Poisonous passions

Fifty years on since the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, this is indeed an excellent time to assess its cumulative historical impact. After all, it is still cited as one of the most important environmental books of the 20th century, and seen by many as the publishing phenomenon that launched the modern environment movement. Many of today’s environmental leaders have enthusiastically acknowledged Carson’s attack on the indiscriminate use of man-made chemicals to control pests as a critical influence on their own intellectual development.

All of which makes it an irresistible target for one of the most virulently anti-environmental ‘think tanks’ in the USA today — the Cato Institute, the publisher of Silent Spring at 50.

The editors’ intention is made clear right up front: to convene a group of authors collectively to trash the scientific credibility of Rachel Carson, providing in the process another platform for rolling out the Institute’s extreme libertarian ideology.