Commentary: As Silent Spring's 50th anniversary nears, what would Rachel Carson be saying now?

Many people have the impression that climate disruption is the worst environmental problem humanity faces, and indeed, its consequences may be catastrophic. But the spread of toxic chemicals from pole to pole may be the dark horse in the race. We could just pursue business as usual and count on luck to save civilization. Maybe no truly lethal synergies will turn up, or no new chemical will become global before it is discovered to cause cancer. Maybe the poisonings will not collapse ecological systems and bring down civilization. Perhaps advances in molecular biology will neutralize any dangerous new chemicals or cure any serious diseases that appear. And perhaps they won’t. Is it wise to sit by and not take substantial measures? In democracies, the decision rests ultimately with the citizens; I think it is crystal clear what Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, would have recommended.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/commentary-paul-ehrlich-on-rachel-carson

Re-Reading Silent Spring Earth Island Journal

Reading Silent Spring today, it is disquieting to realize how much was already known in 1962 about the environmental health impacts of petrochemicals.

Injection wells: The poison beneath us. Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground. ProPublica
http://www.propublica.org/article/injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us

Rio+50: the long viewBlue & Green Tomorrow

Rio+20 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or UNCED) which was staged in the same city.

The event billed as 20 years of global work on sustainable development has, in fact, five decades of heritage from the 1962 book Silent Spring, the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (the Stockholm Conference), the Club of Rome’s seminal book, The Limits to Growth, of the same year, through to the 1987 Brundtland report. Here, we look at key events that have led to Rio+20...

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2012/06/21/rio50-the-long-view/

Fifty Years After Silent Spring, Assault on Science Continues Yale Environment 360 When Silent Spring was published in 1962, author Rachel Carson was subjected to vicious personal assaults that had nothing do with the science or the merits of pesticide use. Those attacks find a troubling parallel today in the campaigns against climate scientists who point to evidence of a rapidly warming world. by Frank Graham Jr.

Yale Environment 360

Silent Spring -- 50th anniversay - Uncommon Ground 
Fifty years ago today, the New Yorker began a three issue series entitled "Silent Spring" written by Rachel Carson. I don't think I need to introduce Rachel Carson or "Silent Spring" to anyone who reads this blog, but there's a very nice historical perspective on the history of "Silent Spring" at The Pop History Dig. If you're at all interested in Rachel Carson, you owe it to yourself to click through and read it.
darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/.../silent-spring----50th-anniversay.html

If you haven’t read Silent Spring, the 50^th anniversary is as good a time as any. Rachel Carson’s message that human health and environmental health are inextricably linked continues to resonate today, and still carries the same urgency that it did in 1962. 

Silent Spring at 50: Connecting human, environmental health Harvard Health Publications (blog)

2010 oil spill in Michigan far larger than official estimates, evidence shows. Almost two years after the spill, oil is still being removed from the Kalamazoo River. The cleanup has been difficult because the line that ruptured was carrying diluted bitumen, a form of oil derived from Canada's oil sands that has defied traditional oil recovery methods. Inside Climate News