Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, celebrated its 50th anniversary a short time ago. The New York Times article that we discussed in class examines Carson’s later life, especially what she went through in order to have that book published. I never knew that she faced such a personal struggle just to finish it—we never learned about that anywhere in school. I still don’t think most people know her story. Even in the face of debilitating and deteriorating illness, she never gave up on what she saw was her responsibility to her fellow human beings, and to the future of life on this planet.
Rachel Carson knew that she was only one person, but she also realized that one person—any person—can make a huge difference. She realized that it isn’t your place in the world that determines your future, but what you do there. As J.K. Rowling wrote in the first book of the Harry Potter series, “It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Carson looked at the potential impact of her choices in the long run—in those moments when she struggled with her lack of motivation due to her illness and their treatments. And she made a decision that she wouldn’t be ashamed to claim personal responsibility for. She decided to care.
Some people might point out that Rachel Carson didn’t have the pressures of a “real” life—she had no husband, no children of her own, and nobody to work for but herself. Some people might say their obligations to their loved ones prevent them from actively caring for the planet. There are two ways to refute this assertion. One is through Carson’s story—she cared for her own ailing mother and her late niece’s child while battling to finish Silent Spring—and while she wasn’t answering to a totalitarian boss at the office, she was struggling under the rule of cancer. Hence, the first refutation: the only things that prevent you from doing what you know is better for the planet are the things you allow to stop you—and if you cared enough, you wouldn’t let them. In other words—quit making excuses.
Certain uninformed people might respond that they’re not making excuses—they just happen to care more about people than they do about crickets. In other words, Rachel Carson must’ve cared an awful lot about crickets. But is that really the case? How did she finish her book—did she value her work just as much as, or more than, she valued her loved ones? I don’t think so.
I think that she worked hard on that book for the people and the world that she cared for. She knew that the Earth is our only home, that we all share it, and that we need to be careful not to cause any irreversible damage. She knew that we don’t fully understand the web of life on this planet yet, and that mankind often mistakenly imagines itself as above it, detached. This brings me to the second refutation—that when we neglect the environment, we neglect ourselves and every other human on this planet. To me, that statement is a fact.
Unfortunately, some people feel the opposite way. The recent increase in the ferocity of hurricanes? Obviously unrelated to human greenhouse gas emissions. Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity? Completely irrelevant. Taking over the environment, certain people say, is what gives us a better quality of life than in other parts of the world. Better, I respond, if you devalue what is healthy, what has not brought harm to anybody in coming about, and what is lasting and sustainable. Better if you’ve convinced yourself that you “need” things that you really don’t. Better, perhaps, if you value what is quick, cheap and easy so much that, rather than take responsibility for supporting the system that produces things thus, you’d prefer to be a human being that looks the other way.
