People power check on chemical killers
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Its overriding theme is the powerful - and often negative - effect humans have on the natural world [It's now almost half a century since the publication of Silent Spring , the best-selling book by the American marine biologist and nature writer Rachel Carson (1907-1964) which inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. It seems that the impetus for the book was a letter written in 1958 by Carson's friend Olga Owens Huckins to The Boston Herald describing the death of numerous birds around her property resulting from the aerial spraying of DDT to kill mosquitoes. Carson's response to the letter, so her publicity stated, was to then turn her attention to environmental problems caused by chemical pesticides. Brewster residents are worried about chemical residues in the ground under the power lines Picture credit: www.capecodgroundwater.org No surprise then that Carson's legacy lives on particula...