According to a report from the ENS, Environmental News Service website, the first comprehensive report ever produced on U.S. bird populations finds that our birds are “endangered, threatened or in decline due to climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species.” Secy. of Interior Salazar announced:
Just as they were when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” nearly 50 years ago, birds today are a bellwether of the health of land, water and ecosystems,” Salazar said. “From shorebirds in New England to warblers in Michigan to songbirds in Hawaii, we are seeing disturbing downward population trends that should set off environmental alarm bells. We must work together now to ensure we never hear the deafening silence in our forests, fields and backyards that Rachel Carson warned us about.
I don’t know about anyone else, but to live in a land without the sound of birds would be a deafening silence for me. From where I am sitting right now, I see my bird feeders about 20 ft. away. Beyond my feeders is a wetlands area that has grown over the years in popularity for all kinds of wildlife. We have nesting swans back there now and all types of different looking ducks. I can’t imagine a life without them. And quite frankly there won’t be a life without them.
The canary in the mine was an actual practice. If the bird died, it was not environmentally safe for humans either. And our birds are dying. Rachel Carson’s work was aimed at the pesticide industry. Unfortunately, shortly after her book “Silent Spring” was published, Carson died of cancer. I think today, Rachel would have had much fodder to work with far beyond the use of pesticides. As the intro on e-notes.com says about “Silent Spring”:
Though an environmental consciousness can be discerned in American culture as far back as the nineteenth century, environmentalism as it is known today has only been around for about forty years, and Carson’s book is one of its primary sources. Her tirade against humankind’s attempt to use technology to dominate nature wrenched environmentalism from its relatively narrow, conservationist groove and helped transform it into a sweeping social movement that has since impacted almost every area of everyday life.
Rachel Carson would have had plenty to tirade about today like mercury, fertilizer runoff, and oil spills. Clean coal would have spurred a book all by itself.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2009/2009-03-19-01.asp
http://www.enotes.com/silent-spring