293: DDT - So Safe You Can Eat It! Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge

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We're diving into the stories of women who defied expectations sometimes in groundbreaking ways sometimes in chili ones Some of them fought for justice some of them shocked the world But all of them made sure that they wouldn't be forgotten Whether they're making history or making headlines join us every Wednesday to hear the stories of women who have approved the power It seats far beyond the kitchen just a reminder empowered women empower the world now. Let's go cook Imagine your whole life waking up to the sounds of songbirds White-throated sparrows American goldfinches black cap chickadees and Northern Cardinals that have been nesting in the trees around your house for generations As dusk falls the sound of cricket's chirping fills the air This natural soundtrack is such a reliable part of the ebb and flow of the day like sunrise and sunset That you almost take it for granted until one day you wake up to the sound of silence You look out the kitchen window and there are no birds on the tree branches No wings in the sky and your lawn is vacant of robin searching for worms in the dirt It is very quiet and still like something isn't quite right When you go outside to investigate you discover lifeless bodies of birds strewn across your yard At night no cricket song arrives and you are left with nothing but a haunting silence That apocalyptic scene was a reality for many people in the northeast United States in the spring of 1957 And it coincided with something else the rollout of aerial pesticide spraying programs by local and state governments It's hard to imagine today, but in 1957 a chemical insecticide called DDT was sprayed out of airplanes over millions of acres of land The goal was to combat a widespread invasion of gypsy mock caterpillars but as a bonus it was advertised to radiards of pesky mosquitoes and other insects as well Government officials and chemical companies assured the public that DDT was safe to humans To reinforce that legitimacy of their claims they ran ads showing a scientist spraying DDT into his porridge and then eating it And use this Logan DDT so safe you can eat it They even advertised DDT being sprayed on children playing outside The campaigns were effective in the mainstream DDT was viewed as a miracle chemical But not everyone was convinced to some the link between pesticide spraying programs and the death of birds and other wildlife was undeniable But how could they turn the tide of public opinion and could the damage of DDT ever be undone Welcome to National Park after dark You Welcome back everyone to National Park after dark. I'm Daniel and I'm Cassie and it is almost earth day It is actually when this comes out this is coming out on monday april 21st and earth day is april 22nd So we needed to talk about the environment for this episode because it's just so fitting for earth day Do you have any plans? I every earth day I don't I haven't gone to celebrations or anything and I don't have anything planned quite yet But every earth day I always grab a um I always go for hike and I'll grab like a bag or just in my backpack And pick up trash along the way on my hike so probably something like that Cool. I do something similar but I take trash bags on the roadside. Oh cool. Like I don't go on to a hike or anything I just go it's needed there for sure like literally right Outside of my driveway. It's awful Like the more you really look at the side of on the road sides and stuff. It's disgusting So that's my plan um to do a little clean up there and see how far I make it and yeah try not to get hit by a car Cool. Yeah. Do you guys does mean do or not earth day? Of course they do earth day. Do they do green up day? I haven't been here long enough to know what meaners do So I'm not sure actually Vermont is something it's called green up day and I forget that I think it's May 5th this year or May 6th and it's each spring It's kind of similar to what you're saying is going out and picking up trash along the roadside But it's called green up day and it's very similar to earth day everyone celebrates that it's finally not gray And disgusting out anymore and everyone gets outside and does some activity that has to do with helping the environment Whether that's picking up trash or it is like starting to garden and like clearing out your space It's just cleaning up sticks off of trails trail maintenance stuff like that It's just everyone is outside on green up day and they have all these farmers markets and farm stands around to feed people while they're doing it Oh nice encourages people to get outside like tidying up. Yeah Yeah, you'll see people in town just picking up like branches and sticks that have fallen into local parks and people Just really tending to their flower gardens that are in the front of I don't even like grocery stores Or in the front of their house on Main Street. It's stuff like that people really take care of things. I'll keep an eye out Because I don't I have no idea how to go like green up day Main it would pop up. Yeah, I have a feeling main does that feels like a main thing. I think it's so - I would be surprised It might be called something else, but I bet they do something like yeah cool. Well, okay So we know that your episode is linked to Earth Day in some way and dd oh my god Okay, so during your intro when you were talking about the robins out in your garden things like that like tis the season right now You know April the other day I I counted how many robins were out in my backyard because it was bizarre It was like what are you all doing here? I was like Is it what's happening? There was over 35 of them. Oh my wow that is It was like I was taking a back. I had like three in my yard today and I thought that was exciting No, there was like a whole I don't know what a group of robins is called you know like a murder of crows or whatever But yeah very clearly. I knew what they were doing But I have just never seen so many robins in one spot before that it was startling But so I kind of smiled during that because DDT man, I learned about that. I remember learning about that in college in an environmental studies class. Oh cool I don't remember why I learned about DDT But I do remember watching the dot did you watch the documentary on I watched a documentary on agent orange. Okay So no, I don't think so but my minor was environmental science In school, so we did like a big unit on DDT, but I don't recall a documentary now I remember watching the first time I ever heard of DDT was through this documentary and I don't know what it's called Then maybe I should have looked it up, but has nothing to do with the episode that I'm covering for research wise But it was a documentary on the bald eagles and how all of their eggshells were Getting a lot thinner. So we were losing populations of bald eagles in the United States and how it eventually led to the banning of DDT And that was the first time I had ever heard of it and since then I've understood what it was new But after this episode that we're going to dive into I wanted to really dive into DDT And what was happening because something I did not know was the advertisements that they were putting out and like I alluded to And I'll get more into into this episode is they I was looking it up you can look it up on you to they have actual videos Of them taking these like pesticide sprayers like you went to your garden or whatever And they are hosting down children with that And I think you are literally spraying children with pesticides right now What what in the world and there's like happy music behind it They're like DDT is safe for everywhere Everyone put it everywhere and then they're like spraying it and children's bells And I'm like Lord what is going on I get that similar feeling though with commercials for medication here Yeah where it's like somebody skipping slow-mo through a sun-drenched field while they're talking about suicidal ideations And I don't know rectal hemorrhaging and whatever the hell else, you know So I'm just like take this medication and it'll make you better But and then it says really really fast all the side effects like make us death internal bleeding and death So I don't know it kind of it draws a parallel in my mind at least just kind of but anyway Yeah, I want to hear all about it. So cool. Well, I was excited for this one So today I'm diving into some scary history of the use of pesticides I'm also going to be talking about one woman's book who opened the eyes to the world of their harm And the global movement that ensued because of it that created what is now Earth Day Oh, origin story of Earth Day origin story of Earth Day, yeah Okay With a mix of their I'm centering it around one woman, Rachel Carson, who was a writer and author of the book Silence Spring which was an ode to really telling the world what DDT was and what it was doing and bringing all the scientific research to life and through that book and through her research Eventually the environmental movement was created and thus Earth Day was created and now that's why we're here today So we're gonna dive into her story. We're gonna dive into Earth Day and we're gonna dive into its history First going into Earth Day The diversity of cultures and religions across the globe means that few celebrations are truly worldwide One of those few is Earth Day Every year on April 22nd more than one billion of us around the world celebrate Earth Day in some type of way The tradition dates back to 1970 A number of different people can be credited for establishing Earth Day Like Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin Who had the original idea for organizing a nationwide event to raise awareness of environmental issues among college students And of course activist Dennis Hayes who scaled up Nelson's idea to the broader public But setting the stage for Nelson and Hayes was another person whose influence is even greater And who is often credited for creating the concept of environmentalism itself And of course her name is Rachel Carson Rachel Carson was a biologist and author whose book Silent Spring published in 1962 Had a transformative impact on both environmental policy and public consciousness So today in honor of Earth Day I will be telling how Rachel Carson has changed the world And I couldn't pass up a story that had a book rec tied to it So if you are interested in learning more about this and Silent Spring And her work on that check out that book So we'll start her story in January of 1958 Rachel Carson was living in a one-story brick home in Silver Spring, Maryland Where she received a letter addressed to her from Massachusetts Carson didn't know it at the time but this letter would catalyze the project that became her legacy Which was the writing of Silent Spring The letter was written by Housewife and Bird Enthusiast named Olga Huckins Who was part of a citizen's group called the Committee Against Mass Poisoning This group had come together to raise alarm bells about the danger of the new aerial pesticide spraying programs These programs allowed plans and helicopters to spray pesticides from above And were largely used for areas of farmland They weren't scientists but it was obvious to them that DDT was killing more than just the insects The practice is actually still used today and is still fought against In 2021 120,000 drones because now we have drones Not in the '70s and '60s 120,000 drones were used to spray pesticides over 175,5 million acres of farmland across the United States In Olga's letter to Rachel, she described with emotional intensity and devastating detail How she witnessed aerial spraying firsthand The birdbath and her backyard became littered with the bodies of dead songbirds After her property and Cape Cod was sprayed with pesticides In part, her letter red, the mosquito control plane flew over our small town last summer Since we lived close to the marshes we were treated to several lethal doses as a pilot crisscrossed our path And we considered the spraying of the active poison over private land to be a serious aerial intrusion The quote-unquote "harmless shower bath" killed seven hour-hour lovely songbirds outright We picked up three deadly bodies the next morning right by the door They were birds that had lived close to us, trusted us, built their nest in our trees year after year The next day three were scattered around the birdbath I had emptied it and scrubbed it after the spraying but you can never kill DDT On the following day one robin dropped suddenly from a branch in our woods We were too heart sick to hunt for the other corpses All of the birds died horribly and in the same way Their bills were gaping open and their sprayed claws were drawn up to their breasts in agony Olga Huckins and Rachel Carson were actually old friends But in 1958 Rachel was also already a biologist and a best-selling author That's the real reason that Olga wrote to her Her letter was a heartfelt call to action asking Rachel to help raise awareness of this issue by writing about it And it worked The letter struck a chord with Rachel who had been a devoted student and champion of the natural world for as long as she could remember She had also seen the advertisements on television about the uses of DDT One in particular used the slogan DDT let's put it everywhere It showed DDT in different forms, powder, spray, and even paint The video showed people painting their windowsills, their doorways, and their food pantries As it was advertised it would keep the bugs away and kill them Okay, so that is the only, that's what they're saying It's uses like there is no multi-use, right? Yeah, so I'll get into it more throughout the episode too of what the uses of DDT were But it was originally advertised for this moth invasion that they were claiming But then it was also saying that it was great for all insects That it would get rid of mosquitoes, beetles, any bugs, ants Things that were getting into your pantries, things like that They were really advocating to have it everywhere in your house Because it was just for the sole purpose of an insect deterrent Yes, okay, or yeah, all right Yes So there's these different forms in this advertisement of powder, spray, and paint And they're putting it on their windowsills for bugs to kill them It showed putting powder in between couch cushions inside musical instruments in the home And even on the family dog to rid it of lice and other insects Yeah, there's a video and there's this cute lab And there's this woman just pouring powder of DDT on its back and like rubbing it in Yikes, I mean, that's the least surprising of all the other Like, why do you need it in between your couch cushions? Do you really have that big of an insect problem? Yeah, are there insects just everywhere on your child? And this happening in New England like I know we have mosquitoes and bugs But we're not the tropics, there's not all these huge insects and bugs everywhere Carrying a ton of diseases and I don't know, it's just it's weird The way that there, I mean, I know advertisements have a way of kind of catastrophizing everything You know, like making it offering you a solution that they're building up this big problem to be You know, it's like I didn't even know you have right now you believe that you have it Right, but yeah, it's not like there's plagues of it I mean, there's way more bugs here than I would prefer Compared to the Rockies, you know, like in the summer, my biggest mess though Yeah, my biggest gripe is like, you know, having to wear insect repellent here Whereas in the Rockies, that's not as big of a concern Right, but it's not like I'm looking to douse my couch with it Yeah, you're not putting it on every surface I own Yeah, yeah, okay, go on, sorry, just Well, the advertisements get worse So there was even a Times Magazine article that featured a cartoon of a dog Cow, chicken, a woman, and some fruit and vegetables dancing Below a title that read "DDT is good for me" like a singing "DDT is good for me" And the piece, the article that came with it called it quote "an amazing insecticide" and even had a drawing of a mother nursing a newborn baby beside it Another advertisement in June of 1947 from Parents Magazine was selling DDT children's room wallpaper It wrote about diseases in sex-carried like malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid It urged parents to protect their children with their DDT-filled easy to use peel and stick wallpaper It stated "non-hazardist to children or adults to pets or clothing certified to be absolutely safe for home use" This is striking something very deep in me and It's the whole like seeing through the Malarkey that is advertising And of course we kind of talked about the medication thing which everyone is kind of like "Isn't that band in most countries in the world like you can?" It used to be band in the U.S I think it wasn't until the 70s or 80s Maybe even 90s that it was allowed back So it's been a lot of people see through that, right? But I every time I go to the grocery store And I've been doing a lot more shopping locally I'm very fortunate that there are several farms within a 10-minute driving distance That it's the honor system You go, it's like farm store open, you go in, you unlatch the thing They have like a little square setup You know, so you can pay in cash or with your credit card And they have everything from meat, eggs, produce, yogurt, like honey You know, just some staple things Yeah, so I try and do that when I can But if I'm at a grocery store And especially the meat section Where, you know, in environmental science classes I took in college Like I had my, the doors blown open in my mind As far as like animal welfare and treatment Especially in factory farming And how bad it is for the environment And et cetera, et cetera But they really honed in on big companies like Tyson And Purdue and things like that And how they can label certain things they put, you know, sunshine and grass On the packaging and say make these claims That are just so either completely untrue Or very far from the truth And it's like a huge stretch But to the, to, you know, the average person's eye Like it looks nice, it's in earthy tones It has really nice wording And the marketing is flawless It's just trickery, you know, and it's just now knowing that And applying that to everything It's like you can trust nothing Well, I think of that where you're talking about meats and stuff My first thought with that goes specifically to eggs Because there's cage free And there's free range And there's organic And there's pasture range But the thing is, is that you have to know About cage free, it sounds nice But cage free still means that they could just be in a facility inside That is way too small for the amount of chickens that are in there And there could never see sunlight They could never see sunlight They could still be toppling each other Like just because it says cage free does not mean that they're treated well Yeah, there's like cage free pasture raised Like to your point organic Antibiotic free It's like you have to decipher It's a whole secondary language that you need to understand And become proficient in when it comes to different advertisement Lingo stuff and it's just it's so it's super depressing Depressing that as I mean I think everyone as a consumer of anything should be educated To some point but it's also like okay, so I can't trust anybody I can't trust any of your claims It's like why can't I trust my food Right, like I need to do all of this research on my own Just to make sure I'm not being misled or poisoned in this case Literally poisoned Yeah, literally poisoned in the story But I read something the other day that was like What's the health food section in the grocery store It's like what does that mean nothing else in the grocery store is healthy What about everything else that's there Yeah, why is there health food section Why isn't everything in the store edible And I mean everything's edible I guess But why isn't everything healthy for you Why is there so much bad stuff in all of our food I've always I've been taught to shop the perimeter If you're shopping at a typical grocery store Like no matter if it's Shaw's, Hanifords, King's Supers, whatever Like your best bet is to completely ignore everything in the aisles And shop the perimeter because that's usually where Like the quote-unquote best stuff for you is That like the least processed foods are hang out And then of course the vegetables are You have to do your own digging and deciphering still But like yeah everything in the minute like lucky charms Oh my god I'm sad because I did like lucky charms Reese's puffs Captain Crunch Captain Crunch was called Captain Crunch The very Captain Crunch I was I wasn't a very good I was a true peanut butter fan Okay, I was a very girl But still man it's like the more you know The more things are awful Yeah Okay, let's sorry Getting into awful things That's a DDT So spraying it on walls And spraying it on walls and all these advertisements On the topic of really bad shit and bad advertising And things that are going on One thing that I did want to mention is that DDT was not only found to be really really bad for the environment But it had a really bad effect on people That wasn't being advertised Which is also why in hindsight looking back at these advertisements Of its being sprayed on children on people's dogs Things like that Make it really really concerning And that's because it was found after studies Were done that people who were exposed to the past decide of DDT Had a much higher risk of developing liver cancer Not only that But the study also discovered that dogs exposed to DDT Were found to have high rates of liver cancer In addition to that as well It was found to be linked particularly to women Who had been exposed during infancy or in utero To have high risk of breast cancer later on in life So even I mean babies you didn't have a chance If you were exposed as a literal baby or a fetus You were already like set for failure Going into life you were a high risk of getting breast cancer Yeah Also to add to the list of things that DDT caused in people It was later linked to diabetes Decrease seam inequality, loss of pregnancy And impaired neuro development in children Meanwhile we're getting all these ads that are saying It's safe DDT put it everywhere So safe you can eat it Yeah God like not Not quite true And do you get into at all but like where those claims Like where are their receipts, like where are their studies That have proved that they can make these sorts of claims Or was it just straight up false advertising It was false advertisement Basically what it was from my understanding Was lack of studies They found something that worked was killing what they wanted And I'll get into the origin story of DDT and why it was used And then how it like transferred into what it became But going back into Rachel a little bit She gets this letter, she was already concerned about DDT and her personal life Anyway she had these theories that it wasn't great But after Olga's letter she was really inspired to do something about it And she decided to help Now before we get into the advocacy that later became silent spring I did want to talk about her life a little bit leading up to that point She was born in May of 1907 and rural western Pennsylvania Rachel grew up on 64 acres of farmland along the Allegheny River in a town called Springdale She lived there with her mother, father, two older siblings, a pig, a horse, some sheep, and some chickens Rachel and her siblings spent their childhood exploring the field and hills Which included an orchard of apple and pear trees and a beautiful rose garden But Rachel's love of nature didn't just come from her stunning natural environment It's something her mother Maria McLean actively fostered Maria was a curious, intelligent, passionate woman who clearly passed on those traits to her daughter She taught Rachel how to identify local plants and recognize the call of local songbirds As a child, Rachel was also an avid reader, particularly of books that related to the natural world Like The Wind in the Willows and The Tale of Peter Rabbit Rachel Carson was not only an avid reader as a child but also an avid writer from a very young age She wrote several short stories featuring animal characters One of which was published in a children's magazine when she was just 10 years old Later in life, she was quoted saying, "I can remember no time, even an earliest childhood when I didn't assume that I was going to be a writer" In 1925, at the age of 18, Rachel followed that passion for writing to Pennsylvania College for Women to Study English During this time, she stayed exceptionally close with her mother Maria To pay for Rachel's tuition, Maria sold apples and chickens for their farm and even some of their family China She would also visit Rachel at the college every weekend to type out her handwritten papers During Rachel's junior year, she took a required biology course with a professor who was named Mary Scott Skinner Rachel was so captivated by both the material and professor Skinner's passion for it that she decided to switch her major from English to biology Though she never let go of her love of writing Professor Skinner is credited with being Rachel Carson's earliest and most important scientific mentor After graduating in 1929, Rachel went with Professor Skinner to the Marine Biology Laboratories at Woods Hole in Falmouth, Massachusetts to conduct a summer research project And this summer was hugely influential on Rachel's life because it was the first time that she ever saw the ocean and she felt madly in love with it While her later work on pesticides became her greatest legacy, the vast majority of Rachel's scientific and literary career actually focused on the sea She went on to get her master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University before pursuing a PhD Unfortunately, it was during the Great Depression and because she was working to sport her family at the time she eventually had to drop out of school to accept a better paying job She never completed her PhD but at the time, especially in those years, to get a master's as a woman was very rare The better paying job that Rachel landed was with the US Bureau of Fisheries, which five years later merged with the Bureau of Biologics Survey to become what we know today as the US Fish and Wildlife Service At the Bureau of Fisheries, Rachel was able to combine her scientific expertise with her talent for writing in the public education department There, she wrote educational brochures and radio programs to communicate scientific information to the general public After just one year on the job, she was promoted to editor-in-chief for all publications And at this point, she was just 29 years old She's done a lot Yeah, she's taking care of her family, which was something she was supporting at the time she was the only one working in her family She's got her bachelor's, her master's, she's working for this incredible program, she's following her dreams, it's just, it's, uh, she's done a lot at 29 years old The amount of stuff you can do without TikTok, you know, I know Before scrolling, we were so productive Imagine all that time Yeah, all that time wasted One day we'll get rid of it I've re-downloaded it when I was in Argentina and I still have not gotten on it It's just like not a thing, I never really got into it I'm not on into it either Yeah I do doom scroll on Reels on Instagram though Same, which is the same thing It's like one's enough, I don't need more than that We have a TikTok Yeah Do we use it? We use it occasionally, I'm not posting it I don't even know why we're vlogging I think we should be using it for this Yeah, we'll post the Sons TikTok for sure Maybe You'll have to go tell us If it's there, we'll tell us if it's there, yeah Well, anyways, she's doing all this stuff because she doesn't have TikTok Right And this was also around 29 years old It was also the time that Rachel Carson's writing career really started to take off She wrote an 11-page essay Like most of her work was about life under the ocean Her boss at the Bureau of Fisheries told her that it was, quote, "too good for a government brochure" And suggested that instead she sent it to the Atlantic magazine Which Rachel took that advice and the essay was published And at the Atlantic under the title "Under the Sea" in 1937 Rachel wrote her first book "Under the Sea Wind" and published it in 1941 Unfortunately, just a few weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor It was once she published it and likely due to that bad timing the book did not sell well From there, Rachel continued working for the Fish and Wildlife Service in writing freelance articles Most of her work continued to be about the ocean But in 1945, after the end of World War II There's an interesting moment of foreshadowing in her story Rachel Carson actually picked up an article Rachel Carson actually pitched an article to readers digest about the harmful effects of DDT Which is exactly what Silent Spring is about Chemical companies had originally sold DDT to the military To stop the spread of Typhus among soldiers by killing Lice When the war ended, those chemical companies began selling DDT to civilians to use in farms and gardens In her letter to readers digest, proposing the article Rachel wrote that she wanted to investigate "whether it may upset the whole delicate balance of nature if unwisely used" Again, this is 15 years before she would start writing Silent Spring And before all these concerns were brought to her attention via other people But readers digest rejected her proposal And there was really nothing she could do from there So she went back to her writings about the ocean Yeah, they were like, "Haven't you seen the commercials?" It's fine, it's safe to use everywhere They used it in the war It's like, "I don't need to hear your opinion on it, we don't even have to investigate" Yeah, and at this time too, it wasn't, she wasn't even saying DDT is bad She was saying, "Hey, shouldn't we just make sure it's not bad? Shouldn't we check?" Let's do a temperature check here and see if spraying, if snorting chemicals is legit or not I mean, I know people like to snort chemicals in other ways Which also is not good Arguably maybe safer way Because DDT was not something you should be snorting But yeah And for the record was not advertised that way But I said safe to use anywhere That's true I did not see any advertisements of people snorting Starting lines Yeah Off mirrors I don't know though because you know like in the whole age of like suit Like, what is it, soo happy or whatever When it's like, "You said it was safe anywhere so I did this" You know what I mean? It's like when they had to put a warning on tide pods It's like, "Do not eat tide pods," it's like, "Who is eating this?" Somebody did Okay, and now we have to do this And I know there's a whole story behind the whole McDonald's Lid like caution, drink his hot or something Oh really? Yeah, there's a whole thing on that Like it should be a caution on their food in general It gave someone third degree burns Because it spilled on their lap And their coffee was so scorching hot And it didn't have a warning But it's like, "You shouldn't be serving somebody Coffee that will give you third degree burns." I don't know, it's a whole thing Yeah, why was it so hot? Yeah But anyways There's a reason there's like very obvious seeming messaging And it's because people have unfortunately done it Yes Intentionally or unintentionally But anyway, okay Right, so she's basically like, "Hey, why don't we just investigate this?" But gets rejected so she goes back to other writings And she writes a second book She titles it "The Sea Around Us" And it's published in 1951 While her first book had flopped 10 years earlier "The Sea Around Us" was a huge hit It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction And broke a record by staying on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks In fact, it was so popular that Rachel's publisher decided to republish Her first book under the Sea Wind And that one also became a bestseller No, cool, so it's just really bad timing before Yeah Or maybe the second book gave her the recognition People are like, "Oh, I'll read anything she writes" Yeah, they're like, "Wow, this is beautiful. Let's try her other book" And smart on her publishers that she had all of this attention With her breakout success, she decided to resign from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1951 After 15 years to focus on her writing With some of the money coming from her book sales She was able to make one of her lifelong dreams come true Of owning a home by the seashore She purchased a small piece of waterfront land on a little island in the Booth Bay Harbor of Maine Called Southport and built a small cottage Booth Bay Harbor is north of Portland, Maine, and a popular tourist destination But at the time, the area was barely developed It was there in Southport that Rachel met her lifelong best friend in the summer of 1953 Her name was Dorothy Freeman and she would later be a huge support to Rachel while she wrote Silent Spring While Dorothy was married with a son, many have speculated that her and Rachel were more than just friends From that summer until Rachel's death, the two women maintained an intimate correspondence With over 900 letters to each other Rachel kept her favorite letters from Dorothy under her pillow And they would often write to each other two letters at a time One to be shared with family and the other totally private to be burned after reading The letters that remained were later published by Dorothy's granddaughter in 1995 And in them, the two women write poetically about how much they left each other And I read a couple excerpts, I didn't add them in here But I read a couple just excerpts online of it And it's really kind, like some of the stuff was just really, I wouldn't even, not even just a lover standpoint But just as a friend standpoint, the things that they would say to each other was just like "My life is so much better because you're here, it's so great to have someone in my life that sees me for who I am" And it was just so kind and beautiful that I totally understand why it was published as a book And many have speculated sense that there was a lot more to that Because they had this lifelong friendship, this continued throughout their entire lives During Rachel Summer in Southport, she was inspired to write another best-selling book The Edge of the Sea, which she published in 1955 Before moving back to Silver Spring, Maryland in 1957 to care for her mother Who had been struggling with her health And this brings us back to where we started Because it's here that Rachel received the impassioned letter from Olga Huckens About DDT pesticides killing songbirds in January 1958 As I mentioned, the topic of how DDT impacts wildlife had already been on Rachel's radar Nearly 15 years prior, when the pesticides first started being sold to civilians after World War II Now DDT was so widespread that it was literally being sprayed out of airplanes Across millions of acres of land And this is where people are starting to get really concerned And I've spoken a lot about DDT during this episode already But I want to explain a little bit about exactly what DDT is and how it was used DDT stands for Dichloral-Dyphenol-Trietholane Developed in 1939, it was one of humanity's first synthetic insecticides DDT became very useful for American troops during World War II Because as I mentioned earlier, it was used to kill lice among soldiers in Europe Which helped to stop the spread of typhus It was also used in South Pacific islands to kill mosquitoes and other insects that carried malaria Part of what made it so special is that it killed hundreds of different kinds of insects at once It was viewed as this miracle chemical In fact, it was so effective that the inventor, a Swiss chemist named Paul Herman Mueller, won a noble prize for it And when you think about it, when you're advertising something and you actually have something that kills mosquitoes That are carrying malaria and malaria is killing thousands of people It actually does feel like this miracle drug, a miracle chemical at the time But then in hindsight, when you learn more about it, it's like what? I can very sacrifice it Yeah, very easily see the shiny bits of that initially You know, like who wouldn't want that benefit Yeah, especially when it's your family members and things like that Who are you getting malaria and when you live somewhere where there are so many mosquitoes and it's hard to avoid I mean, we've been to countries with malaria and we're taking anti-malarials and we're covering ourselves And bug nets, but a lot of people don't have access to that And if somebody who contracted dengue fever, I can say You know how bad it is to get an illness from mosquito-borne illness Yeah Yeah, it's not great Don't recommend So people were obviously very excited for it However, the story of DDT took a dark turn from there as its usage became way more widespread after the end of the war in 1945 For one, a lot of insects like mosquitoes began developing a resistance to DDT So it became way less effective than an actual pesticide But of course, there are bigger environmental problems with the widespread of DDT One is that not all insects are bad In fact, some are vitally important to ecosystems And two, we discovered that DDT is toxic to a lot more than just insects These problems were exacerbated by the fact that DDT persists in the environment for a long time It also persists in individual animals for a long time and moves through the food chain Because it accumulates in fatty tissues And if that weren't bad enough, when you spray DDT in one area, it can travel a really far distance through the atmosphere All of this means that the impact of spraying DDT is really long lasting and it's very hard to contain And I'll get into it a little bit more later, but they found that DDT actually, you can't just wash it out of the environment It actually stays for and is still impacting wildlife today from something that was sprayed, I mean, 50 years ago Most infamously, DDT caused the population of bald eagles and other birds of prey in the US to plummet in the mid-20th century And this is because exposure to DDT caused their eggshells to thin But this link wasn't recognized by many mainstream scientists at the time Rachel Carson was among a handful of observers who had concerns about the environmental impact of DDT on her radar Way back in 1945, by 1958 The impacts were undeniable to birdwatchers like Olga Huckins and other members of the committee against mass poisoning In addition to writing to Rachel, they wrote letters to newspapers across the Northeast and filed a lawsuit in New York City But even then, the view that spraying DDT was good for humanity was so entrenched in the mainstream It was considered this miracle chemical, it was a sign of progress that man was finally conquering nature and could handle Whatever these diseases were and all these insects and they had a control of it And Rachel, once again, after this letter that she gets, she tries pitching to other magazines about writing an article that DDT is bad and the potential effects of it But despite all of her success and her being this very famous author who's won a lot of prizes and best-selling and all of that Articles said no, magazines said no, we're not publishing that, we're not interested Is that because of just kind of like the behemoth of the production comp, whoever's producing DDT? You know, like a lot of people are, you know, publications or whatever No matter what it is, are really hesitant to go up against like to publish anything that's voicing Like any sort of whistle-blowing or wasting any sort of concern against like big pharma or anything like that Is that kind of why or for sure? Okay, that was definitely part of it I think a lot of them didn't want to get in the bad graces of these big chemical companies That were supposedly had made this miracle chemical that people really were relying on And they were making millions of dollars off of But also I think that there was a sad part to it where people didn't believe it, right? They thought why would we, we're not going to publish something that's so preposterous That's crazy, this is this great, what you're saying has no substance behind it, we're not Because it was kind of like the first of the kind, like again, I'm going back to my environmental science courses And a big thing that a big unit that we did was on Roundup and the Koch Brothers And how like awful that whole thing is and just how detrimental the whole Roundup thing is And a lot even then, you know, this is after this point in time There has been case studies of how harmful different insecticides and pesticides and herbicides Has on the environment and as a byproduct people and wildlife Like that was already known, but now what you're saying is That this is like really the kind of a pioneer in that world as far as like Yeah, there were these small groups that were coming together and we're voice it Like I said, this this one group they filed a lawsuit with New York City People were starting to advocate for it, but it was still very much under the radar They were making millions of dollars off of this And no one really at this point was willing to stick their neck out, I'm sure Yeah, to stick their neck out, it was a huge risk and even I'll get into it a little bit, but people didn't want to work with Rachel because of it People didn't believe her, yeah People were like, this is this is a crazy idea, we're not on your side here Or even if it's not crazy and you might have legit concerns that are founded I don't want to be associated with you when they come after you Right, that was it too is because they knew that she was going to get a lot of backlash If she tried to go forward with this So after Rachel gets denied all of these articles that she's trying to put out She's trying to put out the word she just says, you know what? If no one's going to publish my work, I'm going to do it myself And she decides to start her next book And that would be Silent Spring and she took four years to write it She used the years in 1958 to 1962 to do all of her research and to really compile what she wanted to say Because she knew from the get-go that it would be very controversial As she developed the book, she reached out to several other prominent authors and scientists to contribute And a number of them declined because they were afraid to be associated with controversy Her best friend Dorothy Freeman feared that the powerful chemical companies who profited Massively from these sales would attack Rachel for this work And Rachel knew that that was likely, but she didn't back down She wrote in a letter to Dorothy saying, knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent In anticipation for those attacks, Rachel not only did years of meticulous research She opted to include 55 pages of notes in the back of her book, citing all of her resources She also consulted a wide network of scientific experts throughout the writing process Many of whom reviewed the manuscript and confirmed the accuracy of her claims But despite being as rigorous and informally dense as a piece of academic literature The book was written like a story It was written in plain English in a way that anyone could understand you didn't have to have some degree And some scientific degree to understand what she was trying to convey That's really cool because especially coming from a degree that And I'm sure you have had a very similar experience with your psychology degree Like the amount of scientific journals and different articles and publications and studies that we had to read For different projects and research and things like that From like academia was I understand like important and the message was really critical to know And it was great that it was published like that But for the average person like you're not going to catch the attention of the general public like that I read, yeah It's very dry, it's hard to follow It's very usually numbers, dents, statistics, dents, and like your eyes glaze over a type of thing Even if it's really important stuff, so to have this approach is so smart Yeah, because you're conveying the same information You're just doing it in a way that more people can understand and apply to their own life Right, and she's working with scientists, she knows the scientific community that she's speaking to understands what she's saying But now how does she get this out to the public in a way that they're going to They're going to second guess what they've been hearing and they're going to Look at these advertisements where it's spraying children and they're going to think twice and say, wait a second And it's an inaccessible format Like yes, not everyone has a subscription to wherever you know the journal of Yeah, scientific journal, let alone wants to read something like that Sorry for everyone who like, you know, spends a decade of their life They are interested I mean, they are interesting and I think like in the scientific community and things like that It is important to have as it's place But if I'm going to sit down leisurely and read something that I'm interested I'm not going to pick up a scientific journal and read the data charts that they supply in it, you know, it's different and she She knew that she needed to make it more exciting to read Shortly after Rachel started writing the book, her mother Maria suffered a stroke And a few months later in December 1958, Maria passed away at the age of 89 Rachel was grieving and then in April of 1960, Rachel started having serious health problems of her own She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy of her left breast Unfortunately, the operation was too late, the cancer had already started to spread By November of 1960, Rachel discovered lumps on her ribs and began undergoing radiation therapy The progression of the cancer was rapid and it was ruthless She underwent more surgeries and more treatments but nothing stopped the cancer from spreading And other illnesses followed, the flu, staff infections, rheumatoid arthritis, and eye infections By early 1961, Rachel was using wheelchair on and off In her letters with Dorothy Freeman, she wrote that she was afraid she might die before she finished her book But despite how terrible the cancer was, Rachel was determined to keep it a secret Dorothy was one of the only people who knew about it Not even Rachel's editor was clued in on what she was doing This was partly because Rachel wanted to maintain some privacy But also, again, an anticipation of backlash from big chemical companies She didn't want them to dismiss her as having written the book for personal revenge As if she was blaming the pesticides for giving her cancer Which wasn't the point at all, although as I mentioned earlier, DDT is now classified as a human carcinogen in the US government Rachel did manage to finish the book in early 1962 The title Silent Spring was originally the title of just one chapter in which she examined how DDT was killing birds Oh my god, I just got it, Silent Spring Yeah, Silent Spring For some reason, my mind was going to like a spring of water Oh no, I kind of wanted to Oh, and you're in the, in my intro where? In Silent Spring Congrats Well, in that chapter, she wrote, "Over increasingly large areas of the United States Spring now comes unheardled by the return of the birds And the early mornings are strangely silent Where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song Her editor, after reading it, suggested making Silent Spring the title of her whole book, which she agreed with Silent Spring was slated to be published first as a series of three excerpts in the New York magazine That June 1962 And then as a standalone book that September Leading up to publication, Rachel and her editors took additional steps to prepare for the blowback from chemical companies Their strategy was to develop relationships with the people in charge And they went all the way to the most influential people in the entire country Rachel attended the May 1962 White House Conference on Conservation Organized by President John F. Kennedy himself President Kennedy was known to be an environmentalist And Rachel wanted him specifically to be her ally Kennedy's unofficial advisor when it came to matters of conservation was a supreme court justice named William O. Douglas who had been delivered a pre-print copy of Silent Spring by Rachel's editors shortly before the White House Conference During the event, Rachel went out of her way to speak with the Secretary of Interior, Stuart Udall and the Director of the Sierra Club, David Brower Two days later, on May 27, 1962, Rachel met with a close advisor to the Interior Secretary to strategize about how she and the Kennedy administration could work together to maximize the impact of her book And it was official. She finally had the most powerful people in the entire country on her side, Silent Spring President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy were among some of the first readers of Silent Spring When the book was released in September, it was an instant bestseller And as I mentioned before, a couple excerpts were planned to be published in The New Yorker which were and that created this huge craze over people wanting to read it The book was dark and captivating with chapter titles that included "Alexors of Death" "Rivers of Death" and "The Human Price" Sighting extensive research, Rachel showed clearly how DDT was not only killing insects and birds but also entering the food chain and accumulating in the bodies of human beings causing cancer and genetic damage She wrote, quote, "A who's who of pesticides is therefore a concern to us all? If we're going to live so intimately with these chemicals, eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones, we had better know something about their nature and their power." Notably, Rachel didn't call for an outright ban on all pesticides or even on DDT specifically what she called for was restraint, transparency, and science-based decision-making but she made a compelling case that DDT in particular was being misused on a dangerous scale and that its consequences for ecosystems, wildlife, and human health were far more serious than the industry wanted to admit and one quote from her book that really stuck with me and with a lot of her readers at the time was quote, "For the first time in history of the world, every human is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death." An unfortunate reality. Yeah, and that still is very present today. If not more. If not more, you would argue more. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you can dive into that in so many ways, but it's very concerning what. And also, it's probably and why there's so much disease and everything's going up and there's much more high cancer rates. I mean, as someone who has kidney disease, see a lot of people with kidney diseases, it's staggering, I think it's, yeah, it's like one in seven people. Yeah, I was joke, like if you're in a room with me, you're lucky, you're safe. But are you? But are you? It's getting worse, yeah, it's getting worse. I don't know, I read the other day that there was this new study that was just released regarding microplastics in particular, not. Is it with Alzheimer's? No, well, the part that I was going to talk about, or just give you a little fact about, is that after doing dissection of a bunch of different cadavers and things like that, the average person has two caps, like two caps worth of plastic in their brains. Like two bottle caps in their brains, yeah. I saw something about that and I was talking about how Alzheimer's is being linked to the microplastics that are being held in your brain because your body can't get rid of them. And then I, after seeing that, I really started noticing how much stuff is in plastic at grocery stores. Specifically, I go to get vegetables and I want tomatoes in their wrapped in plastic. You want a, I want a zucchini or a cucumber. It's wrapped in plastic, yeah. What is the, yeah, like why? What is the point? Don't do that. Yeah, and that's just so frustrating. It's just, it's so frustrating. Things with natural casing has shrink wrap on it. I don't know, yeah. And it's just like things you wouldn't even think of. Like obviously, you're like, oh, I should not use single use plastic water bottles because it's bad because then, you know, they, like at first, you think of the landfills and recycling and how, when you recycle something, is it really going to recycling? Because then that's all another conversation. So it's like, okay, let's use reusable water bottles or try to unless you lose them on planes every time you take a plane like you do. But your heart's in the right place, you're trying, you know? But you're not thinking of the micro-plastics that you're ingesting from that or like Tupperware, like swap it out if you can for glass. Or, you know, when you're going to get your tomatoes, you can't help that they're shrink wrapped in plastic, but you can help by not putting them in those plastic bags. Like go get a reusable netting and just bring it to the grocery store. Yeah, Vermont doesn't even have plastic bags anymore. Yeah, they're being slowly faced out, I feel like in a lot of states, but I don't know. Yeah, it's just, it's like, okay, great. You don't have plastic bags, but everything is still plastic. Yeah, I saw this really, it was this locally made rice and it was in this really, it was in this pouch at the grocery store. And I was like, this is really cute and it's not in plastic. It was like in this hand woven pouch and I picked it up to look at it. And the inside, the rice is in plastic. It was just the outside, the pouch. Oh, it's like lined. It's like, yeah. No, like that actual rice was in a plastic container and then the pouch covered the plastic. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, it's like, what are we doing? Why? I've been using, um, um, instead of plastic wrap, I use beeswax wrap. Oh, I've seen that. I have some of that too. And it kind of smells a little weird, but it's fine. It's better though. It is better. No microplastics. I'm like, okay, it's not as easy, but it's worth it. I guess. Oh yeah. Oh, safer brain. I'd worst screw it on my plastics. Yeah, our generation. I think that our generation and like the ones younger than us are going to really see repercussions for these as we get older because a lot of these single-use plastics are a lot newer to our generations and our parents' generations haven't had to live through as long of plastic uses we have. So I think that we're going to really end screen time. I think years and years of screen time it's really going to because cell phones are relatively new in our lifetime. So I think also though it's good that we're doing a lot of self-correcting or self-realization of like, yes, we're enduring these problems and yes, they're as bad as they have ever been. But there's also recognition of that. Yeah, and I think that we're also in this phase of life where a lot of people are a lot more health conscious and people know that exercising is important. People know that smoking cigarettes is really bad for you. People know that, of course, another. So the vaping that's going on, which is also coming out, it's very bad for you as well. But I think that we are a lot more conscious about what is healthy and what is not. Vaping has always blown my mind. When people are like, it's not as bad. I'm like, you are inhaling something into your lungs that isn't natural air and oxygen. And it's like the flavors and stuff. Like just because it doesn't smell bad. I don't know. That actually feels worse to me. What is that flavor made out of that you're putting in your lungs? I don't know. I don't really get it. I mean, maybe if you have them side by side, would you rather vape or rip a cigarette? And I feel like I would have to say vape. If I was forced to cigarette over vape any day. Would you? I've never vaped before. And I have had a cigarette before. So I feel like a vape would be more pleasant, no? I do, I don't know. I feel like something about the vapor getting into your lungs. Have you seen what cigarettes do to your lungs, though? It's just one, though, right? We're just picking one. Oh, like one. We're vaping once or we're smoking one cigarette. Yeah, yes. Okay, yeah, yeah. Wait, is it one puff of a vape than I choose a vape? But if I have to like fully vape for a day or smoke a cigarette, I would pick a cigarette. Well, cigarette's going to last, not this long. Yeah, I can also fake smoke cigarette. No, there's no faking. You just put the smoke in your mouth. In the scenario. No little rings. Is that it doesn't actually get to your lungs? That would happen when you smoke to cigarette that one time. Did you inhale? Yeah, I've definitely inhaled before. And I thought so gross story and it's not cool. But I thought I was cool because I bought, when I was like 18, I bought camel number 9s and they come in a pink cigarette case. And that's why I thought they were cool. So I would have them, but I didn't actually like smoking. So I only did it in front of like my friends who smoked. And then I, I did inhale sometimes, but for the most part, I just practiced trying to blow circle rings. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then I never like, it was very short lived and it was really gross. And I had them in my purse and then my purse smelled really bad. And so it was a very short lived experience. But the packaging man, I thought pink was cute. Here we are with the advertisements. It's all. Yeah, it was the advertisement. Thank God, me. And I had a cute little camel on it. Yeah. They got you. It was messed up. Yeah. And then there was just a really, really tiny cancer warning. But I'm like, 18. Yeah, in other countries, you know how it's like, the whole carton is a cancer warning. And it shows somebody with a no teeth and just a cancerous full of cancer. And we're in Argentina. Totally different. But when we were in Argentina, we would buy candy. And there would be these big labels on it. That's an excess sugar, excess calorie, excess, whatever. And it was on M&Ms. Yeah, it's like you sure want to do this? Not on US M&Ms. Yeah. There was literally so many signs that are like, are you sure, are you sure, are you sure? And I was like, I am actually very sure. I hate this, actually, thank you. Yeah, I don't know. I've never been a cigarette. Like, I've never been tempted ever. And I. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? I had a puff of one of my dads once when he wasn't looking. And so my dad was an avid smoker. Like, I'm talking multiple packs a day. And that's ultimately what killed him. So I think. Which is really common in our parents' association, specifically. So I'm pretty sure that's why I was immediately like, I'm good. Not because he died. But even leading up to that, like I saw him doing it. Yeah, and just like, he was just so like, he couldn't take a deep breath. He was always hacking shit up out of his chest. Everything's about like, when I would go to his house and then come back, because I shuffled between my parents' house growing. House is growing up. Like, all of my things, I would have to just, like, throw immediately into the wash, because everything smelled like cigarette smoke. Like, I just saw the things that I did not want to do. And so it's so funny, my mom will remember this. Sorry, we're going on so many tangents today. But one time I came back, I had gone my license. So I was starting to drive myself down to my dads instead of being like, shuffled and dropped off. And I drove my, I had a pathfinder, it was one of my first cars. And he would drive it around when I was down there. And I came back and my mom was looking for something in my car or some, I don't know, something. But he had taken, so you know, the clear plastic, the plastic, the plastic, not the plastic. That's all around a carton of cigarettes. Yeah. So he had taken that off and put the butts in that plastic and put it under the driver's seat and forgotten about it. And I didn't know it was there. And whatever. So when my mom, as she found it, and she like ripped me a new ass. I'm like, okay, first of all, hello, that's fresh. Me? But like, I was in high school, you know, it looks like that. You were at the of the age. Yeah, it looks like I was sneaking it, you know, like whatever. I'm like, I see why. Okay, first of all, relax. Take it down. That was just the dad. You know, your ex has been who is a avid smoker. Okay. And she was like, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I'm like, okay, yes, thank you. But anyway, yeah, what were you doing? Plastic or cigarettes or vaping or Rachel Carson? Rachel Carson, all of the above, I think. Okay, I'm still taking the vape is my final answer. For a day, I think it's for a day. If you were to smoke for a day, would you smoke cigarettes or vape? So many people are like, I do that. I don't know. It's not that big of a deal. It's just my lungs are so sensitive. I feel like a vape, like a juicy berry. I hate the smell of it to be honest. More than a cigarette. I've been in cars with people who vape and they keep the windows up because they think that because it smells good, that it's good. But I instantly start coughing. Like as soon as my, I literally can't handle it. So I don't know. Cigarette smoke makes me sneeze. Me too. Isn't that strange? It's gonna allergic. I don't think so. Yeah, I'm allergic. I can't. Okay, well, if you're gonna smoke cigarettes for a day, we can't be together because. Well, if you're gonna smoke, if you're gonna vape for a day, we also can. Okay, anyway, that's because. Anyway, if you smoke cigarettes. Don't. Please stop. It's really bad for you and don't do it. We care about you. And vaping. Also don't do that. No. And when people they do it, they like take it out and they're like, they look like crazy. I know, and you're inside. You're inside. You look crazy. Yeah, you're like pulling it out of your. You're hiding your. And then you like blow up half a smoke away. Like no one's gonna see it. Or smell a fucking. Or smell it. We know. We know. Just don't do it. It's just too bad. It's so bad for you. It's so embarrassing. You should be shamed because we want you to stop. Because we care about you. We're shaming you. And we want you to be able to do outward ventures. You're not going to be able to hike or do anything if you're doing that stuff. So. God the sh*t. Yeah, cut it out. I feel like moms were momming people. I know. Okay. Anyway, we talked. Anyway, what is happening? We're going back. So she publishes Silent Spring. And she's not calling for a ban on it. She's just asking that we really recognize and start regulating it better. And as expected, she publishes it. It's a big hit. But there's a huge backlash from the chemical industry. They tried and failed to sue Rachel, her book publisher and the New Yorker magazine who published the excerpts of the book. Then they spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on attack ads and supposedly informational pamphlets in order to discredit Rachel's work in the public eye. An executive from the American Cinnamon Company said. American Cinnamon. It's Cinnamon? Cinnamon. Okay, I'm not Cinnamon. Not Cinnamon. It's come out. Not Cinnamon. It's nothing. But they said. Quote, "If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Ms. Carson, we would return to the dark ages and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." Okay, drama king. Trauma king for sure. Would once again inherit the earth. The dark ages. Isn't the dark ages of the 1400s? Yeah, when people are being like executed publicly. Yeah, and it's like. Okay, that's dramatic. But it's like, it's a mischievous life. An agro company called Monsanto distributed 5,000 copies of this pamphlet and a pamphlet parody of Silent Springs, which depicted a world where famine, disease, and insects were widespread because chemical pesticides had been banned. Rachel Carson had prepared for these kind of attacks on her work, but the chemical companies also attacked her personally in a really vicious and gendered way. At a meeting of the Federal Pest Control Review Board, a man named Ezra Tap Benson, who had been the Secretary of Agriculture under President Dwight Eisenhower, mocked Rachel for being childless, saying, quote, "I thought she was a spinster, "what she so worried about genetics for." The rest of the room laughed in response. And in Time Magazine, a review of Silent Springs described Rachel Carson as being, quote, "historically over-emphatic" and called her argument a, quote, "emotional and inaccurate outburst." Though notably, it didn't call out any specific inaccuracies. An industry magazine called Farm Chemicals, depicted Rachel as a witch on a broomstick in a cover illustration as well. Those are such, she's being called a witch. She's over-exaggerated. A witch, a spinster, she's having outbursts. Like, it's just such a tired and pathetic and baseless. It's like an empty insult. It's like, okay, that has nothing to do with my work. You're not, you're attacking, you're trying to attack me as a person. Let's focus on the work. Oh, there's nothing that you can discredit here. Okay, that's what I saw. So you're just going to call me names. Yeah, it's like, it's a very elementary type of. Yeah. That's an outburst. Yeah, and when I was looking into Rachel too, I will say, she publicly said, she said something along the lines, and this is an exact, but she said something along the lines of, "I'm not a feminist. I don't care where this work is coming from. If it's a guy or a girl, male or female, it doesn't matter that these are facts." Right. And that was in response to these really gendered things that were coming out to her. It doesn't matter that I'm a woman. These are facts. But these attacks were rivaled by a groundswell of support. Many readers, including many outdoorsy men, wrote into the New Yorker, saying that they had witnessed the dead birds and dead rivers that Carson was describing firsthand. While some scientists at the time were definitely in the pockets of big chemical companies at the time, many other prominent scientists defended Rachel. And her work to make alliances with the government ahead of publication really paid off. At a press conference in August 1962, President Kennedy was asked whether government scientists were going to do more to investigate the impacts of DDT. He responded by saying, "Yes, I know that they already are. I think particularly, of course, since Miss Carson's book." Silent Spring ignited a national conversation, not only about the use of DDT pesticides, but more broadly about the relationship between human industry and the environment. One particularly interesting historical document that captures the two sides of this national conversation is an hour-long CBS special feature. It cuts together footage of Rachel Carson with footage of spokesman from the pesticide industry, effectively putting the two in conversation even though they were filmed separately. Rachel also reads excerpts from Silent Spring. It was her only TV appearance after the publication of the book. And there are some striking gender dynamics at play. Rachel was filmed sitting on the porch of her cottage in Maine wearing a skirt and cardigan while the industry spokesman were shown in a lab surrounded by scientific equipment wearing white coats and dark rim glasses. It was clearly meant to make the men look more official and smart. But in practice, Rachel's calm, thoughtful delivery came across as far more credible than the defensive, even combative tomes of the critics. Another striking detail about the CBS report is that Rachel appears wearing a wig and remains seated throughout. By that point, her cancer had advanced significantly. It had spread to her spine, making it difficult for her to stand, and she had lost her hair from radiation treatments. She was just 55, but she looked and felt like she was much older. The CBS special aired on April 3rd, 1963. It reached an estimated 10 to 15 million viewers and marked a pivotal moment when public opinion really began to shift in Rachel's favor. In the following month in May 1963, she testified before the Senate Committee of Commerce despite her continually worsening illness. She called for common sense regulations on pesticide use, such as requiring manufacturers to include warnings about environmental harm on product labels, which is not crazy to ask. Rachel was physically frail, but her testimony was powerful and unwavering. She knew that she didn't have much time left, and she also understood that silence spring would define her legacy. In fact, in letters to Dorothy Freeman, she confessed a little sadness that her lifetime of writings about the ocean would be forgotten. She also lamented that she herself would never see the ocean again. A trip to Maine was no longer possible in her condition. Almost exactly a year later, on April 14th, 1964, the breast cancer finally took Rachel's life. At that point, more than a million copies of silence spring had been sold. Wait a second. But it's April 14th right now. Oh my god, it is April 14th right now when we're recording this. Yeah. Wow. Synchronicities. No. Synchronicities. Okay, sorry to interrupt. You're talking about you. No, that's a really interesting coincidence. Yeah. I hope you're listening, Rachel. So at that point, more than a million copies of silence spring had been sold. She died at the age of 56 in her house in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is now a national historic landmark. Dorothy Freeman brought Rachel's ashes to Southport. Island in Maine and scatter them into the sea, letting her become one with the shoreline she had studied and written about so beautifully. Two years later, in 1966, Rachel's connection to the shoreland was further immortalized when the state of Maine established the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge along 50 miles of coastline between the towns of Kittery and Cape Elizabeth. Yeah, I knew. I knew it that I'm, Kittery is not even 25 minutes from me. So close, you can visit. This refuge is 5,600 acres and consists of salt marshes and estuaries that are vitally important for migratory birds. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service website, it contains, quote, "A composition of plants and animals not found elsewhere in Maine." Many of those animals are endangered or at risk, such as the eastern small-footed bats and piping plovers. The wildlife refuge also contains hiking trails. There are around 300,000 people who visit every year. And this is a beautiful and fitting tribute to a woman who dedicated her life to protecting the fragile coastal ecosystems, just like this one. Rachel Carson is also honored with a memorial statue at the original location that sparked her lifelong love of the ocean, the Woods Hole Laboratories in Massachusetts. The statue shows Rachel looking out over the ocean with a smile on her face. Long after her death in 1980, President Jimmy Carter awarded Rachel Carson the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor. Rachel Carson's fight against DDT ultimately led to real change. In response to Silent Spring, President Kennedy tasked his scientific advisory committee with investigating her claims and their findings supported her conclusions. In 1972, a decade after the book was published, the U.S. government banned the production of DDT and its use in agriculture. The U.K. and several other countries would follow suit over the next few years. In the years since then, populations of bald eagles and other brids of prey in the U.S. have slowly recovered. But the story doesn't end there. One of Rachel's major warnings was about how persistent DDT is in the environment. And she was right. Decades after it was last sprayed, DDT still lingers in ecosystems. The chemicals have washed from soils into rivers and streams, where they continue to impact marine life. In Sarasota Bay, Florida, for example, about 70% of first-born dolphin calves die within the first year. And scientists believe one major factor is the transfer of fat soluble pollutants like DDT through their mother's milk. If this is the damage we're still seeing more than 50 years after the ban, you can just imagine what would have happened if Rachel had not stepped in. Rachel's influence on environmental policy extended far beyond the banning of DDT. Silent Spring helped launch the modern environmental movement as a whole, introducing into the mainstream the idea that industrial activity should be regulated, not just to protect nature, but to safeguard human health. The books sparked a wave of landmark conservation laws, including the Clean Air Act of 1963, the Wilderness Act in 1964, the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, the Clean Water Act in 1972, and the Endangered Species Act in 1973. It also directly inspired the founding of major environmental organizations, like Greenpeace and Friends of Earth, and contributed to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Not bad for a childless spinster. Spinster? Yeah, not bad. For which? Never thought the term which is bad thing. The birth of environmentalism and founding of the EPA in 1970 also brings us back to the very first Earth Day celebration, which took place that same year. As I mentioned at the very beginning of the episode, Earth Day was created in the spirit of the movement that Rachel Carson helped ignite by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and activist Dennis Hayes. The idea came to Senator Nelson after he witnessed a destructive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in January of 1969. His original concept was to organize teachings about environmentalism on college campuses, hoping to tap into the energy of the anti-war student movements spreading across the country at the time. Senator Nelson's co-chair was a Republican Congressman named Pete McClausky. Together with activist Dennis Hayes, they picked April 22nd as the date for the event, if fell between spring break and final exams, making it ideal for student turnout. They assembled an 85-person organizing team across the country, and the vision quickly expanded beyond college campuses. The name Earth Day caught media attention. By the time April 22nd, 1970 rolled around, the event had grown into something much bigger than anyone had anticipated. That day, an estimated 20 million people, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, took to the streets and rallies and demonstrations nationwide, in what continues to be, to this day, the world's largest day of protest. According to the official Earth Day website, more than 1 billion people around the world now take part in Earth Day celebrations each year. Starting in 1971, each Earth Day has featured a designated global theme, like a short slogan that captures the spirit of the movement. In 1990, it was think globally, act locally. In 2020, it was simply climate action. This year, the Earth Day theme is our power, our planet, a call for collective action around renewable energy. One of the most notable Earth Day celebrations each year takes place in Tokyo, where more than 100,000 visitors gather for a festival, which features eco-friendly food, art, and music. In London, the annual celebration is called Earthfest. It spans multiple days and includes inspiring talks, live music, eco-fashion, green kitchen workshops, and more. There is also an annual Earth Day celebration at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Last year, this included a volunteer effort to pick up storm wash trash from the marshes. Today, as the climate crisis accelerates and resistance to those fighting it grows louder, Rachel Carson's message feels more urgent than ever. She taught us that all life is interconnected. More than 60 years after her death, she's still inspiring people to connect with nature and confront the damage we've done. One line in particular from Silent Spring stays with me. Not just as a morning, but as a call to action and a source of hope. The Earth's vegetation is part of a web of life, in which there are intimate and essential relations between plants in the Earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals. Sometimes we have no choice but to disturb these relationships, but we should do so thoughtfully with full awareness that what we do may have consequences, remote, and time and place. And that is my story of Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the history surrounding Earth Day. Wow. I loved it. I'm not saying that I'm going to be at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge on April 22, but I might be. It's so close to you. I want to release. Yeah. Yeah. Do we have anything really? It would be really. I know I was just that I was going to pick up trash on the road. Oh, and we have our live stream that night. How would we find? You can tell us on our live stream on Patreon. Like about a few. Oh, yeah, on Patreon, we're doing-- we pick a different theme every month for our live stream. And this month, we're doing good Earth news because we're kind of inundated with some not-so-great news all the time. So we decided to celebrate positive developments around the world that have to do with the planet. Wildlife and things like that. So we're going to kind of hone in on that that night. But yeah, maybe I'll go, I don't know. We'll see. I don't want to say that. And then everyone would be like, she wasn't there. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. But cool. I really enjoyed that story. And I've seen her name around, especially just growing up in New England and between, you know, Maine and Woods Hole and just like her, the imprint she left around here. Like we've grown up kind of seeing her name around. But I just didn't know the entirety of her story before. So that was a really cool one. Thank you. Yeah, she just felt so fitting for Earth Day and just going back into DDT and what was really being perpetuated to people. I thought it was just really important, especially when we look at Earth Day. And I think even today, there's a lot of stuff going on, of course, in the environment that we can look at, even if it's being advertised and being like, hey, that's not-- Let's question this a little bit. Let's question that a little more. I mean, small things I think of right off the bat are where people are leaf-blowing their yards first thing in the spring. When we know that there are tons of bees that are laying dormant underneath these leaves, and you are killing them, and you're ruining the pollinators as soon as-- And they don't even have a chance in the spring. So there's a movement, right? That it's like called something of kind of-- it's not totally anti-landscaping, but it's more of like give them a chance, like give-- It's trying to do more-- It's like an anti-grass movement, where people are encouraging. I don't know what it's called, but it's basically grass is detrimental to the environment and pollinators. Let wildflowers grow, plant wildflowers. Wildflowers are prettier than green grass. This perfect green lawn that looks fake is not in anymore. I think that's why I really-- I have always felt like completely, perfectly manicured lawns give me the ik, and it's not always because I was like, that's not good for pollinators. It's just always gave me a really creepy, weird, like, steppered wives type of-- Yeah, it feels artificial. It's very natural. Like artificial look to it. I don't know. It's just always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. So-- I haven't had a deep feeling towards green lawns. Like I see them, I'm like, wow, they're lawns really green. You know, like I've definitely thought that, and there's something-- I mean, when you step onto a real lawn that has been manicured in your barefoot, it does feel nice on your feet versus my lawn, which is prickers and wildflowers and wildflowers and wildflowers. But you know, like I get the hype around it for a while, but I think it's just outdated now, and we've learned that it's actually harmful. And my house has so many wildflowers, and I get so many butterflies and hummingbirds, and my house is just rimming with wildlife in the summer that I would never-- Now I would never rip that away. No, and if you have a really green lawn, just try it for a year. If you hate it, go back to what you were doing. Or just doing a little section. Yeah, or pick a section, yeah. And just put some wildflowers, see the difference of what your small corner of the world is going to look like when you allow nature to flourish and let it do it. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, we've done a lot of like soapbox things this episode, so I-- We're momming. I know, I have so much to say, but I don't-- We just love the environment. Yeah, OK, well great. Thank you so much for sharing. Next week, I also have an environment-focused episode that I've been working on. But it's a little bit more morbid. I wouldn't expect anything last. Thank you. I know, this is definitely-- I mean, nothing. It doesn't have to be morbid. It's great. It's great. But I mean, it was kind of morbid. People were telling you it's OK to spray your kids with chemicals, so-- Yeah, I was pretty sad in part. Yeah, I don't know. Mine has like a mysterious disappearance and, like, that type of morbid feel, but it does still have to do with them, because Arbor Day is also this month. OK. So I'm going to touch on that a little bit. Sweet. Well, I'm very excited to hear it. Great. All right, well, thank you, everyone, for hanging out. We would love-- oh, please tag us in your Earth Day celebrations. Yeah, we'd love to see that. Whatever that may be, whether you're picking up trash or recycling, or reading Silent Spring, or whatever you decide to do, we would love to see how you honor this day and how you partake in it. So please tag us and we'll share. Yeah. And enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, livestreams, discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]