Silent Spring

On Earth, the history of life and the history of organisms interact. To a large extent, the existence and lifestyle of animals and plants on the earth are formed by the influence of the environment; in contrast, in the process of forming the entire ecosystem of the earth, the impact of organisms on the environment can be said to be very subtle and at this time of this century, there is a species on the earth that has produced a great ability to drastically change the surrounding environment, and this species is human beings.

In the past 20 years, this ability has not only appeared so simple, but has developed rapidly and undergone great changes in quality. Among the destructive behaviors of people to the environment, many damages are irreparable. This kind of destructive behavior, especially the pollution of the environment, has formed a very harmful biological chain in the environment where the living things live, and most of them are irreversible.

Global environmental pollution, the pollution of chemical substances and radiation working together, has gradually changed the nature of the world, and at the same time changed the nature of life on earth. Chemical drugs are extremely harmful to the environment, and the public has not yet been able to realize their harmfulness. Strontium 90 can be released into the air with nuclear explosions, and can enter the soil directly with rainwater, or float in the air in the form of radioactive dust, and accumulate in the soil again, and then infiltrate into the grass, corn growing in the soil and wheat, and eventually enter human bones, various organs, until death.Similarly, the medicines sprayed on cultivated land, forests, and gardens will also stay in the soil for a long time, enter the organisms, and be transmitted to other organisms again, causing pollution and forming a chain of death. Perhaps some of them will spread quietly with the groundwater, and then reappear due to the magical effect of sunlight and air to form new substances, and start to kill animals, kill plants, and make the well water no longer pure, thus affecting the human beings who drink water There was no small harm. As Albert Schwyz said: "Humanity has so far been unable to recognize the demons of its own creation."

After billions of years of evolution, the earth gave birth to life, and in the following long time, life continued to evolve, evolve, and develop in multiple ways, and then gradually adapted to the environment and maintained a delicate but balanced environment. The environment contains harmful and beneficial elements, which support all life on the earth in strict accordance with certain rules. Some substances emit radiation, for example, the sun emits short-wave radiation from time to time. Over billions of years, everything has adjusted itself to a delicate balance. Time is of the essence, but in today's world, there isn't enough time to adjust.

Changes are happening rapidly, and new situations are constantly emerging. These new conditions are consistent with the impulsive and reckless pace of people, not just the rhythm of nature; these radiations are not only the radiation of natural minerals, the onslaught of cosmic rays and the ultraviolet rays of the sun, but also The electronic components and technological products created by human beings. And the chemical environment to which living things adapt includes not only calcium, sulfur, copper, silicon, and other minerals washed from rocks into the sea, but also synthetic chemicals created by humans in laboratories—those found in nature. Substance that never existed.

It may take a very long time for human beings to adapt to chemical substances. It will take not just a single lifetime, but quite possibly generations. Unless a miracle happens, generations will see little fruit. Because our laboratories continue to generate these new chemicals, nearly 500 new chemicals are put into use in the United States every year. This number is staggering, and its consequences are unpredictable. Humans and animals need to work hard to adapt to these 500 new chemical substances every year, which is completely beyond the limit of life evolution.

Many of these chemicals come from the war between man and nature. By the mid-1940s, humans had invented more than 200 basic chemical substances to kill insects, weeds, rodents, and what modern humans define as "pests"—and each chemical substance has thousands of different kinds. brand.

Insecticides are used almost all over the world today—whether they are sprayed, powdered, or gaseous. People spray these chemicals on their farms, gardens, forests, and in their own homes, and these non-selective chemicals kill every kind of insect—whether it’s beneficial or harmful—and these insecticides make birds Unable to sing, the schools of fish in the rivers cannot swim, they coat every leaf on the trees with a deadly film of insecticide, and they perpetuate these films in the soil. The reason for this retention is simply that we want to remove some weeds and kill some insects. How can anyone think that living things can survive the application of large quantities of poisons to the surface of the earth? Those chemicals should not be called "pesticides" but "biocides".

Since the government released DDT to the public, the use of pesticides has been continuously upgraded, and pesticides are needed almost everywhere. And, the situation is getting worse because people need more powerful poisons to kill insects. Insects triumphantly proved Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest with their own conditions, and thus evolved some super insects, which are immune to insecticides, so people had to invent more deadly insecticides... So back and forth. In addition, after the spraying of pesticides, the pests often have some resurgence, and their number will be more than before. Not only did no one win in this chemical war, but all creatures were involuntarily involved and exhausted.

Humanity may perish due to nuclear war. But today, we are facing a bigger problem: Harmful substances pollute the living environment very much, and these substances will accumulate in organisms, and even penetrate into cells, changing or even destroying the original genetic genes.

Those who are called "builders of the future" look forward to one day being able to change the human genetics, but today, we are already doing so unconsciously. Because there are many chemical substances like radiation that can cause genetic mutations, even a tiny substance like pesticides can determine the future of mankind-it is a bit ironic to think about it.

Why on earth are we taking such a big risk? Future historians will likely be shocked by how we have put the cart before the horse, how, as a population of intelligent beings, we can destroy the entire environment and kill ourselves just because we want to control a few pests that humans hate In crisis! However, we still did it without hesitation.

We have responded accordingly: we have reduced the amount of land we cultivate and subsidized farmers who do not. But our crops were still so good that in 1962 alone American taxpayers had to spend $1 billion to store the surplus. Although a certain department of the Ministry of Agriculture wanted to reduce production, many departments still reiterated the following statement after 1958: Many people believed that if the use of cultivated land was reduced according to the land fallow protection plan, people would definitely increase the use of chemical pesticides To increase the yield of the existing cultivated land. Doing so will only make the situation worse.

What I have said above does not mean that I don't think there is a pest problem or that there is no need to monitor pests. What I am trying to say is that regulation should be done in a way that is consistent with reality, not fiction, and that in the wrong way we can destroy ourselves along with the vermin.

The emergence of this kind of problem is closely related to our way of life today, but when we try to solve these problems, we choose a wrong way, which leads to a series of mistakes and even disasters. Insects existed on the earth long before the appearance of human beings. They have various types and strong ability to adapt, survive and reproduce. There are two main ways of conflict: competing with humans for resources and spreading diseases to humans.

Insects that transmit diseases in human-inhabited areas have caused great distress to humans, especially in areas with poor sanitation, and when some emergencies arise, such as natural disasters, wars, or when a resource In states of extreme scarcity, this distress becomes even more acute. Then people have to control certain insects. In the near future, we may see the sobering truth that large-scale chemical control of these insects has had little effect and may even make the situation worse.

In primitive agriculture, people rarely encounter pest problems. The problem stems from over-intensification of agricultural production, that is, the use of large amounts of arable land to produce a single crop, which has led to an explosion in the number of certain insects. Monoculture is clearly at odds with the laws of nature. This is probably the ideal model envisioned by some engineers. Nature will balance according to the total amount of its internal needs, and nature needs to control itself, and the way to control is to create a variety of species. Human beings are obsessed with single crop cultivation. With a little research, we can see that there are fewer pests on mixed-crop farms compared to mono-wheat farms.

The situation I have described is not isolated. Just a decade ago, most towns and cities in America had tall elm trees lining their streets, but now that beauty has been ruined by a certain beetle. If the planting is very diverse, with trees other than elms, the chances of the beetle being able to multiply and spread from tree to tree are slim.

Another major factor in the emergence of modern insect problems needs to be considered in the context of geology and human history: the spread of thousands of species of organisms from their original habitats and into new territories. British ecologist Charles Elton studied and vividly described this worldwide migration in his recently published book Ecological Invasion. Millions of years ago during the Cretaceous period, flooding ocean currents cut off land bridges between many continents, and life was confined in what Elton called "vast isolated natural reserves." Within these regions, they are separated from other species and many new species evolve. About 15 million years ago, some continental plates reconnected and these species began migrating to new territories—migration that is still underway today, with much help from humans.

The introduction of plants is the main reason modern species have spread. Because animals always need to rely on plants to exist, and the quarantine method has appeared for a relatively short time, and the effect is not good. The US Bureau of Plant Introduction alone introduces more than 200,000 species of plants from all over the world in one year. Of the 180 species of insect pests that exist in the United States, nearly half were introduced from abroad by accident, and most came with exotic plants.

In some new frontiers, due to the absence of threats from natural enemies, their numbers are out of control, and this invasive plant and animal species can quickly reproduce on a large scale. So it is no accident that most of the most troublesome pests are imported species.

Such invasions, whether due to natural causes or through certain human actions, may continue indefinitely. Quarantines and the mass use of chemicals are nothing but delays. Dr. Elton said that we are facing "a matter of life and death, not just looking for new technological means to control this animal and plant", but more need to understand the basic knowledge of animal habits, the relationship between animals and the surrounding environment, so that we can "Promoting balance, inhibiting the power of large-scale outbreaks of plants and animals, and effectively responding to new invasions."

We can acquire this necessary knowledge through many sources, but we don't use it. We train ecologists in universities, and even employ them in government, but we rarely listen to them when decisions are implemented. We let the chemical rain of death fall and pretend we have no choice. In fact, if we want to, we can quickly come up with many other solutions if we just use our brains.

Have we been blinded by others, lost the will and vision to pursue good things, and can only accept those harmful things as an inevitable choice? Ecologist Paul Shepard said: "Idealize life, see only the head poking out of the water, and only see the inches above the bottom line of environmental degradation...Why do we tolerate a meal containing a chronic poison? Why? To live with this kind of life—a house in a boring environment, surrounded by people who are not enemies but nods, and the noise of motorcycles outside is just enough not to drive people crazy? Who wants to live in a mere In a less deadly world?"

However, such a world is constantly approaching us. The campaign to use chemicals to create a world free of bugs seems to have inadvertently flipped a switch on the frenzy of many experts and so-called control agencies. The evidence is on every side that those who are involved in the pest eradication campaign are abusing their power. "The entomologists in charge are prosecutors, judges, jurors, tax assessors, tax collectors, and police chiefs all at once," says Neely Turner, an entomologist in Connecticut. Whether it is in the state government or in the various agencies of the federal government, there are such a group of people who abuse their power blatantly and unchecked.

I'm not here to say that pesticides should never be used. What I want to point out is that we have put these chemicals in the hands of people who are almost completely ignorant of the potential harm that these poisonous agents are capable of killing. We have exposed millions of people to these poisons without consulting them, and without them even knowing, if there is not a provision in the Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right of citizens to be free from lethal poisons, whether personal or Public officials, it must be because our ancestors, despite their extraordinary wisdom and foresight, did not foresee the situation facing people like this.

Beyond that, I would say that we allow these chemicals to be used with very little advance research on their effects on soil, water, wildlife, and ourselves. In fact, all living things depend on the natural world to survive, and today we ignore the integrity of the natural world, which is likely to bring great disasters to future generations.

Today most people remain unaware of the nature of this hazard. This is an era of "experts". Every "expert" only pays attention to his own problem, but does not realize or tolerate the big frame of this problem. This is another era dominated by industry, as long as you can earn a dollar, no matter what price you pay, it is reasonable and reasonable. When the public protests against strong evidence of the dangers of pesticide use, the makers of the pesticides tell them a little bit of half-truth as a tranquilizer. We urgently need to suspend such false assurances and reject the sugar coating of embarrassing facts. The risk posed by insect managers is ultimately borne by the public. It is up to the public to decide whether they wish to continue on the current path, and they can do so only if they are informed of all the facts. As Jean Rostand said: "Since we have to suffer, we should have the right to know."