An Overview of Silent Sprint by Rachel Carson

CHAPTER 1 "A FABLE FOR TOMORROW"

Rachel Carson describes a city in beautiful city in which peace and harmony reign...birds..wildflowers...trees... foxes and deers in wooded areas.. a nicely preserved and protected wildlife...So beautiful that tourists are constantly attracted to its magic. Suddenly, the birds disappear, trees and flowers succumb, the people get seriously ill, and doctors are unable to identify the malaise.

CHAPTER 2 "THE OBLIGATION TO ENDURE"

The environment has played a major role in the circle of life. Humans have modified that sacred environment, polluting it with waste, radiation and toxic chemicals such as insecticides/pesticides/herbicides.

CHAPTER 3 "ELIXIRS OF DEATH"

Carson addresses the toxicity of synthetic pesticides and describes them and their widespread use in our environment. Those chemicals have made their way into humans and animals food chain by contaminating groundwater sources and will remain for the next 12 years. Pesticides tend to accumulate in fatty tissues of most wild animals; at the time it was very hard o find uncontaminated animals for research.They make organs malfunction and cause cancer.

CHAPTER 4 "SURFACE WATERS AND UNDERGROUND SEAS"

Insecticides/pesticides/herbicides are a major source of water contamination.They combine with other pollutants and substances in water to form new, unidentifiable substances that in some cases are known only as "gunk." This is very alarming as the global fresh water shortage is only getting worst over the years.

CHAPTER 5 "REALMS OF THE SOIL"

Carson describes an interdependent circle of life in which life depends on the soil, and the soil depends on animal life to be replenished and nourished. Specific chemical processes are needed for the soil to sustain life. Insecticides/pesticides/herbicides are not naturally part of those chemicals and negatively disturb and alter the soil.

CHAPTER 6 "EARTH'S GREEN MANTLE"

Without plants, no animal life could exist but humans hold a narrow view of plants, using them when they are immediately useful but destroying them if an immediate use for them is not obvious. A good example given was that of weeds; Humans believe weeds to be useless plants, and are constantly working on creating more efficient weed herbicides.

CHAPTER 7 "NEEDLESS HAVOC"

Carson elaborates on different circumstances in which humans destroyed life such as the slaughter of buffalo, the massacre of shorebirds, and the near-decimation of egrets for their feathers. Sprayings are actively contributing in extinguishing several living species.

CHAPTER 8 "AND NO BIRDS SING"

Spraying against such things as Dutch elm disease and fire ants has destroyed birds by the thousands. DDT is destroying insects as well as plants and birds.

CHAPTER 9 "RIVERS OF DEATH"

1953..New Brunswick...Salmon migration occurred as usual in the Miramichi river. By the spring of 1954, salmon began to die as the Government sprayed chemicals to get rid of budworm. Along with all the insects and most of the birds in the millions of sprayed acres, the entire 1954 hatch of salmon died; five-sixths of the 1953 hatch died; and one-third of the 1952 hatch died leaving the budworm population to thrive.

CHAPTER 10 "INDISCRIMINATELY FROM THE SKIES"

Up until WW2, chemicals wee sprayed "with caution"; during the war, chemicals were sprayed from airplanes without any warning to the populations below, triggering alarming consequences. Carson gives the example of the spraying of 1 million acres (mostly residential areas) in 1956 to eliminate the gypsy moth. Despite complaints and, the next year's spraying included 3,000,000 acres.

CHAPTER 11 " BEYOND THE DREAMS OF THE BORGIAS"

Most of the contamination of the earth happens not in the massive sprayings of huge government operations but in the small-scale sprayings of individuals. People are subjected daily to small doses of chemical poisoning. This exposure builds up over time until people get diseases and die.

CHAPTER 12 "THE HUMAN PRICE"

This chapter addresses Public Health problems which used to be exclusively caused by diseases such as smallpox, cholera, and plague. Humans have caused a new type of public health crisis by introducing dangerous radiation and chemicals into our environment in huge quantities.

CHAPTER 13 "THROUGH A NARROW WINDOW"

Many of the chemicals we apply indiscriminately to our environment act to disrupt the vital cellular function that keeps us alive. Carson discusses to the medical research that links insecticides and pesticides to illnesses and death in animals/ humans.

CHAPTER 14 "ONE IN EVERY FOUR"

Because life, including human life, adapts to environmental changes extremely slowly, the carcinogens that man has created relatively recently in the span of history can have drastic effects on humans, as well as other creatures. Research have shown that insecticides/pesticides/herbicides may cause cancer, just like arsenic or radiation.

CHAPTER 15 "NATURE FIGHTS BACK"

Despite our efforts to control unwanted insects by application and spraying of new insecticides, the insects keep coming back. Insects are genetically adapting to the chemicals we use and becoming resistant. Those chemicals are only weakening entire ecosystems.When people interfere in nature’s control process, they upset the balance of nature.

CHAPTER 16 "THE RUMBLINGS ON AN AVALANCHE"

Before DDT was introduced, chemical control experts had begun to recognize the habit of insects to come back after spraying. With the introduction of DDT, the "true Age of Resistance" began. People hadn’t become alarmed by this fact by the mid-century. Only those who worked with disease-carrying insects realized the severe danger of resistant insects.

CHAPTER 17 "THE OTHER ROAD"

The other road of this chapter's title is the path of non-chemical control of unwanted insects and plants. Only by this "other road," the "one 'less traveled by,"' can we ensure our planet's survival. It is up to us to assert our right not to be poisoned.