Rachel Carson

I wanted to add a few more names to the list.

If you have any good info about Rachel please post it here!

She was a biologist who wrote several very carefully written studies, showing the loss of animals in the United States. She eventually became a lead administrator with the US Fish and Wildlife bureau, but since she was a kid she always wanted to be a writer. Her greatest fame is as the writer of "Silent Spring", but she was already famous as a writer about nature then. She is widely credited with spearheading the US environmental movement in the 1960's and 1970's. She showed how, if we kept going, for example, numerous species, including the bald eagle would be extinct. The legislation that passed Congress and became law about the Endangered Species Act was one of the most important early successes of the US environmental movement. She helped people to consider what life would be like without nature, and it changed a lot of people's minds. I also like her because my son attends the Rachel Carson school in Beaverton, OR.
John S
PDX OR

Here's a ten-minute youtube video which shows some of the background of pesticide use and Rachel Carson's reaction to its use. It's a pretty good introduction to her work and why it was necessary.

"Silent Spring" was the single most important factor in bringing the government, and the population into questioning the safety of the wide spread practice of spreading poisons throughout the environment. It was the 'wake up call' that we needed to face the reality of what we were doing to our planet. Rachel started the movement of the masses against the chemical industries.