Spring is Growing Silent

Over sixty years ago Rachel Carson, who spent most of her career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service published Silent Spring, a book that examined both the environmental damage and human impact caused by pesticides. Ms Carson especially focused on DDT — the powerful pesticide originally developed to control populations of disease-bearing insects — and the mounting evidence pointing to the devastating effects of its misuse to wildlife and human health.

Silent Spring began with a “fable for tomorrow” – a story using a composite of examples drawn from many real communities where the use of DDT had caused damage to wildlife, birds, bees, agricultural animals, domestic pets, and even humans.  Carson spent over six years documenting her analysis that humans were misusing powerful, persistent, chemical pesticides before knowing the full extent of their potential harm to the whole environment.

The book’s publication in September of 1962 inspired the environmental movement; spurred the development of the field of environmental sciences; and led to the development of the Environmental Protection Agency, sweeping in changes in the laws affecting air, land and water. The publication also inspired the chemical industry to try to influence legislation (prevent regulation of chemical use) through a campaign of disinformation. These battles are still being fought today.

As measured, all over the world, insects are disappearing at a rate of about 1-2% a year. The decline in insects is not limited to just one group. The data collected by the Status of Insects program led by entomologist David Wagner at the University of Connecticut suggests that this decline is global. The Status of Insects program examines hundreds of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies documenting the decline in insect populations.  The vanishing of insects impacts the entire biome, 90% of the more than 10,700 known bird species rely on insects for food during at least part of their life cycle. Declining insects populations result in declining bird populations.

Declining insects also impact our food supply. Bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles and several other insects pollinate ¾ of the earths flowering plants and crips. Insects also help dead plants and animal life decay; and feed on feces-cleaning up the earth. In sects feed many animals we eat, such as trout, almon and turkeys. Also, insects feed some of us directly. Insects also keep each other under control by feeding on each other. The complicated web of insect life is essential for the survival of land-based life on our planet. Mankind has interfered with all of this.

We have also purposefully and accidentally imported thousands of species of plants, insects and disease from other lands into our communities. These foreign species have decimated many native plant communities on which local insects feed and in turn eliminating the local insects for the animals and birds that feed on them. Research has found that in places with fewer native plants there were fewer protein and fat rich caterpillars resulted in fewer birds. The entire web of nature is tied together needing all parts to function.

We treat nature as separate parts that can be eliminated at our discretion.  We have disrupted the functioning of the natural food web and then compounded the problem by carving up the natural world into tiny strips and remnants too small and too isolated to support the variety of species required to sustain the ecosystems that support mankind. (from Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy).