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Rachel carson the obligation to endure
Rachel carson’s memorable environmental essay “the obligation to end
Rachel carson the obligation to endure
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Silent Spring Rough Draft
The environment deteriorating is a major consequence of society lacking care towards it. If the trend of not protecting the environment continues then its destruction is inevitable. Rachel Carson, well known environmentalist who has a passion towards environmental protection, addresses society about the dangerous spread of a poison, parathion, in her book Silent Spring. Ultimately, Carson disagrees with the spraying of parathion and encourages people to take a stand against its use when explaining the lethal hazards it possesses, criticizing the apathy of humans, and stressing the need for people to speak up.
Parathion results in fatalities to animals, injury to humans, and destroys habitats, proving that it is too dangerous to be used in a
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The implication that the spread is getting worse is also made when she notes this large number because if many animals are just starting to get killed, it suggests that the poison has already taken its toll and will get worse over time. The fact that Carson even talks about the number of birds getting killed in the first place also reveals the dismay she has towards its spreading since she only talks about its negative effects overall. She also paints a disturbing image of the “pitiful heaps of many-hued feathers,” as well as “the lifeless remains of birds” in order to bring awareness to society that the poison’s danger is serious. There is nothing that is safe about the parathion, apparent when she describes this unsettling image of birds lying helplessly dead and their feathers piled up. When a person witnesses such disturbing consequences, they will begin to ponder the idea that society must do something about this spread to end the nonsense. It is not justified to merely sit around and allow innocent animals to suffer. It is not only animals being punished however; humans are also in danger due to the spraying of parathion. By noting that the humans “escaped death,” it implies that death
Silent Spring is one of the most important books of the environmental movement. It was one of the first scientific books to talk about destruction of habitat by humans. As a result, one can imagine that Ms. Rachel Carson needed to be quite persuasive. How does she achieve this? In this excerpt from Silent Spring, Carson utilizes the rhetorical devices of hyperbole, understatement, and rhetorical questions to state the necessity of abolishing the practice of using poisons such as parathion. Carson starts out by using the symbiotic nature of hyperbole and understatement to paint the whole practice as dangerous and unnecessary. She further strengthens her argument by using rhetorical questions to make her readers see the ethical flaws and potential casualties caused by deadly pesticides.
Rachel Carson, before publishing Silent Spring, would major in marine zoology at Pennsylvania Women's College, where she would develop her interest in the naturalism and conservation going on at the time (Lear, 23). After graduating, she would take a job at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she would write about different issues concerning the environment at the time. After writing several books to some success, she would begin work on Silent Spring, as she would find her naturalist causes to be her impetus. She even later on in her life wrote to her friends, What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do would be more important. " (Carson, 17)
After Carson conveyed and explained her bias, she begins to ask questions with only one real answer. This is an effective format as readers will feel they are drawing their own opinions at the end, but are really being spoon fed Carson’s bias. One specific rhetorical question - “Who has made the decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this ever-widening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a pebble is dropped into a pond?” - is particularly effective as it contains a simile. This simile adds very vivid imagery and marks the beginning of a list of rhetorical questions all pertaining to who is to blame for the death and injures by poison. It is enough to push some people to bold action against the use poison to eradicate pests, as they don’t want this unsettled blame to fall upon them. They are encouraged to prove they aren’t ignorant or contributing to this problem.
Rachel Carson establishes ethos to begin constructing her argument against poisonings. In lines 8-12, she cites the Fish and Wildlife Service to demonstrate that her concerns extend to credible organizations and are not unfounded. She documents an example where farmers in southern Indiana “went together in the summer of 1959 to engage a spray plane to treat an area of river bottomland with parathion” (lines 12-16). To further establish her ethos and authority to speak on this topic, she also supplements this example by explaining a healthy, eco-friendly alternative to how the farmers could have responded. In lines 17-22, she states that agricultural practice revisions would have sufficed for a solution, making the poisonings unnecessary. By offering a solution, Carson not only
Saukko , Linnea.“How to Poison the Earth.”The Brief Bedford Reader. Bedford/St.Martin’s Boston: 9th edition ,2006.246-247.
In 1962, the publication of Silent Spring Rachel Carson captivated the American public. Carson wrote about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides in the environment, and her writing was very reflective of the events occurring at the time. There is a strong connection between Carson’s writing and the Cold War. In fact, if it were not for the war, the American public may not have responded in the same way to Carson’s writing. Carson used tone and content as methods of getting her point across to the public. Silent Spring shined a light on the damage done to the environment as a result of the Cold War, and this issue was finally being recognized by American public.
Early in history DDT was a very effective chemical that killed many parasites and stopped the mass spread of malaria. But the reward is not worth the damage that it does to the environment, especially in modern day where we have other ways to prevent parasite and diseases from getting to us. "Top of the Food Chain" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, is a story about the absolute absurdity of things that human beings do to their world and to their fellow living beings. Set during a Senate hearing by a chemical company executive on the defensive about the effects of DDT in Borneo. Basically, poison was used to get rid of mosquitoes. Didn't work. So they brought in geckos, that died from the poison. Cats ate dead geckos, and cats died. This brought on rat infestation. So they brought in more cats and cycle started over again. He is arguing that humans are wrong for destroying their planet with pesticides and other harmful things; this satirical piece effectively supports his argument.
In the article "The Obligation to Endure", an excerpt from "Silent Spring", Carson focuses on her major concerns with the environment. For millennia, Mother Nature was the lone modifier that possessed the ability to shape the environment. In turn, this caused species to adapt for survival. However, with the birth of man, the delicate balance has shifted. Humans now possess the ability to alter the makeup of their environment. This is a power that shouldn 't be taken lightly or abused. However, humans are often blind to corruption until it 's too late, and so the inevitable happened. Man abused its power and failed to see the consequences. This is an overarching concern of Carson, "The most alarming of all man 's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials (Carson)." The chemicals dumped into rivers the pollution pumped into the air. The toxic radiation released from nuclear explosions in the form of Strontium 90. The endless pesticides sprayed on crops and trees. All of these are the weapons used in "man 's war against nature
“Carson used the era’s hysteria about radiation to snap her readers to attention, drawing a parallel between nuclear fallout and a new, invisible chemical threat of pesticides throughout Silent Spring,” (Griswold 21). She described radiation as the creation of human’s tampering with nature, and warned that similar dangers would become inevitable with the continued use of pesticides (Carson 7). Carson also knew that a large percent of her audience would be housewives, who she could use as example of those who found poisoned birds and squirrels in their gardens. She angled much of Silent Spring towards this audience, which helped her book become the catalyst for environmental change (Griswold
Approximately two to four million animals have been used in safety tests. Safety tests are conducted with a wide range of chemicals and products, including drugs, vaccines, cosmetics, household cleaners, and packing materials. This raises issues such as the ethics and humaneness of deliberately poisoning animals, thus harming them, for the sake of marketing a new cosmetic or household product.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revolutionized the American point of view concerning the environment. It rejected the notion that pesticides and chemicals are the right choice for “controlling” various animals that are seen as an inconvenience. Carson writes about the dangers of pesticides, not only to nature but man himself.
The environment, it is the surrounding influential pieces in life that make life what it is. This makes it important for people to protect the environment and the ecosystems that make everyone’s home. In Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, she talks about the environment needing to be protected. Pesticides are a poison that is killing the planet as well as hurt the people who eat them. Degradation, or the degrading of anything; in this case it is the planet and the environment. Carson talks about stopping the practice of using poisons on the food and the suffering the different parts of American have to go through. “Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number
Furthermore, there are many other inhumane practices such as contaminating the burrows of small animals with kerosene and tar, so that they cannot return to them and hence can be easily dislodged by
Over 100 million animals are used in experiments; 95% of these animals end up dying. Animals are killed and mutilated for the sake of science. Some experiments can involve “blinding, severing of limbs, damaging brain, and ingesting various drugs.” (Coster,
I remember when I first thought about the power one person could have to create change. I was a teenager growing up in the South when I read Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”. This beautifully written book is a powerful indictment of the widespread use of pesticides. Rachel Carson criticized the chemical companies for claiming that pesticides were safe despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And she criticized public officials who accepted the chemical industry’s claims.