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it’s very instructive. But this is not how they are in the world. When you leave the museum, you do not see all the butterflies flying in formation, with the large ones in the front and the small ones at the back. You don’t see the spiders scuttling along in disciplined columns with the small ones bringing up the rear, while the beetles keep a respectful distance. In their natural state, these creatures are all over each other. They live in complicated, interdependent environments, and their fortunes relate to one another. Human communities are exactly the same, and they are facing the same sorts of crises that are now confronting the ecosystems of the natural environment. The analogy here is strong. The relationships of living systems and our widespread failure to understand them was the theme of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s hard-hitting book published in September 1962. She argued that the chemicals and insecticides that farmers were using to improve crops and destroy pests were having unexpected and disastrous consequences. As they drained into the ground, these toxic chemicals were polluting water systems and destroying marine life. By indiscriminately killing insects, farmers were also upsetting the delicate ecosystems on which many other forms of life depended, including the plants