We continue to be in awe by all that Rachel Carson accomplished in her relatively short life. She was an author, conservationist, and scientist. “In nature, nothing exists alone.” Rachel Carson’s words in Silent Spring, published in 1962, drove revolutionary changes in government policy around the environment – especially the unintended consequences of pesticides on all living things. Carson said that “rather than ‘pesticides,’ they should be called ‘biocides’.”
She awakened government leaders, including President John F. Kennedy who convened a Presidential Advisory Council which affirmed her findings. DDT and other pesticides were wreaking havoc across the Nation and causing large numbers of deaths of livestock, birds, fish, and wildlife all over North America. Read more about Rachel Carson’s legacy: Centennial Tribute by the John F. Kennedy Library.