjoyable experience. It seems as if the words had an almost surreal quality. For example one of her chapters is entitled, "Realms of the Soil," and another is, "The Earth's Green Mantle." One can tell that this is her style of writing because she also used such titles in her other books such as Under the Sea Wind. With this style, the drawbacks are that about every sentence is difficult to understand, with few I completely did not understand at all. Then again, I am just a preteen; Silent Spring was intended for adults to read, comprehend, and then heed its warning. I most definitely can see why the people of the 1960's were so moved by this single book, for I could have almost be fooled to thinking that it was a piece of classic fictional literature when I began reading it.

This book was also quite informative, as I was appalled by some of the actual events mentioned, like the story of a factory or warehouse that polluted the water around it so much that over time, the menagerie of chemicals bonded to form an additional one. It is true that Carson exaggerated a bit, but the point is, her message was sent far beyond a person's imagination. Silent Spring was the smoking gun against chemical toxins. Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed Silent Spring, and at times I found it hard to put down. After all, I did not give it such a high rating for nothing.

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Summary: It is obvious why this book was such a wake-up call!
Review: When Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962, her goal was to make everyone aware of what the toxic substance DDT was doing to the delicate ecosystems in North America, most notable its role in the destruction of bird populations. After reading "Silent Spring", one can see why the book was a turning point in the movement of environmentalism.

Rachel Carson did a massive amount of research to study the effects that pesticides like DDT had on the environment. Her chapters are filled with highly-documented scientific facts, but they also possess a poignant element which helped stir the nation into doing something about it in the late sixties-early seventies after the book's release.

Al Gore's introduction eloquently details the sentiments and actions that this book prompted and it compliments the text very well.

This book is high on my list of recommendations.