Dear
Friend,
On
May 27, 2007, the nation will remember Rachel Carson’s centennial
birthday. While years have passed since she first initiated the modern-day
environmental movement, her message still resonates today. It was
40 years ago that Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring exposed
the dangers pesticides pose to the environment. This book and Rachel
Carson’s steadfast devotion to protecting our natural world
launched a new age of environmental awareness.
Rachel
Carson, while born in Pennsylvania, lived most of her adult life in
Maryland. She attended graduate school at Johns Hopkins University
and was a member of the zoology staff at the University of Maryland.
She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts
during the Depression and supplemented her income writing feature
articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. Carson began a
fifteen-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor
in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Carson wrote Silent Spring at
her home in Silver Spring Maryland.
The
Modern Library and National Review both rank Silent Spring among the
100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century. Discovery Magazine
named it one of the 25 greatest science books of all time. With meticulous
research and elegant prose, Silent Spring explained how indiscriminate
pesticide applications introduced toxins into the food chain that
accumulated in fatty tissues, threatening disease and genetic damage
to people as well as animals. Her work described a stunning example
of nature’s vulnerability to human intervention. It led to a
ban on the agricultural use of DDT. As a result, whole species returned
from the verge of extinction in parts of the county. When I grew up
in Montgomery County, great blue herons were virtually unknown on
the Potomac. Today, they’re common; so are bald eagles, ospreys,
and a variety of other birds I never saw as a child.
Rachel
Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her
witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire
new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.
She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously by
President Jimmy Carter.
Governor
Martin O’Malley plans to designate May 27, the 100th anniversary
of her birth, as Rachel Carson Day in the State of Maryland. I hope
you will join me in remembering and honoring Rachel Carson and her
enduring contributions to the health and beauty of the natural world
that surrounds us.
Sincerely,
Brian
E. Frosh
Read
more about Rachel Carson in the Washington Post
Visit
www.brianfrosh.com to read more about environmental issues in Maryland
