Question 1.
If you have spent your entire life waking up to an alarm clock and then dashing off to school or work, then followed a closely regimented schedule, then headed home to have your evening regulated by a schedule of activities or television programs, then time is something that preoccupies you on a very short scale. Because you hear the clock ticking each second, then you expect to accomplish things quickly – and you expect to get quick results from the things that you do.
However, when it comes to changes in nature, time has a completely different meaning. As Rachel Carson writes, “time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world there is no time at all.”1 Here, she refers to the healing and balancing process which the ecosystems of the world use to balance out damage from harmful materials. To be sure, volcanoes have been erupting since the beginning of time, which means that “greenhouse gases” have been entering the atmosphere since well before the advent of the aerosol can or the internal combustion engine. However, the pace at which those gases and other toxins have entered the environment is much slower than it is today. With the use of fossil fuels and other forms of pollution, humanity is introducing these toxins into the environment much more quickly than the planet can achieve a healthy balance. And so what Carson means is that the planet will heal itself, with time, but that humanity is not giving the planet the time it needs to heal before introducing more dangerous substances into the ecosystem. The result is a planet that can never achieve balance.
Question 2.
While Rachel Carson is concerned with all of the toxins that are filling the various ecosystems of the earth, she is particularly concerned with the chemicals that we use to control the various insect populations. It is true that humanity has basically won the war with the insects, through a variety of chemical means. The problem, though, is that these chemical solutions are harming the environment. Her main focus was the pesticide DDT, which was banned after environmental studies found that it was not only knocking out the undesirable insects, but a lot of other animals that were ingesting the poisoned insects and then dying themselves.
When Carson says that “the other fork of the road, the one ‘less traveled by,’ offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth,”2 she means that there are alternative to the destructively toxic pesticides that are still used in many parts of the world to combat the insect populations. These alternatives, according to Carson, include control methods that use the truths of biology to eliminate pests, rather than an overload of toxins that will flood the environment. She views the problem as one of “sharing our earth with other creatures”3 as opposed to eradicating all other forms of life. She compares pesticides to the club that a caveman would use to kill its dinner and insists that researchers find more appropriate ways to control insect populations without corroding the environment behind repair or recognition. Unless scientists can accomplish that, humanity will stay on the fork of the road that leads to destruction.
Question 3.
Breast cancer is one of the most widely marketed diseases in this country, when it comes to efforts to raise money to find a cure through research. Such organizations as the Susan G. Komen fund have created armies clad in pink that march or run in 5K races and three-day 60-mile walks while raising money for a cure. To be sure, breast cancer is a tragic diagnosis, but it has the benefit of visual images and emotional associations. After all, no one wants his or her mother, grandmother, wife or daughter to suffer from a disease, and the breast is an organ that women closely identify with as part of their sexual, maternal and personal identities, and so it is very easy for fundraisers to rake in cash from all walks of life.
The irony about too many cancers, though, is that they are the result of human activity. The chemicals that we introduce into the environment, from the aniline dyes to the pesticides and to the weed killers that we use, find their way back into our bodies. It’s certainly a good idea to wear shoes when scattering fertilizer, for example, because you don’t want the chemicals in the tiny pellets leaching into your feet and then into your bloodstream. However, those chemicals do not disappear, simply because it rained a few times, the pellets have dissolved into the ground, and you cannot see them anymore. The chemicals may no longer be in your yard, but they are headed to your water table. This means that you may be drinking water that has those chemicals in it soon.
Of course, it’s not just fertilizer that leads to toxicity, though. The dyes that are used in clothing articles that are approved for use in the United States includes several chemicals that can cause cancers – imagine what risks are rampant in countries that do not have agencies vigilantly policing the clothes that are sold within their borders. These dyes may not leach into the skin all at once, but they tend to over time, and they also enter the water system when we wash those clothes in our laundry machines. Over time, the aggregation of these chemicals is truly frightening. “Our society proceeds on the assumption that toxic substances will be used and the only question is how much. Under the current system, toxic chemicals are used, discharged, incinerated and buried without ever requiring a finding that these activities are necessary,”4 as O’Brien notes, indicating that we as a society have become too accepting of the toxic in exchange for short-term comfort and convenience. The very freon that cools our air in our homes would wreak havoc on the environment if it got out into the atmosphere, particularly at the levels at which we use it. All of the various toxins that we permit into our daily lives add up, and the 11,000 annual deaths each year from chemically induced cancers5 are a testament to the fact that we do not mind deaths on our behalf, as long as we do not know who the people are. To the average American, 11,000 sounds like a fairly small number, unless we stop to think that it would have taken 3 9/11 attacks to kill that many.
