One of Carson’s most important claims is that the federal government is actually part of the pesticide problem (98).
One author claims that the federal government is actually part of the pesticide problem (Carson 98).
In his article, Moore says, “By its constitution, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has a hopeless conflict of interest” (401). He also claims that “key elites” have a vested interest in supporting the idea of climate change (402).
Egan and Mullin argue that one should read a text for what it says on its surface, rather than looking for some hidden meaning (412).
The authors claim that surface reading looks at what is “evident, perceptible, apprehensible in texts” (Egan and Mullin 412).
Because Carson had enormous success with her previous book, The Sea Around Us, the reading public was expecting another beautiful, undisturbing “coffee table book” filled with pretty pictures and lyrical descriptions of nature. The opening of Silent Spring plays into those expectations—sort of. It is beautiful and lyrical, but there is an undercurrent of disturbing menace:
There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings. […] Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. (3)
A large part of Carson’s genius is that the book does not read like a textbook. The reader is invited to fall in love with the maples and pines and foxes before Carson brings out the devastating information about pesticides.
Apparently, politics and climate opinion are closely related (“People’s Views” 398).
If this were a printed paper, rather than a web page, the Works Cited material below would begin a fresh sheet.
Works Cited
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. 50th Anniversary ed., Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Egan, Patrick J., and Megan Mullin. “Recent Improvement and Projected Worsening of Weather in the United States.” America Now, edited by Robert Atwan, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 412-13. Originally published in Nature, 21 Apr. 2016.
Moore, Patrick. “Why I Am a Climate Change Skeptic.” America Now, edited by Robert Atwan, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 401-03. Originally published in Heartland, 20 Mar. 2015.
“People’s Views on Climate Change Go Hand in Hand with Their Politics.” America Now, edited by Robert Atwan, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 398-99. Originally published in The Economist, 28 Nov. 2015.