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(Also posted at DailyKos)
Today is the Centennial of Rachel Carson’s birth, and event that deserves to be recognized, especially in these times of struggle to speak truth to power and to overturn the damaging decisions being made by powerful corporate interests.
Rachel Carson proved that a single person can rally a country to see the truth. Even more important than her accomplishments towards banning the use of DDT, she showed the nation that People Power can be a force to be reckoned with.
Do we have a new Rachel Carson in our midst? My thoughts on that after some quotes about Carson below…
Today is the Centennial of Rachel Carson’s birth, and event that deserves to be recognized, especially in these times of struggle to speak truth to power and to overturn the damaging decisions being made by powerful corporate interests.
Rachel Carson proved that a single person can rally a country to see the truth. Even more important than her accomplishments towards banning the use of DDT, she showed the nation that People Power can be a force to be reckoned with.
Do we have a new Rachel Carson in our midst? Thoughts on that after some quotes about Carson below…
Her main accomplishments and her legacy are her books. They are well worth the read, both her first 3 “naturalist” books and her epic, activist Silent Spring.
Books Written By Rachel Carson
The biography by Linda Lear also adds a perspective on how remarkable and inspiring it was that Carson was able to move so many readers through her words.
This rather quiet spoken woman used the power of eloquently written words to literally change the world.
Time Top 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century
Before there was an environmental movement, there was one brave woman and her very brave book
Her legacy endures, with Republicans fighting her still:
Boston Globe article
Her place in the American imagination is enduring: “Silent Spring,” published in 1962, led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and to banning the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT.
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But revisionists are busy besmirching Carson’s legacy. In Washington, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, has placed a stop on an innocuous resolution praising Carson on the centennial occasion. The resolution notes her “legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility.”
Al Gore has been mentioned as the “new Rachel Carson” for his work on Global Climate Change with “An Inconvenient Truth”. I think that’s a fair comparison. I wonder if his newest book, “The Assault on Reason” will be another significant voice on the state of our political “ecosystem”?