Gratitude Friday 09 27 24 The Power of a Book to Change the World

“A Who's Who of pesticides is therefore of concern to us all. If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones - we had better know something about their nature and their power.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

On this day in 1962, American biologist and writer Rachel Carson published the book Silent Spring. It was a few years before I was born, but the positive impact of her work is all around us even today. The impact of this book is visible in our world even now. It was one of the most-influential books in the modern environmental movement and raised awareness of the impact of pesticides on our own health and the health of the creatures we cohabitate with on this earth.

One of the things that she was able to do was take the data from our local hawk watch at Hawk Mountain that had a hawk count going back before WWII. That count shows how the introduction of DDT in the post war economy ended up causing a rapid decline in bird populations, most notably the symbol of our nation, the Bald Eagle and other amazing birds such as the Peregrine Falcon which was also on the brink of extinction. The culprit was traced to the use of the pesticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane commonly known as DDT.

The book was supported by that data from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. It is an Eastern Pa treasure known to ornithologists worldwide. As an aside, one early October morning a few years back, I climbed to North Lookout and found some of the staff honoring the first sanctuary guardian Maurice Broun on the anniversary of the death in 1979. They had brought his bird count clicker picture above to the top of the mountain to see the sunrise and to observe his contributions. I got to hold it on that crisp morning as the sun rose over the horizon to our East. It meant a lot to me in ways hard to express with words. It was on this very bird count clicker that the data showing the decline of Bald Eagles was collected, even though they had no idea at the time that this is what they were observing. Data from this humble device on that mountain saved the Bald Eagle because Rachel Carson wrote about it and people listened to her warning.

I see Bald Eagles with regularity as I know how their flight patterns and wing shapes differ from other raptors. They are actually quite common now. This was not the case until recent decades. After her book, DDT was banned in the US in the early 70s (it still is used internationally, including in some South American countries) and the Endangered Species Act was passed in that same era the Bald Eagle and other endangered species became protected by federal law. Ornithologists worked to restore the population. It took decades. In 1963, there were only 417 breeding pairs remaining in the lower 48 states. By 2019, the population was estimated to be 316,700 individuals, including 71,467 breeding pairs. The next time you see the symbol of American freedom flying overhead, thank the environmentalist, Racheal Carson. Don’t care about birds, know that DDT expkosure may quadruple breast cancer risk and consider what this may have meant for us if her book had not captured the attention of the American public.

I think that one other thing that observing the publication of Silent Spring can do for us in our own era is provide us hope that we are capable of course correction when presented with evidence of harm in our environment due to human causes. We can change course when we decide to do so. The 1960’s were an era in which we reacted to what science was showing us about the risks of the course we were on and did things to positively alter that course. Bald Eagles are no longer endangered. Without elaborating, I imagine that readers can consider any number of environmental threats of human origin in which we should make changes. This is a clear example that we have done so in the past and we can see the positive evidence of what they did all around us.

Rachel Carson’s work and her book changed our world. She did not live long enough to see the positive contributions she made as a result of her efforts. She died at age 56 from breast cancer in 1964, the year before I was born. Her words live on, like these lines that have relevance in our own era:

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road--the one less traveled by--offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

I am grateful for people like Rachel Caron who take on what seem like insurmountable challenges and preserve despite the overwhelming odds in my own area of professional focus and beyond. I am grateful for what she did, I only wish she would have lived long enough to see that she prevailed, and we are all richer for her efforts.

What are you grateful for today?