Recent Scholarship
Smith, M.B. "`Silence, Miss Carson!' Science, gender, adn the reception of Silent
Spring. "Feminist Studies, 27,3(Fall 2001):733-52.
'Silent Springs' of Foot and Mouth Disease, GM Food and Mad Cows Brigitte Nerlich
and Nicholas Wright
In 1962 Rachel Carson published her famous book Silent Spring (Carson 1962/2000)1
in which she examined the dangers of chemical pesticides such as DDT to plants,
animals and humans. It made people think about the environment in a way they had
never done before and inaugurated the environmental movement. The book demonstrated
for the first time that a new technology that seems harmless and beneficial might
have serious long-term effects on the environment, on wildlife, and on human health.
Over four decades the book Silent Spring has permeated public consciousness and
the image of a 'Silent Spring', which its title conjures up, has been used repeatedly
as a rhetorical resource in debates about the impact of science on society and on
the environment. Revisiting this work once more is timely, for parallels can be
drawn with the use of language, especially metaphors, in debates around recent countryside
issues, such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE - also known As "Mad Cow Disease"),
genetically modified crops (GM) and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). Silent Spring
highlighted for the first time the seeming complicity between government, (global)
industry and scientists, which undermined trust in these institutions - a topic
still very much with us today in the debates about all these topics.
For this article we have examined the use of the book and the metaphor 'Silent Spring'
in British broadsheets between 1998 and 2002 (for a more detailed analysis see Nerlich,
in press2) in three types of debates: the debate about pesticides and their threats
to birds and humans (where environmental and agricultural discourses intersect);
the debate about GM food (where genetic, agricultural and environmental discourses
intersect); and the debate about FMD (where agricultural and environmental discourses
intersect).
The majority of articles are short and matter of fact, but some deserve a closer
look in terms of the rhetoric and images used to convey a specific message. We shall
therefore analyse some salient articles in more detail, one on the disappearance
of songbirds, the theme that is most intimately connected with the phrase Silent
Spring, one on GM crops and two on FMD. An article published in The Observer by
Nicci Gerrard in March 1999 takes as its title "The Silent Spring"3. It displays
a particularly dense profusion of metaphors and images. Carson's book itself is
not mentioned. However, from a reading, many readers would recognise and respond
to cultural echoes emanating from the 1960s original and more recent imprints. The
article begins with a description of a normal spring (at least normal in western
culture). This is evoked by phrases such as: "the dawn chorus", "sounds of birds
singing", "sweet, high sounds", "web of sound, up and down the scales", "world of
sound", "singing their hearts out", "din", "hoarse-voiced rooks clattering from
their nests", "reassuring call of the wood pigeons", "the great chorus resolves
into the less rapturous songs of daytime", "liquid sound". Not only are we submersed
in sound by the descriptive writing of the author, but we are also implored to listen:
"There's a greenfinch singing. Do you hear, do you hear?"
This web of sound portrayed in print by evocative imagery, captures and stereotypes
aspects of spring in the British countryside. This provides a stark contrast against
which 'the Silent Spring' of contemporary Britain is evoked: "all that's missing
is the soundtrack", "in search of a dawn chorus", "the dawn chorus is becoming muted
in Britain; and it is changing its chorus line", "their voices have faded from the
countryside", "it is empty and silent." Such an abrupt narrative transition is an
emotive process, one of loss, sadness, despair and regret. For we, the reader, are
taken from the 'joy of spring' as nature bursts forth, immediately to a 'reality'
where the web of sound has been ripped from the countryside. This linguistic device
is used by Gerrard to simultaneously inform and sensitise, almost politicise, the
reader to the dramatic and scientifically verifiable fall in numbers of song-birds,
as recorded for example by Krebs, Wilson, Bradbury, Siriwardena (1999), in their
paper for Nature entitled "The second Silent Spring?"4. On the one hand this loss
is hard to narrate, for as Gerrard says, "It is more difficult to see and hear an
absence". On the other hand the metaphor of 'Silent Spring' and the network of associated
but absent sounds and images actually allow the readers or listeners to do just
that: they can see, hear, and feel an absence. The emotive dimension of the writing
seeks to spur readers into action - to do something to restore the sound track of
spring, to banish the silence that lies over the countryside by engaging in active
protection of the environment.
Gerrard portrays absence and silence as symptomatic of changes in agriculture and
food production, in particular: intensive farming, subsidies, the use of pesticides
and the introduction of GM crops. These agents are guilty of nothing less than the
Killing of the countryside as adjudged in the book of the same name by Graham Harvey5.
Gerrard too deploys metaphors of death. She talks about 'a living shroud', and 'a
landscape of the dead'. This portrays metaphorically, what in her eyes, was a literal
murder.
The 'Silent Spring' metaphor can also be found in the body and title of an article
published in The Times on GM foods in 19986. In it Nick Nuttall, environment correspondent,
exploits yet again the auditory associations surrounding the 'Silent Spring scenario'.
The article begins in the style of a sci-fi story, echoing Carson's own 'fable for
tomorrow'. This began her 1962 book, and depicted a neighbourhood devoid of birds,
having been gripped by a mysterious avian disease. Both Gerrard and Nuttall continue
this fable, seeking to warn us how fact and fiction are blurring, prophesying a
bleak, near future. "It is the year 2020 and the most silent of Silent Springs,
apart from the rustle of genetically engineered oil-seed rape, wheat, maize and
other "designer" crops nodding in the breeze. Songbirds such as the lark, linnet
and mistle thrush, long in decline, have finally fled the English countryside because
the seed-producing weeds on which they depend have been eradicated from fields and
hedgerows by relentless chemical spraying made possible by biotechnology. Meanwhile
the hum of bees and other insects has also been silenced, thanks to the planting
of genetically altered crops that produce insect-resistant toxins. They annihilate
not only aphids and other pests but also beneficial insects on which birds and bats
depend. Native wildflowers are in retreat but "superweeds", resistant to chemical
treatment, have emerged. This is the nightmare scenario surrounding genetically
modified plants, echoing that of Rachel Carson's classic book about the pesticide
DDT, Silent Spring."
While the debate about GM and the future of the British countryside was still raging,
another threat to the countryside broke out, surprising both farmers and politicians
alike. This time it brought about not a silence of the birds and the butterflies,
but a 'silence of the lambs'.
"This year, is like the enactment of some apocalyptic, millennial fantasy, we have
already had storms, floods and blizzards. Agriculture is still linked to BSE, e-coli,
salmonella, bovine tuberculosis and swine fever. Now there's a visitation from a
virus, reappearing from a painful, long-ago memory, and burning through the ecology
of commerce like wildfire." This is how Paul Evans, the Guardian's countryside diarist,
described the situation in March 2001 in his article entitled "The Silent Spring".7
A feature of the FMD virus much commented on, indeed picked up by Paul Evans, is
its ability to spread rapidly. A highly contagious animal disease, it is not harmful
to humans or necessarily fatal to animals, but undermines economic competitiveness,
especially of a country with a previously disease free status. Eradication was an
economic imperative. The policy ready for use is in such outbreaks, has been sitting
on the shelf since the beginning of the 20th century, that of slaughtering all infected
animals8 . This policy was extended in 2001 to include millions of uninfected animals
- effectively creating 'firebreaks' to halt the spread of the 'wildfire' that was
the epidemic. This was seen as the only way to 'win the battle' against the disease,
to bring the disease under control and thus to control nature. The war metaphors
used during the FMD epidemic were quite similar to those used in the 1960s in the
'war against insects. This was the 'conflict' that deployed DDT as a weapon, which
caused the environmental damage so lucidly invoked and described in Carson's Silent
Spring. Now as then, scientists and policy makers, or, more often than not, the
public projecting assumptions on to these groups, tried to control nature. The 1960s
saw the indiscriminate use of pesticides while 2001 witnessed the slaughter of millions
of animals based on best estimates rather than precise science. In the 1960s many
did not foresee the wider effects that the use of pesticides could have on the environment,
on wildlife and on humans. Similarly in 2001 the wider socio-economic and psychological
impact of the slaughter policy were not foreseen. Silent Spring captured the negative
emotions that underpinned popular resistance to pesticides and might yet sway popular
opinion against slaughter in favour of vaccination when FMD comes round next time.
In both cases, silence followed after the noise of the battle against pests or a
virus had subsided. Silence was in fact a major motif in many poems written during
the FMD crisis. Here is only one example of many:
Silence….
Lots of silence
No moo, no baa, no neigh.
No more sheep to round up no more.
Silence…
(Matthew Whitehouse, Age 11 from Settle Middle School9)
In a second article on FMD in 2001, "Scrubs up a treat" Paul Evans turned the metaphor
of 'Silent Spring' denoting death and despair on its head10. A 'Silent Spring' was
used as a symbol of hope. He argues that while FMD metaphorically and literally
silenced cows, sheep and pigs, it gave back a voice to wildlife. Ground-nesting
birds, normally 'drowned out' by industrial farming and overgrazing, benefited from
habitat created by the reappearance of scrub. Evans wrote: Out of the silence will
emerge a debate about what shape the future countryside will take. It will be motivated
by competing interests and cultural, political and economic agendas. Despite the
feelings of despair surrounding the present countryside crisis, there are many options.
[…] It could be argued that the present countryside crisis is the opposite of Silent
Spring: as agriculture suffers, wildlife flourishes. […]
While a simple contrast of powerful images makes a good story, most conservationists
would acknowledge that the reality of habitat restoration and maintenance is much
more complex than 'removing agriculture to let wildlife flourish'. This is evident
in a number of habitats where biodiversity is dependent on continued grazing. Indeed,
notice the qualification apparent in Evan's use of the word "could". As King has
written previously in ECOS11, "This could be a great opportunity to restore the
upland landscape with a combination of low intensity pastoralism and habitat restoration"
(Emphasis added, p.23). Unfortunate though it is, no simple choice exists to allow
us to choose between the 'Silent Spring' that silences the voices of wild animals
and 'the Silent Spring' that silences the voices of domesticated animals. There
are no simple choices between a 'war on nature' of a FMD slaughter policy or 'the
peace' of a vaccination program. The use of and, as importantly, the interpretations
of the metaphors 'Silent Spring' and 'war' can easily be used to frame and 'sell'
policies, but we need more than metaphors to decide which policies are the right
ones. While we often talk of seeking to live in 'harmony with nature', such a phrase
can be deeply misleading. There is no choice between nature and culture, the natural
and the artificial, between civilisation and wilderness. We need to seek, discuss
and make explicit the trade-offs that are always part of decisions about what level
and type of impacts are acceptable to the environment, and on ourselves, as part
of the environment. In negotiating such a path we cannot abandon science and just
go 'back to nature'. We need science to help us understand the long history of human-environment
interactions as they are now and in the future and as they continually evolve. In
imparting the complexities of the relation between conservation and farming, metaphors
can be an aid, but they should not be our guide.
- 1. Carson, R. (1962/2000) Silent Spring, Penguin, London
- 2. Nerlich, B. (in press) Tracking the fate of the metaphor 'Silent Spring' in British
environmental discourse: Towards an evolutionary ecology of metaphor. Metaphorik.de
(Special issue on 'Metaphor and Ecology')
- 3. Gerrard, N. (1999). "The Silent Spring." The Observer March 21.
- 4. Krebs, J.R., Wilson, J.D., Bradbury, R.B. and Siriwardena, G.M. (1999) The second
Silent Spring? Nature 400, 611-612
- 5. Harvey, G. (1998) The Killing of the Countryside, Vinatge, London
- 6. Nuttall, N. (1998). "Silent Spring." The Times July 13, pp. 15.
- 7. Evans, P. (2001). "The Silent Spring: Why do we fear nature's retribution." The
Guardian March 7.
- 8. Woods, A. (2002). Foot and Mouth Disease in 20th Century Britain: Science, Policy
and the Veterinary Profession. Unpublished Doctorate of Philosophy, University of
Manchester.
- 9. West Craven Foot and Mouth Action Group, ed. (2001) Children's Thoughts on Foot
and Mouth 2001, Lamberts Print and Design, Settle
- 10. Evans, P. (2001). "Scrubs up a treat." Guardian April 11.
-
11. King, M. (2001) Any room for scrub? ECOS 22 (2), 21-24
Brigitte Nerlich directs a project looking at the social and cultural impact of
foot and mouth disease, funded under the ESRC's Science in Society Programme at
the Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society, University of Nottingham.
Nick Wright is a Research Associate on this project.
