Despite all research and scientific proof of the devastating environmental effects of DDT, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) apparently believes that it should still be used today. He has threatened to block a resolution honoring Rachel Carson on the 100th anniversary of her birth
because he believed she used "junk science" to turn people away from pesticides. Link to story on Yahoo news.
In college, I took a class on agricultural chemicals. It wasn’t a very good class, or a thorough one; the one thing I remember is when the professor showed us old films of people drinking DDT from a glass to prove how "safe" it supposedly was. I also grew up hearing that the bald eagle was very nearly extinct, its eggshells so weakened by DDT that the female eagle crushed them when she sat on them to incubate them. Yet, in the two years I lived in northeastern Minnesota, I saw bald eagles nearly every day. Why? Because the ban on DDT along with years of hard conservation work has led to a restoration of this magnificent species.
None of this would have come about without "Silent Spring". Now, I have tried to read this book, and will admit I didn’t enjoy it much. But then I read in in the 90s, so much of the information was out-of-date. Nevertheless, nobody can deny that it changed the way we looked at agriculture, and the effects of intensive crop production on the surrounding environment. Nobody except a Senator/doctor from Oklahoma, that is. When is his term up? Can we please get a challenger there? Pretty please?