The Human Price

Silent Spring not only gives examples of the damage caused by the wanton spraying of pesticides it also discusses the actual and possible effects of man-made chemicals on ourselves.

‘Man, however much he may like to pretend to the contrary is part of nature.’
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

 

We cannot escape the very chemicals that we use to destroy agricultural pests. We are a part of nature and we will always be intimately integrated with it. We exist within one food web or another. And it is very likely that somewhere in that web, chemicals have been used in some manner to protect or boost the production of food. Put simply... if nature takes in the chemicals we feed her, then, we must also be taking these chemicals.

 

If we poison nature we poison ourselves. If we learn nothing else from Silent Spring, this is one lesson we must take away from the book.

 

The biological effects of Environmental Pollutants

Small, minute chemicals can cause disproportionately large and unpredictable effect in our bodies.
Our bodies are networks of interlinked webs of organization very much like the ecosystems that exists in nature. A change at one point, in one molecule may reverberate throughout the entire system to initiate changes in seemingly unrelated organs and tissues.

 

Some Environmental Pollutants are stored cumulatively

The problem is made worse in respect to environmental pollutants by the fact that they tend to be stored cumulatively within living systems in a process called bioaccumulation.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons are stored in the fat tissues of living systems including humans. There, they remain slowly accumulating until they are released during the breakdown of our fat deposits when dieting or during milk production for breast-feeding.

 

DDT in Humans

In 1968, a study showed that Americans were consuming an average of 0.025 milligrams of DDT per day. Human milk production which is primarily dependent on stored body fat was discovered to contain a disproportionate amount of DDT. This meant that breast-fed children were absorbing more DDT into their system than most of the general adult population of the United States.
Even though the amounts were small, the long term effects of DDT on the endocrine system drew a dark cloud over the legacy of DDT. We are still learning about the long-term consequences of chlorinated hydrocarbons.

 

Living systems store a number of different Environmental Pollutants

However, not only are some hydrocarbons stored cumulatively but due to the ubiquitous distribution of environmental pollutants living systems tend to store a number of different chemicals. When combined these chemicals can cause unpredictable and long lasting damage to the cells of living systems.

 

What are the Pesticides currently in use?

Most of the chemicals discussed in Silent Spring has been banned. But pesticides and herbicides are still used worldwide. Due to the impact of Silent Spring they now have to go through more rigorous testing before they are released into the environment.
But the dangers of environmental pollutants are now more subtle. The modern threat now comes from endocrine disruptors (or endocrine mimics). Very small amounts of these chemicals can disrupt parts of the endocrine system. A system which controls reproductive and developmental processes in human beings.