Rachel Carson Rachel Carson (1907-1964) Was an American Marine Biologist, Conservationist, and Conservationist

Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist, conservationist, and author. She was born on a family farm in Pennsylvania and spent her youth exploring the countryside and writing stories, often about animals. It seems as if Carson was born to be an author. By the age of ten, she had already had her first book published. She began her adult career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, but became a full-time writer by the 1950s. More than anything else, she was interested in what can happen when, as she put it, "Things go out of kilter." Because of this, she began work on her groundbreaking book Silent Spring.
Developed in 1939, DDT was the most potent pesticide that world had ever known. It showed just how vulnerable nature was to the actions of humanity. While most pesticides of the day killed only one or two types of insects, DDT could kill hundreds. Originally used only by the military to clear South Pacific islands of malaria-causing insects during World War Two, it was cleared for civilian use in 1945. Carson grew justifiably more and more concerned about DDT as its effects on the environment slowly became known. She tried to publish magazine articles to raise the alarm about the poison, but no one would publish her work. Having gathered a vast amount of research on the subject, Carson started a four-year writing odyssey that culminated with the publishing of Silent Spring in 1962.
Carson described how a single application of DDT could poison the environment for weeks or even months. It could enter water sources and remain toxic even when diluted. Ultimately, it accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals-including human beings-and caused cancer and genetic damage. The book's most famous chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow," described an American town where all life-even human children-had been "silenced" from the deleterious effects of the poison.
The reaction from the chemical industry was immediate. A major chemical manufacturer published a response to Silent Spring with a brochure that made fun of Carson's work. It described a world that was plagued by famine, disease, and insect swarms because chemical pesticides had been banned. In spite of this backlash, her careful work paid off. DDT was ultimately banned after President John F. Kennedy ordered a committee to investigate the effects of the chemical on the environment. But perhaps the most important legacy of her book was a new awareness of humanity's potential to inflict damage on the environment. Before the book, conservation had never garnered much public interest. But the problems that Carson wrote about-water contamination, cancer, and mass extinction-could not be ignored. For the first time, the urgent need to regulate industry to protect the environment became accepted. And from this, the modern environmental movement was born.
Which of the following is the author's purpose in the fourth paragraph?

A) To entertain
B) To inform
C) To analyze
D) To persuade