Abstract
In the final chapter of her book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson referred to Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”1 She suggested there that human societies, through their extensive and intensive use of chemical pesticides, were following a road that, while attractive at the start, could lead to disaster. She recommended taking the other road. Frost suggested that he would have liked to travel on both roads but, being only one person; he could not do so. Frost’s traveler took “the one less traveled by.” Someone might say that, having explored one of the roads some distance, he could have returned to the other road and explored that also. Frost doubted that he ever would.
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References
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (Cambridge, The Riverside Press, 1962), 277f. Frost’s poem is contained in The Poems of Robert Frost (New York, Modern Library, 1946).
Trends in pesticide use are discussed in a number of chapters in this volume. See chapters 2, 12, and 16. Also of interest is “Controlling Toxic Chemicals” by S. Postel, in State of the World 1988, ed. Lester Brown, et al. (New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 1988), p. 118f.
R. Carson, Silent Spring, p. 12. Also see “Many Roads and Other Worlds” by G.J. Marco et al., in Silent Spring Revisited, ed. G.J. Marco et al. (Washington, D.C., American Chemical Society, 1987).
Carson suggested the objective of entomologists on the old road was “to create a chemically sterile, insect-free world,” Silent Spring, p. 12.
See “A Summary of Silent Spring” by Gino Marco in Silent Spring Revisited, ed. G.J. Marco, et al. (Washington, American Chemical Society, 1987), p. xviii.
The difficulties involved in determining undesirable health effects due to pesticide use are also discussed in chapter 5 of this volume. Also of interest in this regard are “Human Health Effects of Pesticides” by J.E. Davies and R. Doon in Silent Spring Revisited, (see footnote 8), and chapter 3 of this volume.
The Greening of colleges of agriculture is one aspect of the Greening of America. See The Greening of America by Charles A. Reich (New York, Random House, 1970).
Silent Spring, p. 9.
Silent Spring, p. 13.
Silent Spring, p. 12.
Silent Spring, p. 13.
See “The Not So Silent Spring” by J. Moore, in Silent Spring Revisited.
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© 1993 Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc.
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Lehman, H. (1993). New Directions for Pesticide Use. In: Pimentel, D., Lehman, H. (eds) The Pesticide Question. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-36973-0_1
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