"Silent Spring" Spawns a Revolution

Rachel Carson, citizen-scientist, wrote the novel "Silent Spring" in 1962. She presented information about pesticides in a way that had never been presented before. She showed that once the chemicals had entered the biosphere they would have far reaching effects.  Although the information that she used was not new, she was the first one to put it all together in a way that was easy for the general public to understand. In doing so, she sparked an environmental revolution. "Silent Spring" made the powerful case that if humankind poisoned nature, then nature would eventually in turn poison man. She was not the first to point out the effects of our destruction of the environment, but she was ahead of her time and spent many of her dying days fighting for her cause. Many people believe that we are more on top of these issues now and that they are not as damaging. If anything, environmental issues have grown larger — and more urgent — since Carson’s day. Yet no single work has had the impact of “Silent Spring." She was a pioneer and her legacy still continues today, more than 50 years later.

The question of which type of economy would better benefit the idea of sustainability is a complex one. I believe that the ideas and characteristics of the capitalist would be better suited to the idea of conservation. The ideas of Marx and Engels that natural limits can be overcome by science and progress lends itself presently to the movement on the right, which is more capitalist than socialist. The idea of "wise use" is heavily debated among environmental scholars. What constitutes a "wise use" of a resource? To answer this question we must first decide what resources should be used at all and which ones require strict control and perhaps restriction on use. A socialist would say that the resources that are to be used should be used by the masses equally. This thought pattern, in my opinion, would lead to a more widespread misuse of resources.  The more people using the resources the faster they will be depleted. It almost seems to me that a socialist approach would mean that the government would have to decide that either everyone has access to everything equally or no one has access to any of it. In a capitalist economy, there will always be the "haves" and the "have-nots", and resources will be less used when only a percentage of the population is using them.  I know that this idea is very elitist, and since I am one of the "have-nots" as a student-mom of 5 children, I feel that I can have this opinion.  If I were one of the "haves" I would use as much and as many resources as I get like.  So, the capitalists would be the better option for a more sustainable world.

Place that interests me in the world

I am very interested to study the region in the Philipines that was recently ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan. I would like to study what kinds of precautions can regions like this take in order to protect against mass devastation in the future. I find it difficult to stomach the shear massiveness of the destruction and the human lives that are left in ruin.