BILL MOYERS.COM • September 20, 2021
On this day in 1962, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published. In her book, Carson made the case that if humanity poisoned nature, nature in turn, would strike back and poison humanity. A year after its publication, Carson herself testified before a Senate subcommittee on pesticides. She was 56 and dying from breast cancer, her body so weak that it was nearly impossible for her to walk to her seat before the panel. By taking on industry and government for their polluting ways, she became one of the founders of the environmental movement.