★★★★★ 5
A True Mystery Story
Silent Spring is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago. Our ground, our air, our food and we are bombarded with chemicals, carcinogens, products of all sorts to kill weeds and bugs and are capable of killing us. Rachel Carson, a biologist and talented writer, walks us through a litany of misuse and overuse of chemicals that have never been tested for safety to humans. Laws are on the books requiring this testing to be done, but it is disregarded because they make our grass greener, our bugs keel over dead and a lot of people rich. Carson is known best for revealing the reason that Bald Eagle eggs had such thin shells that they broke well before the required incubation before hatching. The drastic reduction is successful Eagle births was DDT. Because this is our national bird and is supported by activists in and out of government, DDT was banned and the eagles began producing young again. We have not been so lucky. This book is factual in a clear and understandable way, and it informs us of the human actions and choices that put us all at risk. No alarmist language is employed, but facts lead us to conclusions that are concerning. The stunning fact to me is that the book was written fifty years ago, and the same risks to humanity and our future are being taken today when we could find better ways of solving problems, more cautious ways of using chemicals and restricting their use in sensible ways. As I talk to people about the issues raised in this book, they have not heard of Rachel Carson and have heard nothing of the assured negative effects on our own health from the chemicals we expose ourselves to daily. We knew so much back then when Carson wrote this book. Why hasn't more been researched and shared with us, so we can have current knowledge of the facts and risks. It is important that Carson's writing not be buried on a dusty shelf. It is a real mystery story and we are the cast.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2016
