08/10/05 18:02:43
続きです。
Rachel Carson’s life seemed neatly laud out for her.
The master’s degree she had gotten in genetics led directly into teaching in the early 1930s, first at Johns Hopkins University and then at the University of Maryland.
In 1936 she took an examination to work for the government and accepted a position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Though she was very busy, she had never given up her desire to write.
“Eventually it became clear to me,” she once said, “that by becoming a biologist I had given myself something to write about.”
She wrote some novels and short articles, working as editor-in-chief for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
She spent the war years in her office in Washington and later in Chicago.
Hundreds of reports, many of them secret during the war, passed over her desk.
She also looked at information on the dramatic effects of certain chemicals.
Among those chemicals was DDT.
Because DDT was effective in killing insects that damage crops, people ignored its dangers.
It does not break down in the environment, but continues to exist in its poisonous state for years, even for decades.
This seemed wonderfully convenient for farmers because it was not necessary for them to apply DDT to their crops frequently.
Then in the 1950s, scientists began to uncover disturbing facts about DDT‘s effects on “the chain of life.”
Put simply, this had to do with DDT’s unfortunate tendency to collect in the fatty tissues of wildlife.
Rachel Carson, like many other biologists, was aware of the reports on pesticides collecting in wildlife.
Nevertheless, experienced biologists are human beings too; they read, they listen, and still they are not always moved to action until the danger comes closer to home.