Spring is still pretty silent….

Back in February I wrote about my impressions of reading Rachel Carson’s important book Silent Spring. It really helped to launch the environmental movement in the US. Back in the 1950s there were very few controls on the vast expansion of chemicals – herbicides, fungicides, pesticides – that were used almost indiscriminately in American agriculture and forestry. Partly as a result of Carson’s work, there was something of an awakening to the damage that was being done to America’s environment. And of course the direct damage to people’s health.

Some of the worst chemicals were banned. There was a greater awareness of pollution. The science of ecology developed and increasingly revealed the complexity, fragility and interconnectedness of ecosystems.

But here we are, over half a century later, and so many of the environmental protections are being dismantled. And the massive use of chemicals continues. This report by Nate Halverson on the use of Roundup, a glyphosate based herbicide, on forests is chilling. There is already controversy about the use of this common weedkiller and possible links to cancer. But in this report, we see how Roundup is being used in vast quantities in forestry to basically kill all plant life around young trees. The idea is that the trees, freed from any competition, will grow faster, and in time a more profitable crop of timber will be harvested. But what is the impact on the overall health of the forest? Well, it ceases to be a true forest with all the layers of life that word implies, and becomes just a stand of timber. All other plants of course are killed – that is the whole point. But also the insects and spiders, and consequently the birds and mammals….. and what about the fungi, the mycorrhizal networks that link trees in complex webs of life? Does anyone even know?

Needless to say there are also human impacts. People who live nearby or downstream. People who enjoy the woodland to walk and hike and hunt. And (of course) the people who actually carry out the spraying and who are often poor expats from Latin America. And as the report explains, there are plenty of examples of forest management in north America (for example Quebec), that do not use such intense chemical methods and which consequently employ more people, so actually helping the local economy.

Does it matter to the rest of the world that the USA is backsliding on environmental, labour and consumer protection? After all, there are plenty of examples of other countries with situations that are as bad or even much worse. For example, the violence against environmental activists in Colombia or the state of air pollution in African cities or the ecoside being carried out in the war in Lebanon (and, well, all wars really).

Surely the answer is “yes” … isn’t the USA supposed to be a world leader? That’s certainly what Americans tell themselves and the rest of us – incessantly. Thus making it especially dispiriting to witness how short-term profit and corporations’ interests so completely trump (sorry…) the needs and long-term health of local communities.

The title Silent Spring referred to the loss of the sounds of birdsong in America of the 50s and 60s. Perhaps today the silence arises from the politicians and “leaders” who so woefully ignore the desolation and destruction of the world.