A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Library reminds us of the importance of preserving nature. Silent Spring and Other Writings on the Environment is a collection of writings by the influential American environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964). Writing in the 1950s and 1960s, Carson helped make the American public aware of the damaging effect of pesticides upon wildlife. An advocate of biological control of insect pests, Carson was deeply devoted to wildlife conservation and marine ecology. The book is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.

Rachel Carson’s most celebrated book was Silent Spring, originally published in 1962. It stated that the chemical industry in America had published misleading information about the damage done by certain products. A decade after the book was published, the insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was banned from agricultural use in the United States. Silent Spring had pointed out that possibly dangerous chemicals were being introduced to the environment without a full understanding of the effects they would have on   public health. DDT was damaging to wildlife, especially birds. Interest in the ideas expressed in Silent Spring also led to the founding of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

The English naturalist and BBC TV presenter Sir David Attenborough has expressed the opinion that Silent Spring changed the scientific world more than any other book, apart from the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The TU Library owns the Origin of Species as well as books about its content, for readers who would be interested to compare both landmark volumes in the understanding of nature. As Rachel Carson’s official website explains,

Utilizing her many sources in federal science and in private research, Carson spent over six years documenting her analysis that humans were misusing powerful, persistent, chemical pesticides before knowing the full extent of their potential harm to the whole biota. Carson’s passionate concern in Silent Spring is with the future of the planet and all life on Earth. She calls for humans to act responsibly, carefully, and as stewards of the living earth. Additionally Silent Spring suggested a needed change in how democracies and liberal societies operated so that individuals and groups could question what their governments allowed others to put into the environment. Far from calling for sweeping changes in government policy, Carson believed the federal government was part of the problem. She admonished her readers and audiences to ask “Who Speaks, And Why?” and therein to set the seeds of social revolution. She identified human hubris and financial self-interest as the crux of the problem and asked if we could master ourselves and our appetites to live as though we humans are an equal part of the earth’s systems and not the master of them…Silent Spring inspired the modern environmental movement, which began in earnest a decade later. It is recognized as the environmental text that “changed the world.” She aimed at igniting a democratic activist movement that would not only question the direction of science and technology but would also demand answers and accountability. Rachel Carson was a prophetic voice and her “witness for nature” is even more relevant and needed if our planet is to survive into a 22nd century.

Among her observations in Silent Spring are the following:

• The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.
• Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.
• These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes — nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil — all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.”

Environmental Science in Thailand

As all Thais know, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), founded in 2002, protects the Kingdom’s natural resources. Among its environmental initiatives, in 2015, the MONRE announced a program to encourage people to refrain from using plastic bags, instead using cloth bags one day per month. The campaign was intended to be expanded if popular response was positive. The 20-Year Strategic Plan for the MONRE from 2016 to 2035, offers a response to the problems of climate change by protecting forest areas; banning the import of plastic waste products; and other measures.

The shield that represents the MONRE, according to its website,

stands for the protection and preservation of natural resources and the environment.The Bo tree or the Golden Bo, represents many beliefs that the Thai people hold with reverence. The leaves stand for synthesis or the manner by which nature and the environment support human life. By synthesis is also meant the capability to restore the soil’s fertilizer, thus benefiting all living things on earth. The ground represents the relationship between the trees and the soil. Trees need the soil so that they can exist, and in return restore its fertility.

At TU, the Faculty of Environmental Science trains students with the knowledge and ability to achieve environmental management and pollution control. Established in 1986, it is based at Rangsit Campus, following sustainable development guidelines by responding to global environmental concerns.

Mahidol University International College also offers an undergraduate program in Environmental Science, which offers a number of career opportunities, according to the Mahidol website:

The B.Sc. degree in Environmental Science leads to a variety of career opportunities in private industry and governmental agencies concerned with environmental quality assessment, community environment programs and interagency coordination in environmental quality maintenance. Graduates can work as scholars, researchers, experts on the national and international levels, as well as in the public sector in the supervision of the environment and its resources in addition to private and business sectors in the production of goods and services.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)