American marine biologist, conservationist, and writer Rachel Carson died #OTD in 1964.
She is best known for her groundbreaking book "Silent Spring," published in 1962, which brought attention to the environmental impact of pesticides, particularly DDT, and sparked a global environmental movement. The book is often credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement and the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible."
@gutenberg_org My mother read Carson's book in 1962 and with that forbade all of her children from the popular game of running into the DDT fog that Town trucks would regularly spray to reduce mosquitoes at dusk. We watched instead, from inside behind closed windows, all the other kids and teens happily running through the poisoned mists.
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