FREE ESSAY ON RACHAEL CARSON

RACHAEL CARSON

Rachael Carson
Would you want to know if the pesticides that were being sprayed on and around your homes
would, in later years, cause cancer? That was Rachael Carson's intended purpose: to make
the general public aware of the harmful pesticides used in and around their
neighborhoods. Carson stated that chemical treatment of soils led to the destruction of
beneficial biological species, and that such destruction resulted in imbalance to the
ecosystem. In human safety, Carson pointed out the exposure to or ingestion of various
products, each at individually safe levels, taken together, could lead to health problems
(mental and cancer). Despite attempts by the chemical industry to dismiss Carson's
science, her work is credited with beginning the American environmental movement, the
creation of the Environment Protection Agency, and the 1972 ban on DDT. 
I don't believe that Rachael Carson had any weaknesses in her line of argument. She
stated things that were clinically proven through extensive research that she concluded
while working for seventeen years at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The only problem
with her argument is that she was just ahead of her time with all the information she was
uncovering about the chemicals that were being used. People didn't think about their
health, they just thought how the pesticides were going to help them. All the people
wanted to hear was the positive aspects of agricultural chemicals.
Her language was put in simple terms and was straight to the point with her statements
and facts. She did this to allow the general public to be able to absorb the information
she provided for their benefit. I also believe she put her information in simple text so
that she would not come off as a know it all scientist trying to become famous for her
research. Instead she wanted people to feel as she was simply putting out the information
for the people's benefit. "We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals
which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases
cumulative in their effects. These exposures now begin at or before birth and -unless we
change our methods- will continue through the lifetime of those now living." These
important words of the renowned Racheal Carson will be heard ringing in our ears
forever.