Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962. It ignited a movement. She was focused on unchecked pesticide use and its impact on the environment but her approach and her insights remain timely for us today. When I came across the following passage, I was struck by its relevance not only to climate change but also to global efforts to combat the coronavirus:
“Much of the necessary knowledge is now available but we do not use it. We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice. We allow the chemical death rain to fall as though there were no alternative, whereas in fact there are many, and our ingenuity could soon discover many more if given opportunity. Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?” (Rachel Carson, Silent Spring).
Carson's first sentence here refers to knowledge of ecology in relation, especially, to plants, insects, and globalization. But it also seems relevant to climate change. With respect to climate change, we have knowledge and projections and an indication of what we must do--reduce carbon emissions--and yet we do not use that knowledge. Interestingly, something similar also plays out with the coronavirus. In this case, we had knowledge from China, Italy, South Korea, and Singapore. But the Global North, while offering tougher and tougher restrictions, was reluctant to respond as aggressively as it should have given the knowledge available. If governments are reluctant to take the advice of ecologists, as Carson notes, our own governments are also reluctant to take the advice of scientists and doctors now. These issues, no doubt, are further exacerbated by problems like climate change that are less visible, less predictable, and perceived to be less immediate.
I am especially struck by Carson's desire not to focus on only one solution (a "chemical death rain," as she puts it, to combat invasive insects) but rather to multiply the possible solutions through thinking and working collectively on a common problem. Given a chance, ingenuity can generate solutions not yet imagined.
But, she asks, have we stopped thinking all together? Are we mesmerized into inaction? Are we willing to accept a solution that is by no means adequate to the problem at hand? She closes with a call for the will and vision to think past current parameters, to demand more and better responses, and to remain committed to that which is good and worthy of our collective ingenuity.
Some questions to think about:
* how do imagined stories like Carson's "fable" help us to think about the future?
* how do they help us to think about "that which is good"? * how does Carson define what is "good"?
* how do we?
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