The Danger of Glorifying Environmental Figures

By I Sz
February 2021

Symbolic environmental figures are not a new concept. From Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring almost 60 years ago, to modern environmental movements led by David Attenborough to Greta Thunberg, they persist. But glorification is an anti-environmental action.

Environmental History & Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)

Mainstream history credits the start of the modern environmental movement with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist in the 1960s. In this book, she warned about the danger of man’s desire to control nature through pesticides as it threatened the earth and humanity’s survival. This argument is valid and especially relevant as dangerous pesticides are still used today.

Unfortunately, Carson and Silent Spring have become buzzwords for environmental activism. The book is known mostly for its bestselling tagline than analysis of its environmental focus or wider context as only one work within a larger movement. In the 1950s and 1960s, there had been various ecological crisis. One was the nuclear fallout and presence of radiation in milk that led to the anti-nuclear movement. This itself was another origin to environmentalism. The connection between widespread fear of nuclear radiation and how Carson conveyed this through pesticides also poisoning food chains has been overlooked.

The way scholars have often singled out Silent Spring as a watershed moment is misleading. We need histories that are as inclusive as activists should be – the intersections with anti-war, civil rights and feminist movements with environmentalism needs to be explored further. History is an important part of changing mindsets to appreciate the globality to environmental solutions.

Looking At The Bigger Picture

Whilst inspirational people can motivate us, heaping praise on a handful can also be a distraction. Carsons, Attenboroughs and Thunbergs out there are seen as saviours who do not need our help. Idolising takes our focus off corporations or governments’ responsibilities. In fact, governments and popular environmental history have a habit of supporting unthreatening activists. Glorified activists are often (made) palatable by the opposition – white, capitalist, willing to work with the establishment. In Carson’s case, she was depicted by biographers as a martyr to the environmental cause with her death in 1964. President Carter awarded her post-humorously the Medal of Freedom in 1980.

This lauding silences the rich past and takes undeserved credit for future activism. States promoting these individuals rather than the movement as a whole is also an example of greenwashing. Histories continuing to put Silent Spring down as the origins to environmentalism are supporting this clean face narrative as gas power plants continue to be built and plastic, toxic waste exported. This gives readers and the wider public feel-good vibes that our environmental fight was already won in the 1960s, or that it is too late to prevent climate catastrophe.

Fortunately, histories of climate justice show the multiplicity of environmentalism’s origins and struggles. As historian Adam Rome points out, only our local activism can fully explain the development of this changing movement. This is why activists in the 1960s were ‘distantly aware of the controversy’ Silent Spring was claimed to have provoked. More often than not, real change is achieved slowly rather than in exciting, revolutionary forms.

Carson biographer Arlene Quaratiello praises Silent Spring for ‘motivating readers not only to appreciate nature, but also to take action to save’ the world. Undoubtedly, Carson did help to popularise ecological language and her work is a good access point into environmentalism. But our emphasis, however, should be on the ‘readers’ and their ‘action to save’ the environment. And how will we shape history to be as inclusive as our movement works to be?

Return to People and Planet.

You May Also Be Interested In: Origins of the British Environmental Movement (Part 1), Origins of the British Environmental Movement (Part 2), Origins of the British Environmental Movement (Part 3)

References:
Dunlop, T., Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Cambridge, 1999)
Guha, R., Environmentalism: A Global History (New York City, 2000)
Murphy, P., What a Book Can Do (Boston, 2005)
Parks, P., ‘Silent Spring, Loud Legacy: How Environmental Media Helped Establish an Environmental Icon’, Media History and Contemporary Implications, 94/4 (2017), pp. 1215-1238
Quaratiello, A., Rachel Carson: A Biography (New York City, 2010)
Rome, A., ‘”Give the Give a Chance”: The Environmental Movement and the Sixties’, The Journal of American History, 90/2 (2003), pp. 525-554