<- Intense Environmental Debate
BACKLASH
“In case you hadn't noticed, trees leafed, birds sang, squirrels reconnoitered, fish leaped- 1965 was a normal spring, not the 'silent type' of the late Miss Carson's nightmares.”
~ Velsicol, chemical company
Carson’s opponents tried to discredit her by attacking her instead of her ideas. A reviewer for Time censured her “emotion-fanning words” and called her argument “unfair, one-sided, and hysterically overemphatic." Carson was accused of being a “communist” by Former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson.
Dr. Robert White-Stevens appears in "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson" CBS Reports broadcast, 1963, Youtube.com
"The major claims in Miss Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, are gross distortions of the actual facts."
~ Dr. Robert White-Stevens, biochemist from the chemical industry
Monsanto, a chemical company, published stories teasing Carson’s writing style. "The Desolate Year" described life without pesticides, a parody of Silent Spring’s opening chapter, which described life with pesticides.
"The bugs were everywhere. Unseen. Unheard. Unbelievably universal. On or under every square foot of land, every square yard, every acre, and county, and state and region in the entire sweep of the United States. In every home and barn and apartment house and chicken coop, and in their timbers and foundations and furnishings. Beneath the ground, beneath the waters, on and in limbs and twigs ands talks, under rocks inside trees and animals and other insects- and, yes, inside man."
~ Monsanto, "The Desolate Year"
"The Desolate Year" in Monsanto Magazine, 1962, International Society for Environmental Ethics