James Baquet

    Few today are unaware of the need to take good care of the earth and the environment. This can be seen in today’s emphasis on “green technology” or “envirotech” (environmental technology). This is almost a given — with heavy emphasis on renewable energy, purification of water and air, treatment of sewage and solid waste, and so on — in industry, businesses, and homes.

    It was not always so. There was a time when the oceans and the sky seemed illimitable, capable of absorbing whatever we could throw into them. One of the harbingers of the change in our attitudes and understanding was a quiet little woman with a big “voice.” Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was trained as a marine biologist, and her first three books, “Under the Sea Wind,” “The Sea Around Us,” and “The Edge of the Sea,” concentrated on that specialty.

    When “The Sea Around Us” won a U.S. National Book Award, she became financially secure, and was able to write about her passion: conservation, what we often today call “ecology.” Her fourth book, “Silent Spring,” literally changed the course of history. One Carson scholar has said, “‘Silent Spring’ altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically.”

    The book describes the environmental effects of overusing pesticide. Chemicals sprayed on plants, she said, got into the water system — streams, rivers, and lakes — and killed wildlife, especially birds (thus, the springtime would be silent, without birdsong). She accused the chemical industry of lying about the effects of such chemicals as DDT, and she accused the government of accepting the industry’s claims without independent verification.

    The book caused an uproar. As a result, DDT was banned nationwide, and a movement began, especially amongst American youth, that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, the same year as the first Earth Day celebration.

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. unable to be limited; boundless

    2. without thinking about it

    3. one who studies life in the sea

    4. able to be replaced

    5. not worried about money

    6. taking in, accommodating

    7. poison used on insects and rodents

    8. unseen part

    9. sign of a future event, person who foretells something

    10. disturbance, clamor

    11. something everybody assumes