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Impact of industrialisation on the environment
Impact of industrialisation on the environment
Impact of industrialisation on the environment
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Planit Earth when seen from the vast vacuum of outer space stands as a testament to the remarkable phenomenon called life. When viewed from a far Earth appears resolute like a resting marble. However, in reality, this marble of life is under constant change. This constant change is relatively normal and promotes an equal balance in the ecosystem over time. However, over the past hundred years, this balance has shifted. Human beings are now affecting the environment in major ways. In the past humans have lived their lives in ignorance, unaware of their impact on the earth 's environment. The ignorance of past generations is excusable to a point. However, the idiocracy that exists in society today is unforgivable. For decades, humans have studied …show more content…
Her work as a writer, scientist, and ecologist became the heartbeat of the movement. According to a biography written by Linda Lear found at the website rachelcarson.org/bio, Carson was always a lover of nature. Studying marine biology, she attended and graduated from college at the Pennsylvania College for Women. She went on to receive her masters in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932. She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. From there she worked in the federal service as a scientist and editor. In 1936, she was haired as the "Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Lear)." This gave her years of experience and provided a background of credibility that would aid her in the years to come. In 1941, Carson published her first book titled, "Under the Sea-Wind." This was followed by her second book, "The Sea Around Us" published in 1952. That same year she resigned from the government to spend more time on her writing. In 1955, she published her third book, "The Edge of the Sea." These books made a name for Carson and developed a better understanding of the interworking 's of the ocean. Carson 's work and research made waves in society and its culture. However, what is arguably Carson 's greatest accomplishment was the publishment of her fourth book titled "Silent Spring." Published in 1962, "Silent Spring" focuses on Carson …show more content…
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
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)
By citing credible organizations and offering her own eco-friendly alternatives, she proves to the reader that she takes a particular interest in the environment and is educated to speak on it. Pairing powerful understatements and hyperboles to contrast with one another show the reader that the practice is both needless and selfish. These rhetorical techniques have a powerful impact on the reader, whose ignorance prior to reading the excerpt can no longer suffices to excuse the lack of action. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is a deeply persuasive book that not only advocates for an end to pesticides but also speaks to the obligation humans hold to protect their
Americans had knowledge of the events taking place during the war, but Carson shed a light on the ripple effects that the environment was experiencing. Silent Spring brings the focus to different threats that had arisen because of the war. In a way, Carson places the blame for the deterioration of the environment on mankind as a whole. In the past, wars had been fought without any use of nuclear weaponry. Carson’s writing really emphasizes the fault of mankind’s decision to hurt the environment. “Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm – substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.” (Carson, 181). The writing technique Carson uses in Silent Spring has a way of making the reader feel guilty, especially considering that at the time of publication there was so much environmental destruction occurring. Carson’s writing helped to educate the American population of the harm to the environment caused by the Cold War. Because the war’s dangerous strategies provided such a strong backbone for Carson’s argument, the American public was very receptive of the content and themes presented in Silent
The history of life on earth could be thought of as a record of living things interacting with their surroundings; for most of history, this has meant that life molds over time by the environment it inhabits; however, very recently, humans have become capable of altering the environment in significant ways (Carson 49). Marine Biologist, Rachel Carson, in her environmental sciences book, The Silent Spring, documents the detrimental effects on the environment by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson argues vigilantly in an attempt to persuade her extremely diverse and expansive global audience, under the impression that chemicals, such as DDT, were safe for their health, that pesticides are in fact detrimental for their health. Through
There are multiple points in Silent Spring that make the book so noteworthy in the history of environmentalism. The first being that Carson shows how the common person isn’t extremely informed about the pesticides that are being used every day all over their fields, homes and towns. Also they know nothing about how irreversible most of the damage is. Carson points out, “The most alarming of all mans assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not onl...
“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
“The Obligation to Endure” chapter in Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is a gripping chapter that is overwhelmed with vital information on chemicals and pesticides that everyone is subjected to each and every day. Carson’s chapter is explanatory, and she wants to inform her readers, the general public, the main problem of our population is the humans who contaminate everything they touch. These humans have created things that can build up inside the tissues of plants and animals and alter genetics beyond anyone’s beliefs (Carson 8). Carson strives to inform her audience that as humans, everyone makes mistakes, but the country has made such a drastic mistake now that it is slowly killing every person, plant, and animal in the process. Something as simple as a chemical to keep bugs off plants has turned into a toxic biohazard that can only be taken in by human bodies in microscopic amounts without risk of poison, sickness, or death. With her own knowledge from her past careers in zoology, marine biology, and being a pioneer in the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), she is well informed about the carcinogens and disastrous qualities of these pesticides. Carson gets her views across even with her incredible lack of objectivity. Her straight forward style and uncomplicated language in her rhetorical context help prove her own ethics and logical thinking, while organizing her quality of evidence to get an emotional reaction out of her audience to attest her beliefs.
In August 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When she began writing Silent Spring in the 1950s, Carson was acutely aware of the short and long term impacts of these events (Carson, 1962). As a naturalist and scientists, she worried about the long term effects of nuclear fallout and the misuse of pesticides. Her work for the U.S. Department of Fisheries gave her unique insight into the rapid ecological system changes due to pesticide use and our own culpability in creating the insect and pest problem to begin with (Biography, 2011).
In an effort to save the human race, humanity has almost been lost. Humans destroy nature in a futile attempt to conquer it, by doing so they begin to lose their own humanity and their natural connection to the environment. While some believe that attempts to control the environment, such as pesticides, affect only the desired nuisance, the truth of the matter is that they affect everyone. Barbra Kingsolver, author of “High Tide in Tucson,” Aldo Leopold of A Sand County Almanac, and Rachel Carson of Silent Spring agree that the way many humans treat nature is worsening and needs to be reexamined.
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.
Rachel Carson is well known for writing the book, Silent Spring. This book, which was written
Carson’s writing inspires people to solve problems. In “Silent Spring” page 363 from the background says “ Pesticides are chemical compounds designed to destroy crop-eating insects. Pesticides can be deadly to many species.” This shows that she is inspiring people to take care of there animals and to not do anything wrong in the future. Rachel Carson was just trying to inspire people to do what's right.
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
She thought about aquatic life, but in a way that intrigued people who weren't educated in science. She used description and words people could understand. Her next book was called The Sea All Around Us, and was published just one year later. It became a bestseller, and was in the New York Times for 86 weeks. After this book she was able to leave the the Fish and Wildlife Service, after 15 years, and pursue a career as a full time author.