The third chapter of Rachel Carson's book mainly shows us the technological background of pesticides and herbicides. I personally agree with her in that pesticides and herbicides are harmful to us and our surroundings, since they are poisons, but also there is no other effective way to protect our crops and plants and houses from pests such as insects and for example, rats. The happenings that occured (deaths of children and pets) linked to these substances are certainly true, but one would think that if these herbicides and pesticides can be utilized without anyone or anything dying but pests, something must have gone seriously wring in the cases cited by the author. The link below shows that even the Natural Resource Defense Council agrees with the common opinion of newpaper editors, that Rachel carson's claims were often controversial. After having read only one chapter of her book, I cannot state that her claims are untrue or controversial, what I see is an attempt to start a war on pesticides and herbicides. While one half of me agrees with her entirely, the other half cries for more background on the death cases (did these people have for example a user's manual that told them exactly how to use the herbicide and what to be careful about; did they even read it?)
http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp
VT
2 comments:
true, i find that Rachel Carson's writing is in a way a very good way to get the public informed but it seems to be also excessive which in some ways can make a person just sigh and go the other way.
K.K.
Well, there are several alternative ways to protect crops from pests, such as different methods of cultivation (polyculture, trap crops), use of pheromones, genetic engineering and interfering with insect breeding, or even spray the crops with hot water as many farmers in the US do.
I doubt it's a question of people not reading the "user's manual", as I'm sure people even at that time already knew that these were toxins, and potentially hazardous to the surroundings. Even now after many years of research, and regulations by EPA, WHO etc, there are thousands of pesticide-related deaths yearly among agriculture workers in the developing world. However, I think educating the farmers is important, but nonetheless to put more public pressure on them to invest in more modern and environmental/health friendly methods.
A.K
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