Rachel
Carson
1907-1964
Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who wrote several
popular books about life in the seas. Her 1962 book Silent Spring sparked the modern
environmental
movement, so our corporate overlords absolutely hate her.
They accuse her of getting the pesticide DDT banned worldwide, so now
there's no way to control the mosquitoes that carry malaria, and tens
of million of people have died from the disease since then, which is all her fault.
But in the real world, she never called for a ban; she just questioned
the wisdom of indiscriminantly spraying a deadly poison all over
everything. It was driving bald eagles and pergrine falcons toward
extinction, and the targetted bugs started evolving immunity to DDT.
Most nations stopped using it because after a few years, it didn't work
as
well as it used to. Even
50 years later, despite the rise and fall of governments and scientific
pardigms, no one has gone back to using DDT except under especially
desperate circumstances.
How lesbian was she?
She never married and developed a devoted friendship with Dorothy Freeman.
The two of them lived far apart, and started as pen pals. Soon they were spending summers together at
Freeman's home. Just before Carson's death they destroyed much of
their correspondence, so we have no idea what they might have been
saying to each other. Freeman let her husband read some of their
letters, so apparently he was cool with whatever he thought was going
on.
