Celebrating the Lives of Our Elders Rachel Carson May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964
U.S. Department of Agriculture, CC BY
IN MEMORIAM by Marjorie Spock
(from Biodynamics no. 71, Summer 1964) Seldom has the death of a public figure aroused as sharp a sense of loss and grief as that of Rachel Carson. People of intelligent goodwill the world over were appalled to learn on April 14th that this champion of scientific sanity had succumbed to cancer. Here was a woman who risked everything to tell the truth about pesticides, that all mankind and the whole of nature might be benefited. A slight, far-from-robust, very timid person, she nevertheless shied away from none of the consequences of her courageous decision to expose the facts. While the thoughtful and fair-minded were immensely grateful for her careful documenting of every phase of the harm being done by indiscriminate spraying, those to whom pesticides were a source of income attacked her savagely. It was an education in perfidy to read their blasts. So this gentle writer, who desired nothing more than peace and privacy, came to stand, undaunted, at the center of a raging storm, an uproar that never abated from the moment when the New Yorker published a large part of Silent Spring in June 1962 to her recent death. Not only, however, did she quietly bear insults that ranged from scornful cries of “bird-lover!” through “emotionalist,” “pseudo-scientist,” “scare-monger” and “fact-twister” to “dollar-chaser”—she submitted to requests to address groups of the genuinely interested, gave testimony before two Congressional committees and took part in a CBS forum on Silent Spring when already gravely ill, and answered floods of inquiries received by mail. Hers was a dedication without bounds, a sacrifice that cost her more than dearly. One cannot sufficiently admire the selflessness, the spiritual strength that made this possible at a time when she knew that she was dying, while having everything to live for. Rachel Carson combined in rare perfection the capacity of the true poet for lucidity and beauty of expression and the scientist’s sobriety. To go even an inch beyond the proven facts was unthinkable to her.
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Biodynamics
SPRING 2019
