{"id":8193,"date":"2022-10-14T07:02:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T07:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8193"},"modified":"2022-10-14T07:02:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T07:02:54","slug":"60-years-on-from-silent-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2022\/10\/14\/60-years-on-from-silent-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"60 Years on, the Spring remains Silent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">It is 60 years on from the publication of Silent Spring in 1962. \u00a0A recent feature in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/culture\/2022\/09\/27\/silent-spring-remains-a-rousing-call-to-action\">The Economist<\/a>\u00a0explored the legacy of this iconic book.<\/p>\n<p>In the book that Paul Vare and I wrote, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Learning-Environment-and-Sustainable-Development-A-History-of-Ideas\/Scott-Vare\/p\/book\/9780367221935\"><em>Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development: a history of ideas<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em> we\u00a0divided it into three sections: the time before environmental issues came to the fore (which we\u2019ve suggested was up to the publication of <em>Silent Spring<\/em>)<em>, <\/em>from then to the present time, and what the future offers.\u00a0 In a real sense it was Silent Spring that marked the coming to public conscientiousness of 'the environment' both as a phenomenon, and as a problem for humanity \u2013 and also of humanity as a problem for the environment, or for nature, more accurately, perhaps.<\/p>\n<p>Here's an extract from The Economist feature:<\/p>\n<p>\"Carson died of cancer less than two years after \u201cSilent Spring\u201d was published. But she left a lasting legacy despite the best efforts of America\u2019s chemical industry to suppress her book and discredit her, both professionally and personally. She was called a \u201chysterical woman\u201d and \u201ca fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature\u201d. The public felt differently. The book was an immediate bestseller; almost a million copies had been sold by the time Carson died in April 1964.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some cult. \u00a0Rachel Carson was interviewed by CBS in 1964. \u00a0She said:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe still talk in terms of conquest.\u00a0 We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe.\u00a0 We in this generation, must come to terms with nature, and \u2026 prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>57 years on the CBS interview we still have not \"<i>come to terms with nature, and \u2026 prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves\". \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><\/i>You really have to wonder if we ever shall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is 60 years on from the publication of Silent Spring in 1962. \u00a0A recent feature in\u00a0The Economist\u00a0explored the legacy of this iconic book. In the book that Paul Vare and I wrote, Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development: a history...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}