The following year, it also became the first to pass comprehensive environmental protection legislation, the Environmental Protection Law. In 1967, Sweden became the first nation to establish a comprehensive environmental regulatory agency, the Environmental Protection Board. Moving quickly, the government responded to both pesticides and mercury. Several important Swedish environmental works followed Carson’s, notably Hans Palmstierna’s Plundring svält förgiftning of 1967. The national media, including Dahlbeck on the radio, gave Silent Spring a great deal of publicity. Conferences and meetings on pesticides convened even before the release of the Swedish edition in 1963. Although Carson never mentioned mercury, the issues merged and provoked a huge public outcry. Developing countries are subject to even less oversight as they face imperatives to grow: Brazil, one of the world’s top pesticide users alongside China and the USA, today produces more than 2.2bn kg a year.The copyright holder reserves, or holds for their own use, all the rights provided by copyright law, such as distribution, performance, and creation of derivative works.Īlso at this time, environmental activist Nils Dahlbeck was broadcasting reports on his influential radio program “Naturen och vi” about the problem of mercury pollution, an industrial and paper-mill byproduct that poisoned fish, birds, and humans. By the time Barack Obama signed the Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act into law in 2016-the first major upgrade in the EPA’s ability to regulate and test chemicals since the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976-the number of chemicals used in agriculture had risen to an average of 1,500 a year in the US alone. Chemicals were big business by the mid-20th century: between 19, Carson reported that production rose from 124m to 637m pounds (562m kg to 2,889m kg) every year, an “endless stream” which yearly introduced about “500 new chemicals to which the bodies of animals and men are somehow expected to adapt.” This was only the first hints of a far more ingrained problem Carson would be stunned by today’s figures.
The first was through her compelling scientific evidence, which showed the drive for constant economic growth came with a high environmental price. What makes Carson’s book so powerful is how she crafted her message out of two distinct parts.
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