Insecticide Quotes (5 quotes)
As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life—a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. [On the effect of chemical insecticides and fertilizers.]
In Silent Spring, (1962), 297.
Chemistry... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation; she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes.
Les Confessions d'un Chimiste Ordinaire (1981), 5. Trans. W. H. Brock.
I am aware of some of the tragic repercussions of the chemical fight against insects taking place in France and elsewhere, and I deplore them. Modern man no longer knows how to foresee or to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth from which he and other living creatures draw their food. Poor bees, poor birds, poor men...
In Ann Cottrell Free (ed.), Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer (1982). Rachel Carson dedicated her book Silent Spring (1962) to Albert Schweitzer, with his words, “Modern man no longer knows how to foresee or to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”
In Sheldon it was not only the wild creatures [and cats] … that were sacrificed in the campaign against an insect. … Sheep [were in]… a small, untreated blue-grass pasture across a gravel road from a field which had been treated with dieldrin spray…. Evidently some spray had drifted across the road into the pasture, for the sheep began to show symptoms of intoxication almost at once…. They lost interest in food and displayed extreme restlessness, following the pasture fence around and around apparently searching for a way out… [They] bleated almost continuously, and stood with their heads lowered… [Several] sheep eventually died.
In 'Needless Havoc', Silent Spring (1962), 94.
These insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid. … Scientific observers at Sheldon described the symptoms of a meadowlark found near death: “Although it lacked muscular coordination and could not fly or stand, it continued to beat its wings and clutch with its toes while lying on its side. Its beak was held open and breathing was labored.”
In 'Needless Havoc', Silent Spring (1962), 99. [Note: Summarizing Carson (pp 92-93), for several years from 1954, Sheldon, in eastern Illinois, was subjected to extensive spraying of dieldrin (50 times more poisonous than DDT) by the Agriculture Departments of the U.S. and Illinois, to attempt to eradicate the Japanese beetle along the line of its invasive advance into Illinois. The dieldrin used was roughly equivalent to 150 pounds of DDT per acre. —Webmaster]
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
