Silent Spring: Can mankind recognize its created devils?

Source: http://modifylifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/pesticide-food-2.jpg

There has been a lot of discoveries and innovations over the past century, ranging from photovolatic solar energy to bio fuels. These innovations of course have changed the way we live, but one perspective we don't realize is how it changes the environment around us. Many chemicals and pesticides are used on crops for the purpose of managing invasive and damaging insects, but the thing we don't realize is that it sets off a chain reaction of events that eventually leave us doing more harm than we had originally intended.

I read a few excerpts from Silent Spring's "A Fable for Tomorrow" and "The Obligation to Endure" by Rachel Carson and she goes into great detail about how mankind has used harmful substances that have affected the world around them. "Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species--man-- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world" (Carson 153). Man has indeed been able to alter the world around them in order to suit their needs, but that power has been increasingly malicious over the past decade. Although harmful chemical pesticides like DDT are no longer used today, there are plenty of other chemicals to take its place. "Strontium 90, released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soul, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death." (Carson 153-154) Chemicals such as chromated copper aresenate (CCA), DEET, and Atrazine are present in herbicides and pesticides. These chemicals will later run off and affect the environment around it, which will in turn affect us in the long run.

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Runoff_from_Excelsior_Geyser_to_Firehole_River_at_Midway_Geyser_Basin.jpg

Chemicals aren't the only things to be blamed here, unfortunately. Human history has a dreadful background with introducing invasive organisms into native territories; another evil it has sadly created. "Another factor in the modern insect problem... the spreading of thousands of different kinds of organisms from their native homes to invade new territories." (Carson 158). Thankfully there are knowledgeable methods of dealing with invasive species, but it seems as if humanity has accepted its fate and refuses treatment. "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 vision to demand that which is good?" (Carson 159). All across the governmental landscape biologists, ecologists, and preservationists are hired to give rational advice to those who wish to make decisions that would help or harm us. Regrettably, those politicians are swayed by other voices that would rather keep the status quo, and the landscape suffers for it.

Source: http://www.greenberg-art.com/New%20illos/Invasive%20illo.jpg