Silent Spring

A lot of people are negative about this book, because they fear it's scaremongering lefty environmentalism. I suppose it can be taken that way, but to me Rachel Carson presents the facts in rather neutral manner. She doesn't say even once that pesticides and insecticides has to be forbidden and never used, but repeats that one needs to think what one does, about the consequences, that toxins are toxic (duh!), one needs to consider the options, one needs to look at how things are dealt with elsewhere and what are the results - like in beekeeping, varroa mites are a real problem, but beekeepers have noticed that when the bees are allowed to keep some of their honey, they are more resistent to the mites. Something that easy - we don't even need to deny all honey, just not be greedy and take all of it.

I mean, I love The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See - one should use the method with everything.

If Rachel is wrong, and we stop poisoning insects, and the elms die and we lose half the crops to insects and fungus etc. Economical difficulties. So no wonder economics don't like this book.
If Rachel is wrong, and we don't stop poisoning insects, economical profits, less insects
If Rachel is right, and we don't stop poisoning insects, we kill all life on this planet.
If Rachel is right, and we stop poisoning insects, we might not get as big economical profits, but we save the whole planet.
To me the choice is easy. I don't need to know what is true, I just need to know the consequences. I seriously don't give crap about “economical difficulties”, so if Rachel was wrong, the consequences aren't bad.

Also, we know she isn't wrong.

Sincerely, I don't get the upset. She doesn't say anything but totally logical, sane, self evident facts. Like “toxins are toxic”. Duh. I really don't get it.