Wednesday will be the 45th anniversaryof the first Earth
Day. (Editor's Note:
Please note this originally ran on April
20,2015) Founded by then-U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson
(D-Wisconsin), it was held in1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility
and stewardship. In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely,
consciousness-raising, New Age experience, and most activities were organized
at the grassroots level.
A driving force of environmentalism in that era was
Rachel Carson’s best-selling 1962 book, Silent Spring, an emotionally
charged but deeply flawed excoriation of the widespread spraying of chemical
pesticides on crops and wetlands for the control of crop-devouring and
disease-causing insects.
Carson’s proselytizing and advocacy led to the virtual
banning of DDT and to restrictions on other chemical pesticides in spite of the
fact that “Silent Spring” was replete with gross misrepresentations and
scholarship so atrocious that if Carson were an academic, she would be guilty
of egregious academic misconduct. Carson’s observations about DDT were
meticulously rebutted point by point by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, Professor of
Entomology at San Jose State University, a long-time member of the Sierra Club
and the Audubon Society, and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. In
his stunning 1992 essay, “The Lies of Rachel Carson,” Edwards demolished
her arguments and assertions and called attention to critical omissions,
faultyassumptions and outright fabrications. For example:....To Read More.....
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