For the biologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964), this book was above all a denunciation of the destructive potential of pesticides on birds: the “silence” of the title refers to to a world where songbirds have disappeared. But the destructive potential of pollution, beyond pesticides and beyond birds — on ecosystems in general — was a wake-up call. which had immediate political fallout. We owe him the banning of the pesticide DDT in the United States in 1972, and the first steps towards legislation: the American Environmental Protection Agency and, in Quebec, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement, were born in the 1970s.
And we were starting from afar: in 1962, “protection of ecosystems” was not part of the vocabulary. Even the word “pollution” remained, for the majority of the population, an abstract concept: how could it be possible that we have an impact, on such a huge Earth?
Still, 60 years later, the birds are more than ever in decline. According to a study from Cornell University published in 2019, 29% of those in North America have disappeared since 1970. And it obviously does not stop at birds: according to 2019 estimate IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), more than 40% of amphibian species and a third of marine mammals are threatened with extinction.
And yet, notes this month science historian Naomi Oreskes, all is not gloomy in this 60th anniversary: in the wetlands of the United States, the populations of birds would have increased by 13%. A testimony in her eyes as a historian that awareness continues to have positive effects: because what distinguishes wetlands from other environments is “that they have been more specifically protected from excessive industrial activities since long time “. Some laws take them under their wing because of their value in terms of biodiversity. Others because they are important for navigation, fisheries or flood control. How some of the solutions to the biodiversity crisis, when really applied, demonstrate their usefulness.
It will take more to avoid Rachel Carson’s pessimistic prognosis, but the approach of the 60th birthday has already begun, here and to beto provide the opportunity for a new call for a reduction of pollutants in the environment, to an increase in protected areas or to a citizen mobilization. Another historian, Catherine Whitlock, otherwise sees a legacy of Rachel Carson in the many young women who in recent years have taken the lead in movements against the climate crisis, beginning with Greta Thunberg. ” As [le message] of Greta, that of Rachel was disturbing” for the society of the time.
–
