The
Author with a Mission
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
As the month of
June drew to a close, the US Fish and Wild Life
Services announced that the bald eagle, the majestic,
high-flying bird that has been America’s
national emblem for over two hundred years, was
no longer included among the endangered species.
It had been placed on the list some forty years
ago, when its numbers were fast dwindling. There
were only an estimated 400 breeding pairs left
in the wild, not nearly sufficient to assure the
survival of the species. Placed under a federal
protection program, bald eagles thrived. Their
number soared to 10,000 pairs, and the species
no longer requires any special protection. While
the bald eagle has been saved, some 560 other
animal species in this country are still threatened
with extinction.
It is generally believed that the decline in the
bald eagle population, recognized in the sixties,
was mostly the result of the widespread use of
the insecticide, DDT, after the World War II.
The pesticide was ingested by eagles and other
birds, causing them to produce impaired egg shells,
too fragile to survive the incubation period.
The US Congress in 1963 banned the use of DDT,
and since then the bald eagles population has
gradually recovered.
Interestingly, the announcement that the bald
eagle no longer needs protection coincided with
the hundredth birth anniversary of Rachel Carson,
whose book the Silent Spring, published
in 1962 and translated into many languages has
become a world classic in the environment movement,
immortalizing its author. Carson with remarkable
prescience warned the world of the dangers of
the indiscriminate use of the pesticides DDT and
PCB to the many life forms on earth. She recognized
the dangers of environmental pollution some sixty
years ago when few had any notion of the delicate
ecological balance that has been so crucial for
the promotion and sustenance of life on earth
for millions of years. The terms so fashionable
now, environmentalist or naturalists, were unknown
in the fifties when Carson worked and wrote the
book, while the awareness of the effects of global
warming was still decades in the future.
Rachel Carson died in 1964 when she was only 56
years old, two years after the publication of
Silent Spring. Her message found powerful
resonance with the public, and soon after her
death a number of laws were enacted in the United
States to protect the environment. Her work and
achievements were showcased this year in a number
of events organized at the centenary of her birth.
Her book, even after all these years, continues
to generate interest and controversy. Considering
that it was written nearly half a century ago,
it is remarkable that during the past five years,
more than 150,000 copies of it have been sold.
Its powerful message has been credited with igniting
the contemporary environmental movement, and bringing
attention to adverse climatic changes caused by
human activities. Former American Vice President
Al Gore has emerged as the most effective champion
of this movement. His best selling book, The
Assault on Reason, makes a compelling case
for global warming resulting from burning of oil,
coal and natural gas, all of which release excessive
amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
causing the so-called greenhouse effect.
The idea that something was harming our ecosystem
came to Carson when she noticed that for some
mysterious reasons birds that brought so much
joy to ordinary people were disappearing from
the American rural landscape, and the spring mornings,
devoid of their songs, was eerily quiet. In a
chapter in Silent Spring, entitled “And
No Birds Sing,” Carson lamented the loss
of bird song: “Over increasingly large areas
of the United States, spring now comes unheralded
by the return of birds and the early morning are
strangely silent where once they were filled with
the beauty of bird song.” She noted that
“this sudden silencing of the song of birds,
this obliteration of the color and beauty and
interest they lend to our world have come about
swiftly, insidiously and unnoticed by those whose
communities are as yet unaffected.”
Carson’s powerful prose reminded the reader
that nature’s beauty could not be taken
for granted, as she warned that unless steps were
taken to preserve and protect the natural environments,
much of the animal and plant life on earth would
vanish. The first chapter of her book opened with
an account of a small, fictional town:“There
was once a town in the heart of America where
all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.
Then a strange blight crept over the area and
everything began to change.” She acknowledged
that “this town does not actually exist,
but it might have a thousand counterparts in America.”
Clearly, she was looking into the future.
While Carson directed her comments at American
towns, the problem has since expanded into a world-wide
threat. For example, there are numerous animal
species in Pakistan that are threatened with extinction
and little public awareness exists of the loss
to the country. The population of Houbara Bustard
and other migratory birds has been sharply declining
for years in Pakistan because of uncontrolled
hunting and the destruction of their breeding
habitat. The majestic Indian tiger, once so abundant
in the wild, has been nearly wiped out and is
mostly confined to a few reservations. The appreciation
of beauty of nature also is not commonplace in
our countries. For example, generations growing
up in large metropolises, such as Karachi or Lahore,
rarely see many wild birds or hear their morning
melodies, nor do they have opportunities to marvel
at the splendor of rising sun or admire the beauty
of starry skies at night.
The damage caused by environmental pollutants
is not limited to birds and animals. More recently,
serious decline has been noted in the honeybee
colonies in the west. While the fact that bees
generate honey is common knowledge, it is less
well known that they perform another crucial function.
Many plants will bear no fruits, flowers or vegetables,
if there was no pollination and fertilization
carried out by honeybees. It is estimated that
bees perform one-quarter of all pollination needed
for fruit production in the world. Although the
decline of bee colonies has been known since the
1940s, its cause, despite extensive research,
has remained a mystery. A virus, fungus or pesticide
has all been implicated as potential culprits,
but nothing definitive has yet been identified.
Attention is now being focused on a commonly used
pesticide, imidacloprid, which is employed to
combat termites in wood framed houses. The pesticide
has already been banned in some European countries
for use on crops.
Carson’s warning about the indiscriminate
use of pesticides and the potential damage it
might cause has not been embraced universally.
In June, while the contribution of Rachel Carson
and her book, Silent Spring, in highlighting
the environmental causes was being widely praised,
there were some voices of dissent as well. Some
of her detractors characterize her scientific
logic as flawed and label her as an alarmist.
They argue that the ban on DDT had hampered mosquito
eradication efforts, leading to the loss of thousands
of lives by malaria in the developing countries.
In fairness to her, however, Carson never pleaded
for a total ban on DDT, even though the understanding
of the relationship of the pesticides with the
environment was only scanty in her time. Her major
achievement was the creation of the consciousness
that the activities of mankind affect the quality
of our environment, often adversely and irreversibly.
This is Rachel Carson’s real legacy that
remains beyond any dispute.
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