In Rachel Carson’s novel, Silent Spring, it is clear that she is suggesting that the government has played a large and negative role on what our environment has become today. Carson believed that with the negative action that our government has taken when “protecting” the environment, our environment has unfortunately been pushed the wrong direction. The invention of chemicals that are meant to kill “pests”, such as bugs or weeds, have sacrificed the health of the human race and the environment around us. Carson does not believe that this pollution is an easy fix. “This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible” (6, Carson). As you can see, she has strong views on this topic, even calling this the “chain of evil”.  She sees the government as the very problem, which led the environment to have obtained as many issues as it has.

  The government has created a nuclear weapon that not only kills enemies in foreign countries, but also has major negative side effects in our own country. In order for us to know how the nuclear bomb is going to affect another country, we have to test it on our own land. By doing this, the government has released toxic chemicals into our environment that effect many people and countless wildlife around the area. The nuclear weapons contain a chemical called Strontium 90, and when this is released it is open in our environment and comes down like rain, coating plants with a toxic chemical that ends up killing animals and some people. The toxins remain in the soil where they land during the rainfall, and therefore anything that is planted in that soil is contaminated by the nuclear weapon. Humans grow things in these areas and end up getting physically harmed because the area they are using to harvest is contaminated.

Carson believes that through the human race’s mentality, specifically the government’s mentality, to speed things up and make short cuts, has resulted in an irreversible damage to our environment. Carson states, “The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and needless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature” (7, Carson). Mankind has taken the pace of the earth to a new level and exceeded the natural pace of nature that has in turn caused many problems. Carson believes that these problems are not something that can be fixed easily, in fact most of the damage that has already been done is not something that can be fixed. In order for the human race to continue to survive these toxic chemicals our bodies must adjust to the chemicals. Carson said this could take generations because there are up to 200 new chemicals released each year that we are needing to adapt