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diff --git a/reviews/books.md b/reviews/books.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2f9d47 --- /dev/null +++ b/reviews/books.md @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +# Silent Spring + +> **Under primitive agricultural conditions the farmer had few insect +> problems. These arose with the intensification of agriculture — the +> devotion of immense acreages to a single crop. Such a system set +> the stage for explosive increases in specific insect populations.** +> Single-crop farming does not take advantage of the principles by +> which nature works; it is agriculture as an engineer might conceive +> it to be. Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, +> but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes +> the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species +> within bounds. **One important natural check is a limit on the +> amount of suitable habitat for each species. Obviously then, an +> insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much +> higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat +> is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not +> adapted.** + +Emphasized portions are the sentences that conveyed the message +efficiently to my taste: measurable facts punctuated with concise +claims. + +The middle sentences probably appeal to people who already buy the +author's point: they re-state their own convictions with added +cosmological sugar ("the principles by which nature works"), +antagonizing metaphors ("agriculture as an engineer might conceive +it"), sweeping generalities ("man has displayed a passion for +simplifying it"), and romantic allegories ("the built-in checks and +balances by which nature holds the species within bounds"). + +These sentences take a grim and uncomfortable (and well-documented) +reality, and transform it into a lyrical fresque of Good versus Evil. +They take what could be the basis for a technically deep and +insightful report, and twist it into a sublime, emotional, and +*simplified* depiction of some Universal Truth. + +What bothers we with this vocabulary is that it is indistinguishable +from zealotry. Cults successfully grow on broad, universal +explanations for complex issues: Us versus Them, individual redemption +for collective sins, Mother Nature… To me, these tropes are red +flags; when I see them, I instinctively wonder where the fallacy is: +why should the speaker need to appeal to some nebulous higher +principle? Is it as universal as they claim? Why can't they root +their point into observable evidence? + +I actually do buy the authors's point; I merely wish it didn't come +with fake gold plating, since it makes people I want to share it with +go "Wait, what's up with that cheap cheesy decoration? It looks +silly". + +> Parathion is one of the most widely used of the organic phosphates. +> It is also one of the most powerful and dangerous. Honeybees become +> ‘wildly agitated and bellicose’ on contact with it, perform frantic +> cleaning movements, and are near death within half an hour. A +> chemist, thinking to learn by the most direct possible means the +> dose acutely toxic to human beings, swallowed a minute amount, +> equivalent to about .00424 ounce. Paralysis followed so +> instantaneously that he could not reach the antidotes he had +> prepared at hand, and so he died. Parathion is now said to be a +> favorite instrument of suicide in Finland. In recent years the +> State of California has reported an average of more than 200 cases +> of accidental parathion poisoning annually. In many parts of the +> world the fatality rate from parathion is startling: 100 fatal cases +> in India and 67 in Syria in 1958, and an average of 336 deaths per +> year in Japan. Yet some 7,000,000 pounds of parathion are now +> applied to fields and orchards of the United States—by hand +> sprayers, motorized blowers and dusters, and by airplane. The +> amount used on California farms alone could, according to one +> medical authority, ‘provide a lethal dose for 5 to 10 times the +> whole world’s population.’ + +It gets worse. + +> Potentiation seems to take place when one compound destroys the +> liver enzyme responsible for detoxifying the other. + +Chapter 4 in a nutshell: + +> In 1943, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal of the Army Chemical Corps, +> located near Denver, began to manufacture war materials. Eight +> years later the facilities of the arsenal were leased to a private +> oil company for the production of insecticides. Even before the +> change of operations, however, mysterious reports had begun to come +> in. Farmers several miles from the plant began to report +> unexplained sickness among livestock; they complained of extensive +> crop damage. Foliage turned yellow, plants failed to mature, and +> many crops were killed outright. There were reports of human +> illness, thought by some to be related. +> +> The irrigation waters on these farms were derived from shallow +> wells. When the well waters were examined (in a study in 1959, in +> which several state and federal agencies participated) they were +> found to contain an assortment of chemicals. Chlorides, chlorates, +> salts of phosphoric acid, fluorides, and arsenic had been discharged +> from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal into holding ponds during the years +> of its operation. Apparently the groundwater between the arsenal +> and the farms had become contaminated and it had taken 7 to 8 years +> for the wastes to travel underground a distance of about 3 miles +> from the holding ponds to the nearest farm. This seepage had +> continued to spread and had further contaminated an area of unknown +> extent. The investigators knew of no way to contain the +> contamination or halt its advance. |