Our world is often called our home. We need it to survive and it provides us with the resources we need to live our lives as comfortably as we do. However, we often don't take the time to consider our impact on the environment. Let's say our land is "literally" a house, could you live in a house that has been regularly and permanently damaged, sprayed with insecticides, and even torn apart for someone's personal use? This idea is represented in Rachel Carson's book “Silent Spring”. Rachel begins her book by painting us a picture of a small, quiet town. Keep in mind though that this city is not a real place, but is a parallel to our society. In this city it describes people living a modest life and everything is fine. This is used to represent the calm before the storm, so to speak. People begin to notice strange things, such as the death of birds and strange diseases. The people themselves are blissfully unaware of what is happening and of their guilt. This example is used in parallel to our world. We are not aware of the long-term effects of pesticides and if we do not become aware of these effects, permanent damage will occur. Our first question to ask ourselves is why we would want to become something like this poor city. ? In the second chapter, Rachel explains that this damage to the environment is caused by a war against insects. We have become so intent on producing as many crops as possible that we are willing to spray harmful poisons like arsenic on our plants. Unfortunately, this will only have a short-term effect on the insects before the insects acquire immunity. So the most we get from poisoning crops is a short-term reduction in damage caused by insects, at the cost of… half a paper… you ask “who protects the consumer?” (p.153) in Carson's own words. How strange that consumer safety should be mentioned. How safe are consumers when they go to the supermarket? Carson says in chapter 11 that people who lived before 1942 had no traces of DDT in their bodies. Yet now people are eating food infused with DDT which has been found to cause adverse effects on the body. Carson says we have ages called “the age of reason” and “the age of innocence,” but he fears that our age will be known as “the age of poisons” (p.157). The poisons we are introducing into our environment are causing us a new set of health problems. We once had to worry about things like bubonic plague, but now we have to worry about what Rachel calls “environmental disease” (p.169). Works CitedCarson, Rachel. "silent sources"