The importation of plants is the primary agent in the modern spread of species, for animals have almost invariably gone along with the plants, quarantine being a comparatively recent and not completely effective innovation. The United States Office of Plant Introduction alone has introduced almost 200,000 species and varieties of plants from all over the world. Nearly half of the 180 or so major insect enemies of plants in the United States are accidental imports from abroad, and most of them have come as hitchhikers on plants.
In new territory, out of reach of the restraining hand of the natural enemies that kept down its numbers in its native land, an invading plant or animal is able to become enormously abundant. Thus it is no accident that our most troublesome insects are introduced species.
These invasions, both the naturally occurring and those dependent on human 20 assistance, are likely to continue indefinitely. Quarantine and massive chemical campaigns are only extremely expensive ways of buying time. We are faced, according to Dr. Elton, "with a life-and-death need not just to find new technological
means of suppressing this plant or that animal"; instead we need the basic knowledge of animal populations and their relations to their surroundings that will "promote an even balance and damp down the explosive power of outbreaks and new invasions."
Much of the necessary knowledge is now available but we do not use it. We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice. We allow the chemical death rain to fall as though there were no alternative, whereas in fact there are many, and our ingenuity could soon discover many more if given opportunity.
Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, "idealizes life with only its head out of water, inches above the limits of toleration of the corruption of its own environment . . . Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?"
Yet such a world is pressed upon us. The crusade to create a chemically sterile, insect-free world seems to have engendered a fanatic zeal on the part of many specialists and most of the so-called control agencies. On every hand there is evidence that those engaged in spraying operations exercise a ruthless power. "The regulatory entomologists . . . function as prosecutor, judge and jury, tax assessor and collector and sheriff to enforce their own orders," said Connecticut entomologist Neely Turner. The most flagrant abuses go unchecked in both state and federal agencies.
It is not my contention that chemical insecticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm. We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge. If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.
I contend, furthermore, that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with 25 little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.
There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public
protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand,[158] "The obligation to endure gives us the right to know."
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What "power" have human beings recently acquired that, according to Rachel Carson, makes the current time period unique in the history of life on Earth?
What does Carson mean by "in the modern world there is no time"?
What happens when insects adapt to pesticides in their environment? Could any pesticide, theoretically, not result in an increased tolerance for that pesticide among insects? Why or why not?
What arguments in favor of pesticide use does Carson anticipate? How does she build responses to these arguments into her treatment of the issues?
What role does single-crop farming play in the rise of insect populations? Why is it dangerous, in Carson's view, to limit diversity in specific natural areas?
Which of the dangers and mysteries of pesticide use does Carson object to most? MAKING CONNECTIONS
How do large increases in human populations create conditions in which insects and other forms of life must be controlled? How does Malthus anticipate these kinds of problems in his "Essay on the Principle of Population" (p. 552)?
Exactly how does Darwin's principle of natural selection (p. 314) explain insects' adaptation to pesticides?
How have Carson's views of nature influenced later environmental writers such as Barry Commoner (p. 344) and Vandana Shiva (p. 374)?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Conducting extra research as necessary, describe an environmental threat to the ecosystem in the area in which you live. How are the lives of insects, birds, fish, animals, and plants connected to each other, and how are they threatened?
Analyze Carson's use of evidence in this selection. What claims does she make, and how effectively does she support each one?
3. The international accord on pesticides reached in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2004 contains this "malaria exception" in its restriction of DDT:
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) recognizes that in some countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, DDT remains an important tool in the war against malaria. Countries that ratify the Convention may continue using DDT for controlling mosquitoes that spread malaria. Thus, the Convention will not increase the likelihood that people will be infected with malaria.
Many environmental groups opposed this exception, but supporters argued that DDT had already prevented hundreds of millions of people from dying of malaria and that, if its use were entirely eliminated, the human costs in some of the world's poorest countries would be severe. Write an essay supporting or opposing this exception, based on the case against DDT that Carson outlines in "The Obligation to Endure."
karl popper
from Science as Falsification