Fifty years since Silent Spring

Abstract

Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring exposed both observed and potential environmental and health externalities of the increasing organochlorine and organophosphate insecticide use in the United States post-World War II. Silent Spring was a critical component in a popular movement that resulted in increased regulation and the development of safer pesticides. Most changes in pesticide use in the global north have involved pesticide substitutions, although riskier pesticides remain in use. Many ideas in Silent Spring are compatible with the theory of integrated pest management (IPM), and IPM has been broadly embraced in the United States and internationally as a strategy for achieving least-use and/or least-risk pesticide use in agriculture. IPM is a politically feasible policy that purports to reduce pesticide use and/or risk in agriculture but often does not, except in extreme cases of pesticide overuse that result in negative agricultural/economic consequences for growers.

Keywords: fumigant; fungicide; genetically engineered crops; insecticide; integrated pest management; pesticide; sustainable agriculture.