"When Silent Spring was published in 1962, author Rachel Carson was subjected to vicious personal assaults that had nothing do with the science or the merits of pesticide use. Those attacks find a troubling parallel today in the campaigns against climate scientists who point to evidence of a rapidly warming world."
"Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. More than a century and a half after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species appeared, nearly half the adults in the United States still don’t believe that evolution happens. And 50 years after the 1962 publication of Silent Spring, naysayers still rage from long-entrenched positions of ignorance at Rachel Carson and her ground-breaking critique of pesticide use.
The parallels with today’s assault on climate science are striking. The personal, vitriolic attacks that were leveled at Carson are echoed today in the organized assault on the scientists who bring us uncontroverted evidence that greenhouse gases are rapidly warming the planet. But Carson savored a victory that today’s climate scientists have yet to taste — her book spurred concrete action to curtail the use of pesticides that were causing widespread harm."
Frank Graham Jr. reports for Yale Environment 360 June 21, 2012.
SEE ALSO:
"The Battle Over Climate Science" (Popular Science)
"Death Threats, Intimidation and Abuse: Climate Change Scientist Michael E. Mann Counts the Cost of Honesty" (Guardian)
"Galileo to Turing: The Persecution of Scientists Throughout History" (Wired Science)
"FOI Emails Reveal Abuse of Climate Scientists" (Australian ABC)
"‘Hug The Monster’: Why So Many Climate Scientists Have Stopped Downplaying the Climate Threat" (Climate Progress)
"Hate Campaign Against Climate Scientists Hits the Denier Spin-Cycle" (crikey)
"Besieged by Climate Deniers, A Scientist Decides to Fight Back" (YaleE360)
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