Reimagining Just Futures with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Abstract

2022 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson's highly controversial bestselling book, Silent Spring. The book is about the toxicological properties of nineteen pesticides and the harm these cause the environment and biodiversity. In the USA, Silent Spring prompted congressional hearings and led to the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, as well as triggering the wrath of the chemical industry and associated groups. Carson's publisher, Houghton Mifflin, and the New Yorker, which serialised Silent Spring, received threats of legal action from pesticide manufacturers.Silent Spring, although written for a 1960s American audience, is still highly relevant for audiences in 2022. It could be argued that the book is more relevant in 2022, given that we have entered the Sixth Extinction 1 with many species being lost. For example, the insect apocalypse will be devastating for humans and the more-than-human world. 2 Insects pollinate crops, control pests, maintain soil health, recycle leaves, corpses and dung, and are food sources for animals such as birds and fish. The world cannot function without insects in ecosystems.Rachel Carson opens her Chapter 2 explaining that the 'history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been moulded by the environment'. 3 Carson goes on to explain how this has altered, with human