In the decades following World War II, chemical pesticides were celebrated as symbols of progress. Spraying programmes covered farms, forests and even suburban neighbourhoods with substances such as DDT, and the public was repeatedly assured that these chemicals were safe. Few scientists questioned the programmes in public. One who eventually did was a quiet American biologist and writer named Rachel Carson.
Carson had spent most of her career at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, writing widely admired books about the sea. Reports from birdwatchers and farmers in the 1950s convinced her that something was going wrong. Robins were dying on freshly sprayed lawns, fish were disappearing from treated rivers, and the eggs of eagles and falcons were cracking before the chicks could hatch. Carson spent years gathering evidence from scientific journals, government documents and her own correspondents.
The result was her 1962 book Silent Spring, which argued that pesticides were moving up the food chain and poisoning wildlife and, potentially, human beings. Chemical companies attacked the book fiercely, accusing Carson of hysteria and claiming that her conclusions would lead to famine. Some reviewers suggested that, as a woman without a doctorate, she was not qualified to question industry experts.
Despite the criticism, Silent Spring reached millions of readers and persuaded President Kennedy to order a formal investigation. The inquiry largely supported Carson's findings. Within a decade, DDT had been banned in the United States, a new Environmental Protection Agency had been created, and the idea that ordinary citizens could challenge powerful industries on scientific grounds had taken root. Carson did not live to see most of this change, but the movement she helped launch is still active today.