The following is an excerpt from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Thinking Like a Historian): "For each of us, as for the robin in Michigan or the Salmon in the Miramichi, this is a problem of ecology, of interrelationships, of interdependence. We poison the caddis flies in a stream and the salmon runs dwindle and die. We poison the gnats in a lake and the poison travels from link to link of the food chain and soon the birds of the lake margins become its victims. We spray our elms and the following springs are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled, step by step, through the now familiar elm leaf-earthworm-robin cycle. These are matters of record, observable, part of the visible world around us. They reflect the web of life-or death-that scientists know as ecology. . . ."
Carson wanted her readers to understand that

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Carson is explaining that the use of pesticides has a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem, impacting everything from the caddis flies to the salmon to the birds. She is highlighting the interconnectedness of all living things and the importance of considering the long-term consequences of human actions on the environment.

The Following Is an Excerpt from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring