Silent Spring: A Summary

Like any good tree hugger, I decided over the summer that I needed to read Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's "explosive bestseller" about the devastating effects of the chemical pesticide programs used during the 1950s and 1960s. I hear it referenced so often that I assume it's mandatory reading for entomologists, biologists, ecologists, and environmentalists alike. So I picked up a musty, crumbling paperback copy in a used book store one day and dove right in. I motored through the first couple of brief chapters pretty quickly, intrigued by Carson's answer to her own rhetorical question:

"How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and even death to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them." (p. 20)

After that, however, things began to get very technical, very quickly. The book is structured as a commentary on a number of case studies done during the height of the indiscriminate chemical spraying era, from the late 1940s up to the early 1960s (when the book was published). Even though the jargon is kept to a minimum and most of the data is presented in layman's terms, it is a tedious and laborious read and I couldn't mentally process more than ten pages at a time. I aimed to get through one chapter per sitting, but with so much data crammed onto each water stained page, not even the chapters' blatantly incendiary titles (such as "Elixirs of Death", "Needless Havoc", and "No Birds Sing") could help me to maintain my focus.

As I slogged through the meaty middle chapters, I began to get an eerie feeling; it was both a sense of foreboding and deja vu. In case study after innumerable case study, while the locations, pests, and sometimes even the chemicals changed, the inevitably disastrous result was almost always the same.

When DDD was sprayed at Clear Lake in California to kill the gnats, the swan grebes died. When the hop growers of Washington and Idaho sprayed heptachlor to kill the strawberry root weevil, their crops died and the land remained unusable for years. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture sprayed dieldrin over Iroquois County, Illinois, to "eradicate" the Japanese beetle, the song birds of the region were wiped out within a matter of days. When DDT was sprayed in East Lansing to kill the gypsy moth and prevent Dutch Elm disease, the robins died. The list goes on and on, but the message is clear: saturating the country with chemical pesticides is bad... very bad. Got it.

Scientists came to discover that these poisons were stored in higher and higher concentrations as it worked its way up through the animals in the food chain. The initial spraying might not have killed a bug, for example, but it probably sickened an earthworm or a fish that ate several bugs, and in turn almost instantly killed a bird that ate several earthworms or fish. The birds that didn't die instantly were either rendered infertile or endured a long, drawn-out illness before the twitching and agonizingly painful convulsions set in that, after much suffering, ultimately killed them. And-- perhaps worst of all-- the programs didn't even work long-term.

What these short-sighted chemists and government officials failed to realize was that it's nearly impossible to eradicate a single species of pesky insect; those that survived not only reproduced at a much faster rate than their natural predators, but they became resistant to the pesticides more quickly as well, rendering subsequent sprayings ineffective. Without a healthy bird population to keep these insect populations in check, the pests' numbers can exceed pre-spraying levels in a matter of years (and sometimes months!) As Carson explains:

By their very nature chemical controls are self-defeating, for they have been devised and applied without taking into account the complex biological systems against which they have been blindly hurled ... (p. 218)

She continues:

"The really effective control of insects is that applied by nature, not by man. Populations are kept in check by something the ecologists call the resistance of the environment: The amount of food available, conditions of weather and climate, the presence of competing or predatory species, are all critically important ... [The second neglected fact it] the truly explosive power of a species to reproduce once the resistance of the environment has been weakened ... (p. 218)

Thankfully, the sprayings eventually stopped, but not before our soil and groundwater was heavily contaminated. I know many of these same pesticides are still in use today, albeit in much smaller concentrations. Still, the best way to fight a force of nature is still with nature itself. For in her final paragraph, Carson issues a harsh admonishment, warning that:

"The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man ... It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the [E]arth."

Shortening the Supply Chain

Do you know where your dinner came from? Today, I do. I made a delicious pasta dish using homemade ravioli from the Madison farmers' market. It's fresh, I recognize every ingredient on the label, and-- best of all-- it's relatively local. The pesto sauce was made from the basil on my back deck, and the cherry tomato garnish was also harvested from a plant out back. I would have taken a picture of the meal itself (which was served with a side of locally grown greens) but it was in my belly before the thought ever occurred to me.

I wish I could eat meals such as this every day; it's fresh, it's flavorful, and (from a broad environmental standpoint, if not a personal one) it's frugal. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to prepare healthy meals from unprocessed (or minimally processed) foods. If you shop at a grocery store, this task becomes next to impossible. The foods on the inner shelves-- the juice boxes, cake mixes, and snacks-- have been almost entirely created in a laboratory somewhere; the meats come from animals that were drugged, sickened, and tortured during their short and miserable lives; the eggs are six to nine months old by the time they reach us while the other dairy products have had the nutrients pasteurized right out of them; and even the produce has been genetically modified, saturated with a myriad of pesticides, or both! And to top it all off, the vast majority of these items have been trucked in from some distance away; the average fruit or vegetable travels about 1,500 miles to get to our plate.

I will admit that there are some things I like about the current food chain; I can get fresh produce (like citrus, avocados, and other tropical fruits) that we just can't grow here-- they would never survive Chicago's temperamental climate. But why ship tomatoes from Mexico when there is an abundance of them grown right here in the Midwest? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Also, some of the products manufactured by this country's food scientists (microwave dinners, instant oatmeal, packaged cookies, condensed soups and the like)-- even though they are nutritionally worthless-- can be convenient in a pinch. The problem is that most Americans eat this garbage on a daily basis; and some rely on these items for each and every meal!

The third factor is the cost; government subsidies and the overwhelming imbalance between supply and demand have driven prices down to the point where industrial farmers will never be able to turn a profit. To pay a fair price for meats (for example) that were responsibly and naturally raised is a sticker shock for some, while completely cost prohibitive for others. I saw on a news broadcast the other night that, despite recent price hikes on grocery essentials, Americans on average are only spending 5% of their income on food, compared with the 10% our grandparents doled out just 50 years ago! I'd be willing to bet that they ate a lot better, too.

While I would love to go off the grid entirely, to plant a huge garden, make everything from scratch, and only buy my food from local farmers, that simply isn't realistic for me at the moment. So I splurge on real food whenever and wherever I can, and when I do make a meal using entirely fresh ingredients, I savor the fruits of my labor.

Daisies!

Nothing special or profound to report here; I just wanted to share my small contribution to the greening of the urban jungle that is Chicago. I love, love, LOVE Gerbera daisies, and these sunny little beauties are one of my favorite features in my current apartment. A vibrant splash of color on an otherwise dull, gray, and impervious surface, they provide a nice contrast to my primarily green container garden, and happily soak up the sun's blazing rays that drench my deck with its western exposure.

Fall is coming, and these flowers won't last but another month (or two); this is just a feeble attempt to preserve a moment in time, to savor the beauty and save the image. When I look back on these pictures in a few months' time, during the dull and dreary doldrums of a Midwestern winter, maybe they will make me smile, and remind me that the sunny days of spring aren't as far off as they will undoubtedly seem.

Primo Parking

I was cruising around a parking lot at a mini mall in a swanky southwest suburb, looking for a place to park. There were no regular spots to be found so, out of desperation, I pulled into a spot up front . It was not a handicap spot (I would NEVER do that), but it still had a sign. When I drove by before, I assumed it was a designated spot for expectant mothers or something like that. Well, if anyone was watching, I could stick out my gut, hold the small of my back, and waddle into the store. I was only going to be a minute, and I had to get to work!

As it turns out, it wasn't pregnant lady parking at all; better yet, I had every right to park there! The spot was reserved for fuel-efficient vehicles, and my 2006 Sentra certainly fit the bill. It's no Prius, but it averages 33 miles a gallon, which more than makes up for its poor acceleration abilities. In fact, that sign made my whole day. Kudos to the environmentally conscious parking lot engineers of Kane and DuPage counties! The actual design of the lot is a mess, which makes no sense to me, but at least they got one thing right. Hopefully they're blazing a trail that future parking lot construction and design teams will want to follow. They've got my repeat business, and it's all because of that sign!

It's The Most Wonderful Time...

I'm not talking about the holidays, or even the start of a new school year (especially not that!) I'm referring to the plethora of fresh produce that is in season this time of year. Farmer's markets everywhere are overflowing with nature's bounty! Whatever adjectives you want to use to describe your fruit or vegetable of choice-- ripe, crisp, plump, juicy, sweet, etc.-- it all applies. And prices have never been cheaper-- these farmers have corn and tomatoes and zucchini coming out of their ears! All they want to do is get it out of their gardens and into our bellies; now who can argue with that?

With so many delicious and affordable options available right now, I'm tempted to buy extra and try my hand at canning, pickling, or even freeze-drying, so I can enjoy these farm fresh tastes all year long. I saw the first apples of the season last week, though, so I know that I'll need to act fast, because like all good things, this too shall pass. In the meantime, I'm eating any and every piece of produce I can get my hands on-- with food this healthy and fresh, why should anyone have to choose? Eat your hearts out, fellow veggie lovers!

Basil Bug?

Someone's been eating my basil, and it's not just me! I've been trying to harvest more basil as of late, but someone (or something) else has been getting to it first. The big leaves have huge holes chewed out of them, and some of the smaller ones have been sheared off altogether. Harrumph.

Well, when I was out watering today, I finally identified the culprit:

Can you see him? How about now?

I have no idea what type of insect this is, but he blends in so perfectly with the leaves of my poor basil plant, he's probably been there all along! As far as bugs go, it's really quite beautiful; leaf shaped and with an iridescent sheen that catches the sunlight. He's so cool-looking, that I couldn't bring myself to flick him off of the plant, so I guess I'll have to settle for sharing my bounty. Surely there's enough basil for us both... right?

(By the way, if any of you do know what type of bug this is, I'd love to find out!)

Aveda "Kicks the Cap" out of Plastic!

On my way to a matinee at the Landmark Century Theater, I stopped by the Aveda Institute with a bag full of plastic bottle caps. I know what you're thinking, but let me assure you that they were in fact happy to see me! You see, the Aveda company is leading the way in the area of "producer responsibility", a novel concept that I hope catches on soon with companies large and small, far and wide. In addition to using wind power to generate energy at their manufacturing plants, they have begun recycling plastic bottle caps into bottles and containers for their many products.

Why is this such a brilliant idea, you ask? Well, the caps on most plastic bottles are made from a different (and much harder to recycle) plastic than the bottles themselves, and few local recycling companies can process them. What Aveda has done is to find a use for these caps (all the recycling in the world won't do us any good unless someone finds a way to repurpose these recycled products!) and what better way to reuse old packaging than to turn it into new packaging?

Their "responsible packaging" has long been made from easy to recycle plastics, glass, and even cardboard cartons, and the Caps Recycling Program is their latest effort to keep these little plastic bits from littering our parks, beaches, and oceans. They are looking to partner with schools, to educate students who will then aid in their collection efforts. The company provides a specific description of the type of "rigid plastic" they seek; the lids I had saved from countless gallons of milk did not make the cut, because I could bend them with my bare hand. Some of these rigid plastic caps are marked with the number 5. This sounds like an easy way for students to learn about the "cradle-to-grave" life cycle of a product, and the caps are easy to collect.

The link above has suggestions for parents and teachers who are interested in getting their students involved in this noble effort, and it seems like most of their cap collectors are in fact children; the woman who took my caps kept asking if I was a teacher or had neices and nephews who had asked me to drop the caps off for them, and whether they were excited to be taking part in their program. So I told her that, yes, this was an exciting program, and that I hoped to recruit and excite more people to assist in their efforts to reduce their impact on the environment. And that, my dear readers, is where you come in. The caps can be dropped off at any Aveda salon; the company also provides special shipping labels to schools who enroll in their program so they can mail the caps instead. The process couldn't be easier, and I encourage you to encourage the little people in your lives to start collecting caps today, and let them see that they, too, can make a difference!