Rachel Carson in her controversial book, Silent Spring, warned that the abuse of pesticides, especially DDT, threatened the natural systems on which all life depends. Her lyrical prose and sound science impressed her admirers, while her controversial ideas led her critics, mostly men, to dismiss her as a hysterical woman or even a Communist. Today most people recognize her as a founding spirit of the environmental movement.

Beginning in the 1990s, some conservatives led by Texas Congressman Tom DeLay and science fiction writer and physician Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), accused Rachel Carson of being a mass murderer. They built their case on the general ban on the use of DDT spraying in malarial areas. Malaria claimed millions of human lives each year. Children in Africa were especially vulnerable. These claims against Carson were laid out in Tina Rosenberg, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-t...

Kirsten Weir responded in Salon, September 2007, “Rachel Carson's birthday bashing”

The right has revved up its claim that the environmental pioneer who criticized DDT was responsible for the spread of malaria that killed millions. The facts say otherwise.
https://www.salon.com/2007/06/29/rachel_carson/

Another dissenting view of conservative claims is https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-blame-environmentalists-malaria/

Teachers’ Note: For a more in depth view of Carson see: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/rachel-carson/

Next Section »