Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone?” “The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was spring without voices.” “On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched.” “The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless.”
This is a strange scene described by Rachel Carson, who is regarded as “the mother of modern environmental protection movement”. Silent Spring is her
representative work which lighted the fire of environmental protection in America and the whole world. Before 1960s, no books or magazines talked about things like environment and ecosystem. Such a phenomenon means that environmental protection had not come to people?s mind and the social consciousness. Indeed, the main opinion in human society from the very past about nature is to “set war against” or “conquer” it. In fact, many of human?s progresses are made on the base of such opinion. Rachel Carson was the first person who doubted the correctness of the belief and brought the topic under focus.
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