Keep Rachel Carson's Legacy Alive.

Proclaim May 27 Rachel Carson Day!
Make May 27 an annual opportunity to recognize our 
fellow advocates working for public policies to protect
the sustainability of our community and the quality of
our environment from threats such as climate change,
waste, and pollution. 

Rachel Carson 

(May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964)

In 1962 Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, alerted the world to the hazards of pesticides. Carson explained that our health is intimately connected to the quality of our environment. Carson’s gift for eloquent advocacy created such a wave of political urgency that it generated the modern environmental movement.

Within a few years, in spite of an orchestrated chemical industry campaign to discredit her, Congress created the US EPA, the US ban on DDT, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.

"Prevention is the imperative." Carson’s message is as relevant today as in 1962. Her legacy has the power to inspire a new wave of public engagement in public policy dedicated to safeguarding the public health and enriching the quality and sustainability of our communities.

Rachel Carson Day 

Suggested wording for your school, community, organization, municipality, congregation, etc:

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Whereas we believe in the power of the individual to make a difference; and

Whereas Rachel Carson's birthday, May 27, is an annual opportunity to remember and celebrate her legacy, her unabashed love of nature, her sense of wonder and her extraordinary sense of responsibility, and

Whereas Rachel Carson taught us that our health is intimately connected to the health of our environment; and

Whereas Carson wrote, in The Sea Around Us (1951), “...now in our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of climate.” and

Whereas Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) was a call for sanity, public integrity, and human rights that catalyzed a wave of such political urgency that it generated a worldwide environmental movement and public support for the creation of the U.S. EPA, the U.S. ban on DDT, and the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act; and

Whereas Carson faced overwhelming illness and adversity, as well as an orchestrated campaign to discredit her work, and yet she was unwavering in speaking out about the hazards of pesticides and the unbridled chemical industry until her untimely death on April 14, 1964; and

Now, therefore, be it resolved, that we do hereby proclaim and observe May 27 as “Rachel Carson Day” and call on our fellow citizens to remember Rachel Carson’s life and legacy, and to join together to strengthen the protections of our health and the sustainability of our homes, schools, neighborhoods, and community.

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Rachel Carson Was Right!

Testimony at Commonwealth Conversations, 

Ellie Goldberg, April 4, 2017

​...

 I am inspired by the life and words of Rachel Carson the scientist and writer who would have been 110 years old this year. Her book Silent Spring was a call for sanity, public integrity, health security and human rights. It is as relevant today as it was in 1962.

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Silent Spring catalyzed a wave of political urgency and public responsibility for the health of our communities because we learned that our health depends on the quality of our environment. Today, more than ever, as our institutional and structural protections are slipping away, we need public leadership dedicated to the principles of science and sustainability.

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See full testimony at http://tinyurl.com/RCarson2017

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall  have for destruction.” Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson Was Right:

The Climate Minute Podcast 

• Ellie Goldberg

Rachel Carson Day May 27, 2017

(Recorded March 20, 2017, 19 min)

 http://www.massclimateaction.org/rachel_carson_march_21_2017

• See: Rachel Carson, Her Work
• 
  

Rachel Carson Day 2016

SUPERFUND 'Silent Spring' comes to life in DDT-stricken town, E&E News reporterGreenwire: Gabriel Dunsmith, Thursday, February 2, 2017

Journey into the Pacific Garbage Patch [Slide Show]

More plastic in the oceans, found at greater depths than thought, would mean a bigger threat to environmental—and possibly human—health
By Erica Cirino on February 1, 2017

2017: Pipeline Resistance Gathers Steam From Dakota Access, Keystone Success

Donald Trump may promise to get more pipelines built, but activists are energized by the grassroots success of 2016 and vow to keep fighting.  Inside Climate News, by Lisa Song Jan 2, 2017

When President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month, his pro-drilling, anti-climate action energy policy will buoy the oil industry. But it will also face staunch resistance from a pipeline opposition movement that gathered momentum, particularly with this year's successful showdown over the Dakota Access pipeline, and shows no signs of slowing.

Local grassroots action, governments' environmental concerns and market forces have stopped or delayed dozens of fossil fuel projects since the high-profile Keystone XL pipeline was cancelled in November 2015, and activists are continuing to oppose at least a dozen oil and gas pipelines around the country. 

"There have been people fighting pipelines since pipelines first went into the ground," but awareness of the issue has grown due to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access, said Cherri Foytlin, director of the advocacy group Bold Louisiana.

Opposition to pipelines has united environmentalists, Native Americans and rural landowners of all political backgrounds, many of whom resent the pipeline companies' use of eminent domain to seize their land.

Full article includes a summary list and map of some of the most contested pipelines around the country:

 https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21122016/trump-pipelines-dakota-access-keystone-xl-activism-opposition