Rachel Carson

[[File:Rachel_Carson_w_(cropped).jpg|thumb|right|165px|The face that launched a thousand [[Expert for hire|experts for hire]].]]{{Enviro}}
'''Rachel Carson''' {{lived|1907|1964}} was an [[United States|American]] marine [[biology|biologist]] and [[author]] who first received popular acclaim for her "sea trilogy" of books (''The Sea Around Us'', ''The Edge of the Sea'', and ''Under the Sea Wind''), but is most remembered for her [[scientific]] investigation into the use of pesticides.

Her work was integral in saving the bald eagle from [[extinction]], which, in great [[irony]] to what you will see below, could make her one of the greatest American [[patriot]]s.

==''Silent Spring''==
Carson published her most famous work, ''Silent Spring'', in 1962. The book criticizes the overuse of pesticides, especially [[DDT]]. Carson documents how DDT works its way through the food chain and traces its ecological effects, which include risks to various [[animals]], including [[humans]]. The book led President [[John F. Kennedy]] to order an investigation of the claims by the Science Advisory Committee, which vindicated Carson's work.<ref>[http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp The Story of Silent Spring], NRDC</ref> This ultimately led to a ban on the agricultural use<ref group=note>As distinct from its use in controlling insect vectors of disease.</ref> of DDT in the United States under the [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] administration.

One of the arguments Carson made for the limitation of the use of pesticides was that pests would develop resistance to them and their overuse would thus ultimately make them less effective when they were truly needed.<ref>{{wpl|DDT#Mosquito resistance|Mosquito resistance of DDT}} on Wikipdedia</ref> This, in fact, played out as she predicted in {{wpl|Sri Lanka||,}} where DDT had been extremely effective in nearly wiping out [[malaria]]. In 1964, spraying programs were stopped to save [[money]] because of the paucity of malaria cases. A common DDT-proponent [[canard]] is that [[environmentalist]]s banned it in '64, which is completely bogus. In fact, spraying resumed into the 1970s, but the mosquitoes had [[evolution|evolved]] resistance to DDT and cases of malaria began to increase again.<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/02/ddt3.php The Great DDT Hoax], ScienceBlogs</ref> Incidentally, mosquitoes there have also been evolving a resistance to malathion, DDT's replacement.<ref>S.H.P.P. Karunaratne and J. Hemingway. [http://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/79(11)1060.pdf Malathion resistance and prevalence of the malathion carboxylesterase mechanism in populations of mosquito vectors of disease in Sri Lanka.] ''Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2001'', 79: 1060–1064.</ref>

''Silent Spring'' is considered to be the book that officially launches the environmental protection movement.<ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nature/disrupt/sspring.html</ref> Although it is a result of her own scientific research, she wrote it in such a manner that the general public finds easy to understand, making full use of her writing skills. It is for this reason that she deserves credit for raising awareness about the need to protect the natural environment.

==Legacy and corporate tantrums==
Upon publication of ''Silent Spring'', chemical companies launched a smear campaign against Carson, labeling her a "[[female hysteria|hysterical woman]]."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,990622,00.html Environmentalist Rachel Carson], ''TIME''</ref> However, this [[ad hominem]] proved not to be an effective means of dulling the actual message.

Nevertheless, long after Carson was dead and buried, [[experts for hire|shills]] and [[anti-environmentalism|anti-environmental]] [[wingnut]]s began to accuse her of "mass murder" and "environmental genocide" by claiming that her book led to a ban on DDT that has killed millions in the [[Third World]] by allowing malaria to spread.<ref>Ultra-right rag ''[[Regnery Publishing|Human Events]]'' lists ''Silent Spring'' as a runner-up for [http://www.humanevents.com/2005/05/31/ten-most-harmful-books-of-the-19th-and-20th-centuries/ "The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th-20th Centuries."]</ref> There is even a site run by the [[right-wing]] [[think tank]] [[Competitive Enterprise Institute]] titled [http://rachelwaswrong.org rachelwaswrong.org.]<ref>[http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186 Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer? The creation of an anti-environmental myth]</ref> In fact, ''[[Big lie|no such thing]]'' ever happened. ''Silent Spring'' only called for a limitation on the use of DDT and it has never been completely banned for use in the Third World as it has in the US (and there are even still a few exceptions to the ban in the US); instead, the ''actual'' reason why DDT use declined in the Third World was that [[Evolution|mosquitoes developed resistance to it]].<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/05/the_unending_war_on_rachel_car.php#comment-438787 The Unending War on Rachel Carson], ScienceBlogs</ref><ref>[http://skepticblog.org/2011/05/04/the-demonization-of-rachel-carson/ The Demonization of Rachel Carson], Skepticblog</ref> However, it is still an article of [[faith]] among the [[Steve Milloy]]s and [[Penn and Teller]]s of the world that Carson was the environmental version of [[argumentum ad Hitlerum|Hitler]].

In their magnum opus on [[FUD]] as a corporate delaying tactic, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway devote an entire chapter to the "Rachel was wrong"-hysteria, raising the question of why anti-environmentalists keep flogging this long-dead horse.<ref>Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. [http://pubs.acs.org/cen/books/89/8903books.html ''Merchants of Doubt''.] Bloomsbury Press, 2011. ISBN 1-608-19394-2, pp. 216-239</ref> Their answer is that this attempt at [[historical revisionism]]<ref group=note>Or rather anti-environmentalist [[pseudohistory]].</ref> is an attempt at depicting a patent success as an abject failure and thereby tarnish environmentalism in general. As for motivations, Oreskes and Conway point to the [[Cornucopian vs. Malthusian debate|cornucopian]] [[Reaganism|free]] [[Austrian school|market]] [[Supply side economics|fundamentalism]] and the sort of [[culture war]]s within the scientific community that led some quite good scientists, such as [[Frederick Seitz]] and [[S. Fred Singer]], to decide that science itself was being corrupted by a [[liberal bias]] and throw in their lot with the sleazier side of [[Corporation|corporate]] America.<ref>Oreskes & Conway, 2011, pp. 240-259</ref>

If this attempt at rewriting history sounds familiar, it’s basically because it’s a parallel to the [[New Deal]] [[denialism]] of the likes of [[Amity Shlaes]] and her imitators, which tries to rewrite the New Deal as a fiasco to discredit the notion of governments stimulating the economy, just like “Rachel was wrong” targets environmental regulation. Another example, also mentioned by Orestes & Conway, is to try to discredit science pertaining to [[global warming]] by [[ice age fallacy|depicting a minority view among scientists of the 1970s]] that a new [[ice age]] might be in the pipeline as if it was the dominant consensus. This suggests that climate scientists are just arbitrarily guessing and are routinely whipping up a frenzy with the implication that we can just sit back and ignore those pesky nerds at the IPCC etc. and that we certainly don’t need any regulation. All three examples are ultimately cases of [[free market]] [[fundamentalist]] [[apologetics]], eerily similar to how certain literalist, religious fundamentalists try to rewrite history to suit their scriptures.

==See also==
*[[Environmental classism]]

==External links==
*[http://drs.library.yale.edu:8083/saxon/SaxonServlet?style=http://drs.library.yale.edu:8083/saxon/EAD/yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&source=http://drs.library.yale.edu:8083/fedora/get/beinecke:carson/EAD Library of Rachel Carson papers] at the Yale University Library
*[http://www.chatham.edu/rci/ Rachel Carson Institute] at Chatham University
*[http://www.rachelcarson.org/ Rachel Carson website]
*[http://membracid.wordpress.com/category/rachel-carson/ Bug Girl's category for Carson]
*[http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/29/rachel_carson/ Rachel Carson's Birthday Bashing], ''Salon''
*[http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186 Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer?] FAIR
*[http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2008/05/rehabilitatingcarson/ Rehabilitating Carson], ''Prospect''
*[http://junksciencearchive.com/malaria_clock.html Steve Milloy's Malaria Clock (My Green Eco-Imperialist Legacy of Imaginary Death)] (The "infected" tally is reaching 16 billion!)

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}
[[Category:Academia]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Biologists]]
[[Category:Education]]
[[Category:Environmentalism]]
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Categories: Academia, Authors, Biologists, Education, Environmentalism, Scientists