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    Silent Spring
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    Silent Spring
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    Silent Spring
    Audiobook10 hours

    Silent Spring

    Written by Rachel Carson

    Narrated by Susie Berneis

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Conservationist Rachel Carson spent over six years documenting the effects on DDT—a synthetic organic compound used as an insecticide—on numerous communities. Her analysis revealed that such powerful, persistent chemical pesticides have been used without a full understanding of the extent of their potential harm to the whole biota, including the damage they’ve caused to wildlife, birds, bees, agricultural animals, domestic pets, and even humans.

    In this audiobook, Carson discusses her findings and expresses passionate concern for the future of the planet and all the life inhabiting it, calling on us all to act responsibly, carefully, and as stewards of the living earth. Additionally, she suggests that all democracies and liberal societies must operate in a way that allows individuals and groups to question what their governments have permitted to be put into the environment.

    An instant bestseller that was read by President Kennedy during the summer of 1962, this classic remains one of the best introductions to the complicated and controversial subject.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateNov 19, 2018
    ISBN9781974930333
    Author

    Rachel Carson

    Rachel Carson (1907–1964) spent most of her professional life as a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By the late 1950s, she had written three lyrical, popular books about the sea, including the best-selling The Sea Around Us, and had become the most respected science writer in America. She completed Silent Spring against formidable personal odds, and with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history.

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    Reviews for Silent Spring

    4.5/5

    93 ratings44 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A 1962 expose on the long-term costs of humanity’s abuse of the environment. Rachel Carson worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and she saw firsthand what pesticides, herbicides, and invasive insects were doing to animals, humans, and the ecosystem.This book was also for the book club I run for zoo volunteers. We had a very good discussion about it. The statistics and anecdotes were very shocking, though 57 years later none of us were exactly sure where society stands on any of the specific cases Carson discussed. Many of our current environmental problems are ones she could not have imagined – there’s no way to know what she would have thought of GMOs or organic panic or plastic vs. paper straws. Some of the solutions Carson proposed seem shockingly nearsighted to me, such as introducing invasive non-native predators to areas with invasive non-native pests. Noooooo! But it was still fascinating to read the origin of so much of our current knowledge about the environment.
    • 4/5
      Five stars for what it did in creating alarm about pesticides and indiscriminate spraying. 31/2 stars for the actual read. A dry read especially when dealing with the chemical breakdowns and dealing with those aspects of this story. I can see how this book opened the eyes of many people not familiar with what was happening with pesticides and farming, Many interesting facts in this book.
    • 3/5
      My first read of this classic. It wasn't at all what I had expected. Based on environmental books that are popular today, I had expected lyrical descriptive nature writing. No. There's a little of that, but this is more like a compendium of dozens and dozens of investigative reports like you might find in the NY Times or Washington Post. All about chemical poisoning. That can be tedious, but it is also scary how regulation fails and can be suborned. I should probably start eating organic vegetables. Carson advocates strongly for importing insects to combat invasive insects, and she touts as a success when one introduced species is firmly established as a bulwark against an invasive species. As a non-expert, I'm not sure this perspective stands up well to time. Carson makes a good case for paying attention to the bigger picture, and not just going with the flow.
    • 4/5
      Given my interests and the timing of this book being published, one would think I would have read this book decades ago. It was certainly well known already when I was deep into my higher education pursuits so many years ago. I had always assumed it would be rather dated and much overshadowed by more modern research, if I were to read it now. Plus, I don't recall the last time the title of this book and DDT were not directly connected in comments I read about one or the other of the two. As it turns out, the book is startling in its applicability to today's world, especially one in which environmental protections are exuberantly being stripped off like so many layers of skin on a human being by a stunningly misguided government administration. (Can someone please pass a law requiring all candidates be able to read?) True, DDT is not much in the news now, but this book speaks directly and fluently about the very same issues that face the world now as to those it faced back in 1962. I have read other books that were more adept at stating their case about the intricacies of trying to manage our environment, but this book does a fine job of it and is well worth the read even now.
    • 4/5
      Reading this book so long after it was published makes clear that we have won little in the battle against the poisoning of the world. I come away from this book realizing that we need a new strategy in order to stop the living world from being destroyed by corporations.
    • 5/5
      Despite of what Rush Limbaugh says, this book is a classic in so far as bringing environmental pollution to the public discourse. I never forgot about the dieing robins in Minneapolis.
    • 3/5
      Anniversary addition of the classic if controversial work. This includes a new introduction with a helpful brief biography of Rachel Carson and an afterword by Edward O. Wilson.
    • 5/5
      the first real book about protecting the environment, Rachel goes into what she and others did to remove poison from the earth and our food. she is one of the big reasons why DDT was banned. Anybody who cares about the earth and what you eat should read this
    • 5/5
      I had been meaning to read Silent Spring for years, but I never got around to it. I really don’t know why. When I saw it on the shelf in a closing Border’s store, I grabbed it. Rachel Carson wrote this book back in 1962, but her message is sadly still relevant and important today. I knew that pesticides and herbicides were bad. I am a novice gardener who does her best to avoid the stuff. I guess it never really struck home to me as to HOW bad they really were and still are. The overuse and abuse of pesticides and herbicides did not stop with the publication of this book, but it allowed people to become more aware of what was happening. The sad thing is that many people of my generation and even my parent’s don’t really understand the disastrous affects of these chemicals and still use them in their gardens. Gardens in which they grow food that they feed their children.If you haven’t read this book yet and you are concerned about the environment and the food that you eat, please read this book. It will be an eye opening experience. It will probably make you very uncomfortable. It will probably make you think twice before you eat things like potatoes and apples. It will probably make you think twice before you apply chemicals to your gardens or your lawn especially if you have children or pets.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing book: it really makes you think about what you can do to sustain our natural resources.
    • 4/5
      I first read this book around 35 or 40 years ago. I will say there is a good reason it is a classic. A pivotal book that was treated unkindly in the 60's but has endured all these years. It now seems to be the most oft quoted book regarding the environment and the birth of the environmental movement.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for a while. It's written in an accessible, yet authoritative style and sets out the stark truths about the dangers of putting human-made chemicals which deal out death into the environment. It's obvious why this was such an influential work when it came out.I got a bit tired around the mid-way mark of reading about chemically-induced disasters and found myself skimming over some of those middle chapters, but I'm glad to have finally got around to reading the book.
    • 5/5
      As important and relevant now as it was when it was written 50 years ago. Being a composting, recycling, organic gardener who has volunteered with wildlife organizations for years, I thought I was reasonably environmentally savvy, but Carson's work still managed to educate and dismay me. Both eloquent and remarkably succinct given the complicated chemical nature of the subject. It is amazing how much of her hotly contested "theories" have proven correct over the past five years. My walks through the local home and garden aisles are forever changed. A highly recommended book for all--it should be mandatory reading at high school level.
    • 5/5
      One of the best known environmental classics, a work that eventually led to the banning of DDT in the United States. Ms. Carson painstakingly details all of the evidence of the dangers of DDT, which had until that time been trumpeted as totally safe to humans. Written in easy prose, the book shouldn't be too technical for the lay reader.
    • 4/5
      Having grown up in the 80s I think it is very hard to understand this book. By then the environment movement had become accepted to the point of being assumed. It is eye-opening to try to understand the context of this book and the casual disregard for what today seems like obvious protections and cautions.Although the information in the book is dated, it is well worth the read to understand the history of the environmental movement, and what could be if environmentalism is minimized or ignored.
    • 5/5
      Paperback edition with an introduction by former Vice President Al Gore. An incredibly powerful, landmark book..
    • 1/5
      I can't say I read this book, because I didn't finish it. I discovered my inner environmentalist in elementary school, and when I learned about Rachel Carson, I was enamored. Perhaps I was simply too young for this book, and maybe my complaint about it only serves to illustrate the fact: it was boring. To give it a fair review, I should at least finish it, but I wanted to mark it down because I remember it so vividly. It was a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      The original environmental classic, Silent Spring is meticulously researched and written in plain language. It is a little dry and a little uninteresting if you know the ending (no spoilers here, but it's been old news for a few decades now). In fact, Silent Spring's template has been so often copied that its formula will be painfully familiar to modern readers.
    • 5/5
      As expected, the science is a bit dated since this book is now ~50 years old. However, Carson's main points are still valid and powerfully put. She helped create the environmental movement which many now take for granted. While I am pleased to know that some of the threats she described have been reversed or avoided (such as the recovery of many bird & fish species from the effects of DDT), I was still appalled by the hazards that pesticides & herbicides posed then & probably still do. I was also left with a strong feeling that the USDA and other governmental agencies of the 1940-60 period were rife with corruption -- I don't know if this was ever investigated but I sure hope that there is more oversight on these agencies now!Carson does an amazing job of giving explanations of some basic biology as well as the plentiful descriptions of case studies. Well worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Picked up this book having heard it was a landmark piece of literature in the ecological movement. Worth a read, but it's a sad book and in some chapters the author does labour the point a bit. In context of time written, a well-researched and quite frankly bold piece of work! Fact that it is still referred to 40 years on proves its significance.
    • 5/5
      Written from a scientists perspective with ample support for its claims.Provides:-Connections to human health-Timeline for pesticide use and development-Effects of pesticides on water, soil, plant and animal life
    • 5/5
      This was such an interesting book - mankind tends to go all gung-ho into the latest thing (in this book, insecticides and herbicides) without fully understanding the implications or consequences of such actions. Not only does the thesis still resonate today, it teaches us a lot about the human psyche and how we refuse to see the havoc we wreak on our environment.
    • 5/5
      The scary thing about reading this book at a fifty year remove, is not that one learns of new threats to our ecosphere, or even that many of the dangers highlighted are still in existence, it is that the corporate powers had to be dragged, screaming and kicking, into an admission of each threat. We have no reason to presume that this reluctance has passed into history and so, all that the last fifty years has accomplished is that the apologists have learned more subtle ways to gain-say the danger.In 1962, the poison producers simply brushed aside the concerns of the people, nowadays, they cry their best crocodile tears and promise that they are moving mountains to reverse the situation whilst, in reality, they blithely ignore the issues, as before.Back to the book, history has proved Carson correct on almost every fear that she expressed. Admittedly, the planet still exists but, it would be interesting to know how many deaths might have been avoided had the "progressives" accepted the flaws in their approach: indeed, had they so done, maybe the knee jerk reaction to genetic engineering and fracking would not be so universally negative. If the general public could have any belief that safeguards were in place, I am sure that a far greater number would be willing to allow this research, without attempts to disrupt.You may feel that this review is at a tangent to the book but, these are the areas which Ms. Carson would, I am sure, be tackling, were she to be writing now. The issues have changed, the response has not. The evidence of current misdemeanour's is kept from us, it is only by reminding ourselves of the historical position that we can see how to proceed now.
    • 5/5
      This is a truly awesome book that had significant impact on policy in the US regarding the use of pesticides. This was well researched and well written. The points off the book are clear and accurate. The data are not to be ignored.
    • 5/5
      I've re-read this after maybe 30 years & it is still scary. It is a classic environmental book, detailing how we're changing our ecology & poisoning it. How long the effects linger is just scary & the links to cancer is horrifying. She occasionally goes over the top, but most often makes good points on how our current practices of bludgeoning nature into our ideal form - which is often mistaken - is not working well & will eventually spell our doom. It was written over 45 years ago &, while a little dated, is still one of the best books I've read on the subject. It's amazing that we are still using some of the chemicals she shows so much evidence against using. Her well documented atrocities that our government has perpetrated against us are chilling. I never trusted the government all that much but trust them even less now.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful book that changed my life in the early '70s. I reread it recently and it's somewhat dated because it's about the damage done to birds by DDT. DDT has been long banned in the US, largely because of this book.
    • 3/5
      In 1962, Carson argues that the wide use of spraying chemicals over crops and regions has far-reaching consequences beyond controlling the insects they are meant to kill. The spraying causes the deaths of birds, fish, and other wildlife, and does not have the intended result of eradicating the harmful insects, but instead seems to be only a temporary fix.This book is on some of the lists of most influential books of the 20th century, and essentially backed up the eventual banning of DDT, though Carson herself does not argue that insecticides should not be used, merely that their use needs to be done carefully, specifically (ie., killing the intended insect without upsetting the ecosystem more than necessary), and with full understanding of the dangers of the chemicals. While I am not sorry to have read it and I understand that it was an important work for its time, much of the specifics that Carson focuses on are dry and not as relevant today as they were forty years ago. Her chapters on cancer and genetics in particular have not aged well as our understanding of both have developed significantly. Since the book began as a series of articles written the New Yorker, the chapters are extremely topical and somewhat repetitive. In the end, I was rather bored and wishing for a Cliffs Notes version.
    • 5/5
      Extremely powerful 'pop-sci' biology text (or rant) about the dangers of pesticides. As relevant now as it was when it was first published 50 years ago - although one hopes there have been several significant lesson learnt in the meantime. TBC
    • 5/5
      The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published in 1962. Rachel Carson was already a well known author of nature books and her book The Sea around Us, which came out in 1951, had spent 86 weeks on best seller’s lists. She won numerous awards for The Sea around Us including the National Book Award for nonfiction. Ms. Carson worked for many years as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in addition to embarking upon a very successful literary career in the natural sciences. Her work in the field and her easy reading style made her a trusted source for information about our natural world so it was a bombshell for many when her book Silent Spring came out.In Silent Spring Rachel Carson imagines a world in which spring is unnaturally silent because of the pesticides and herbicides then in use killing off the wild life, including birds with their beautiful songs, hence the silence of spring. She informs the reader that such a scenario is not so far off and begins to document incident after incident where the use of dangerous chemicals has harmed the wildlife in our environment. The meticulous research involved in documenting the harm done by pesticides and other dangerous chemicals, especially DDT, is overwhelming and one can appreciate why the chemical industry tried to go after and discredit Rachel Carson. Moreover, she then documents that if these killing chemicals are harming the wildlife then they are certainly harming us as well. She documents the increase in cancer and traces it back to the overuse of pesticides, herbicides and other dangerous chemicals. Any pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide is a biocide she argues, if it kills life than it is killing us slowly but surely. At that time she states that cancer will become an epidemic and strike one out of every four people living if the wholesale use of pesticides and herbicides are not used more wisely if not banned outright. She documents how cancer can take decades to develop and that repeated small exposures to these dangerous chemicals disrupts cellular processes. Appreciatively, she writes in such a way that the layman can understand these complex biological functions. Ms. Carson argues forcefully that we ought to be working to prevent cancer from occurring as well as fighting for a cure. Instead, she points out, the medical establishment works upon fighting cancer once it has appeared rather than prevention. Unfortunately, not much has changed concerning cancer prevention verses cancer treatment. She herself died of breast cancer two years later after Silent Spring was released. For now it is a sad fact that one out of two men will have cancer in his lifetime and one out of every three women will so it is much worse than she predicted back in 1962. One of the original reviews by The New York Times gave it a glowing recommendation but the reviews by the chemical industry were not so favorable which is not surprising given that her book strikes at the hand that feeds them. Many of the reviews by the chemical industry were sexist and patronizing in the extreme. However, the public overwhelmingly endorsed Ms. Carson’s recommendations. Silent Spring has been credited with beginning the environmental movement in the United States. So powerfully did the book argue against the use of chemicals to control the natural world that DDT was eventually banned for use in the United States. Although there are portions of the book where the science is outdated, because of the impact this book has had upon our nation’s use of pesticides such as DDT and because it was an impetus for the environmental movement in this country, the title deserves to remain upon the shelf at public libraries.
    • 5/5
      As we pass another vernal equinox in March of 2013, my mind wandered back to 1965 when I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. This classic work, which became, in the words of Peter Matthiessen, “The cornerstone of the new environmentalism” has writing as beautiful as a perfect Spring day.Carson was born in 1907 and served many years as a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three previous works on the environment of the oceans firmly fixed her as an eminent writer on nature. She died less than two years after the publication of Silent Spring. Her work set in motion profound changes in environmental laws to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land on which we live and grow our food.Carson’s study focuses on the indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT, which was banned shortly after the book caused a world-wide sensation. Predictably, much opposition arose from opponents of the idea we need to protect our environment. Detractors in government and the then multimillion dollar chemical industry attacked Carson, because – as Linda Lear who wrote a biography of Carson wrote in the Introduction to my anniversary edition – they “were not about to allow a former government editor, a female scientist without a Ph.D. or an institutional affiliation, known only for her lyrical books on the sea, to undermine public confidence in its products or to question its integrity” (xvii). Those chemical companies now have profits in the billions. Lear continues, when this book “caught the attention of President Kennedy, federal and state investigations were launched into the validity of Carson’s claims” (xvii). The chapters then focus on various parts of the environment, the chemicals which were sprayed or dumped into each one, and the effects these chemicals had. The title “Silent Spring” reflects numerous reports of the death of thousands of song birds and other creatures following widespread use of DDT and other pesticides. I remember as a child watching trucks drive down our street spraying a white fog to kill mosquitoes. Sometimes the city issued warnings and other times not. My mother always made my sisters and me stay inside “until the smell went away.” However, I remember seeing children running and playing in the fog.Carson writes about the hundreds of new chemicals which find their way into use every year. In the mid-40s alone “over 200 chemicals were invented to kill insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as ‘pests’” (7). Carson asks, “Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides,’ but ‘biocides’” (8). Yet today, attacks continue on the EPA. A most worthy read for anyone concerned about the environment. 5 stars--Jim, 2/15/13