Silent Spring - Impact

Impact

History professor Gary Kroll commented, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'— as a perspective that cuts against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."

In response to the publication of Silent Spring and the uproar that ensued, U.S. President John F. Kennedy directed his Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson's claims. Their investigation vindicated Carson's work, and led to an immediate strengthening of chemical pesticide regulations.

In 2012, according to Charles Dewberry of Gutenberg College, Silent Spring is "Highly controversial, but may be the most important book in the formation of the environmental movement in the 1960s". Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and well-known environmentalist, said: "Silent Spring had a profound impact ... Indeed, Rachel Carson was one of the reasons that I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues ... has had as much or more effect on me than any, and perhaps than all of them together."

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