The Claims and Impression Created by the Book
As a reader of the book and a human being living in the same environment being poisoned, and myself perhaps has taken in the same poison inside my body and me not knowing it, my first impression is wholehearted gratefulness to the author that the fact of environmental poisoning and degradation was brought to light. The book provided the answer to my age old question of why the environmental activists were so strict that pesticide uses need be managed and balance the benefit versus the risks of irreversible environmental poisoning.
The author in page 8 of the book said that insecticides like DDT should not be called as insecticides but should be called biocides as it can kill everybody and all kind of living things on earth. DDT can kill the insects notably mosquitoes that bring illness but the people exposed to the poison during and after spraying has accidentally taken in the poison also and cannot be excreted out of the body through perspiration and urine. DDT once inside the body stayed in the fatty tissues and repeated exposure either by breathing the air during sprays and or eating the food and fish
contaminated with it result to accumulation of the poison and therefore slowly killing the human being. DDT cannot really control the insect pests due to the fact as mentioned by the author in page 8, more and more insects will come out after killing the population in the initial spray. The term used by 3 the author is resurgence, meaning more population of insects will appear after spraying as the natural enemies of the insect which also help control the population were also killed. Repeated spraying of DDT can result to development of more resistant strain of insects through the Darwin’s principle of
survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit. The problem intended to be solved by DDT spraying resulted to more intensified problem of killing the resistant species. In this condition, the problem is not solved and instead, it intensified and added to the unintended poisoning of the food chain which man is in the final phase and cannot do anything but take care of the environment and discourage too much pesticide use. The book also revealed that there are other organochlorine pesticides as deadly as DDT.
They were parathion and dieldrin which equally are useful as DDT as insecticide but as deadly as DDT as biocide. These pesticides as claimed by the author caused fish kills in our rivers, lakes and ocean as they also kill the plankton which serve as the base food in the marine environment. The residue of these biocides from field application stays on the soil and brought by rainfall runoff into the water system. Like DDT, their residues have the capacity to combine with other elements in the soil, air and water to form more poisonous compounds than the original biocide.
The process is termed as bio-magnification by the author. Summary and Conclusion The message of the book should not be mistaken as campaigning towards discontinuance of the use of biocides. The facts were presented complete with results from scientific studies to support the claim that management of pesticide use is needed to protect the environment and maximize the benefit biocides can offer while eliminating or minimizing the risk. The author also gave suggestions in place of toxic pesticides as DDT and dieldrin and termed it as the alternative road. The development of
natural enemies and microorganisms like bacteria and fungus which can kill the insect pests should be encouraged instead of relying solely on pesticide use. Radiation and rendering the male species of insects sexually sterile can result to rapid population decline of the pest without resorting to use of biocides. Inspired by the book, these alternatives are being encouraged by environmental activists this 21st century and may result to the bringing in again of noise and life in our future springs . 4 Reference Carson, R. (2002). 40th edition. The Silent Spring . Boston: Mariner Press
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