Rachel Carson
ENG 102
22 April 2013
Environmental Issues Today Rachel Carson had a passionate belief that mankind had launched a personal war on itself inadvertently due to the war it had launched on insects and its insistence of contaminating the air, land and water by doing so. At a rate of more than 500 new chemicals per year, of which 200 from the1940 's to the 1960 's were pesticides, the public market is flooded with more pesticides than it knows what to do with. More often than not, each new insecticide just happens to be a little stronger than the last, defeating the purpose, and killing off the good insects as well as the bad (Carson par. 5 - 7). Carson 's views of the over-usage of pesticides could be fully substantiated if by no other means than that of these three measures. These chemicals are now universally used on almost every farm and in almost every home across this country. They are “nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good ' and the 'bad, ' to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in the soil.” Sadly enough, the destination of these insecticides are usually only a few annoying bugs among the thousands that exist (Carson par. 7). Carson believed that chemicals should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.” Considering the prefix “bio,” or life, this is understandably so. These chemicals have no discernment of life as has been displayed by numerous reports of wild life and human illnesses due to the mass distribution of such chemicals. Unfortunately, it is a never ending war that has been declared. With each new chemical and with each new treatment distributed, the insects are actually fighting back by means of immunity to the chemicals. Carson observed that “destructive insects often undergo resurgence.” In other words, each time these bugs are sprayed and those that survive reproduce, their offspring will have developed a
22 April 2013
Environmental Issues Today Rachel Carson had a passionate belief that mankind had launched a personal war on itself inadvertently due to the war it had launched on insects and its insistence of contaminating the air, land and water by doing so. At a rate of more than 500 new chemicals per year, of which 200 from the1940 's to the 1960 's were pesticides, the public market is flooded with more pesticides than it knows what to do with. More often than not, each new insecticide just happens to be a little stronger than the last, defeating the purpose, and killing off the good insects as well as the bad (Carson par. 5 - 7). Carson 's views of the over-usage of pesticides could be fully substantiated if by no other means than that of these three measures. These chemicals are now universally used on almost every farm and in almost every home across this country. They are “nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good ' and the 'bad, ' to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in the soil.” Sadly enough, the destination of these insecticides are usually only a few annoying bugs among the thousands that exist (Carson par. 7). Carson believed that chemicals should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.” Considering the prefix “bio,” or life, this is understandably so. These chemicals have no discernment of life as has been displayed by numerous reports of wild life and human illnesses due to the mass distribution of such chemicals. Unfortunately, it is a never ending war that has been declared. With each new chemical and with each new treatment distributed, the insects are actually fighting back by means of immunity to the chemicals. Carson observed that “destructive insects often undergo resurgence.” In other words, each time these bugs are sprayed and those that survive reproduce, their offspring will have developed a
Cited: Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009 Berg, PhD, Rebecca. "Bed Bugs: The Pesticide Dilemma." Journal of Environmental Health Volume 72.Number 10 (2010): 32-35. EBSCOhost. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. EPA. “EPA’S National Bed Bug Summit Participant Recommendations.” Epa.gov. April 15, 2009. Web. October 18, 2010. NewYorkTimes.com. New York Times. February 24, 2009. Web. October 18, 2010. Leingang, Matt