Silent Spring revisited

Nearly 60 years ago, in September 1962, Rachel Carson's seminal work on the hazards and horrors stemming from the worlds increasing use of pesticides was published. Foreseeing an empty natural world, bereft of insects and birds, Silent Spring marked if not a turning point in our attitudes to chemicals in agriculture, a wake-up call whose ripples spread far beyond it's original audience. Even as a young schoolboy in a far from global society I was aware of it, possibly through my Grandparent's back copies of National Geographic magazine, which I avidly devoured, and it has remained with me, an 'eyeworm', lodged in the rear vaults of my psyche.

Little could Carson or anybody else for that matter have guessed or hoped that 60 years later, Silent Spring would come to pass – but almost in reverse and for complex reasons. Yes, her fears about pesticides were largely correct and their use is still widespread, but the growth of awareness and commitment to ecology has developed massively over the years. And so, not the Silent Spring she envisaged, but through pandemic and global shutdown, we have and are still enjoying the best silent spring anybody can remember.

 

The air is cleaner, clearer and our world has been quieter. So quiet – few aircraft, huge reductions in traffic levels and less audible human activity – that pretty well wherever you've been, the sounds of the natural world, birdsong and now reassuringly bees and insects have been in the ascendancy.

As the seasons roll on and we move seamlessly from Spring into Summer, change is coming and the signs are there. 

The silence has been wonderful but it was unrealistic to think it could be maintained if our economies are to recover, but how immensely reassuring to find that the world can be resilient and that nature does recover when we wake up to see what is there and notice what matters most to us.