Raging Controversy

The raging controversy over the potential damaging effects of pesticides on the environment had its origin in 1961 in Rachel Carsons landmark book, "Silent Spring." As Vice President Al Gore writes in the books new edition, "it launched the environmental movement in the U.S."
In the current conflict between environmental agencies and the city government there was a disagreement over the right to spray Queens and Staten Island wetlands.
We cite here excerpts from the book:
"There was once a town in the heart of America, where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.
"Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the travelers eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.
Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community; mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chicken and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town, the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.
"There was a strange stillness. The birds, for examplewhere had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.
"On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigsthe litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.
"No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves…"
As the book explains, the "Silent Spring" Carson describes is due to the chemical agents sprayed across America by the pesticide industry.