Rachel Carson：Witness for Nature

◎供稿：Yao

也许二十世纪最伟大的自然作家就是雷切尔·卡森，她的著作《寂静的春天》（1962年）提醒了人们滥用化学杀虫剂对所有自然系统的危害，并质疑现代科学的范围和方向，内容相当令人震撼，引发了当代环保运动。

Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother1)bequeath［bI΄kwiːð］ v. 遗赠；把……传下去bequeathedto her a life-long love of nature and the living world. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.

She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the Depression. She began a fifteenyear career in the2)federal［΄fedərəl］ adj. 联邦的；同盟的federalservice as a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world,

including “Help Your Child to Wonder” (1956) and “Our Ever-Changing Shore” (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life.3)embedded［Im΄bedId］adj. 嵌入式的Embeddedwithin all of Carson’s writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it,in some cases4)irreversibly［ˌIrI΄vзːsəblI］adv. 不可逆地irreversibly.

Disturbed by the5)profligate［΄prɒflIɡət］adj. 放荡的profligateuse of6)synthetic［sIn΄θetIk］adj. 综合的；合成的syntheticchemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long-term effects of misusing7)pesticides［΄pεstIsaIdz］n. 杀虫剂pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.

When we look at the world through science or even through the media, we isolate it and we look at little8)segment［΄segmənt］n. 段；部分segmentsas if they’re not interconnected. Since everything in the world is connected, everything carries responsibilities.

Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist,but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment. Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.

The Environmental Protection Agency sees Carson as a founding inspiration; its official history site states: “There is no question… that Silent Spring prompted the Federal Government to take action against water and air pollution—as well as against the misuse of pesticides—several years before it otherwise might have moved.” Organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth trace their origins directly to Carson's book.

雷切尔·卡森是作家、科学家和生态学家，她在宾夕法尼亚州斯普林代尔的乡村河流小镇中长大。她的母亲教育她一生要热爱自然和生活。卡森于1929年毕业于宾夕法尼亚女子学院（现为查塔姆大学），曾就读于伍兹霍尔海洋生物实验室，并于1932年获得约翰·霍普金斯大学的动物学硕士学位。

在美国经济大萧条期间，她被美国渔业局聘用，撰写广播剧本。1936年，她以科学家和编辑的身份在联邦机构开始了15年的职业生涯，之后成为美国鱼类和野生动物管理局所有出版物的总编辑。卡森于1952年辞职，专心写作。

她还撰写了其他几篇文章，旨在教人们有关生活世界的奇迹和美丽，包括《帮助您的孩子去奇观》（1956年）和《我们千变万化的海岸》（1957年），并策划了另一本关于生态学的书。卡森所有著作中都包含着这样一种观点，即人类只是自然界的一部分，其主要特征是人类具有改变自然的能力，在某些情况下是不可逆转的。

第二次世界大战后，受滥用合成化学农药的干扰，卡森很不情愿地改变了工作重点，以警告公众滥用农药的长期影响。在《寂静的春天》（1962年）中，她对农业科学家和政府的做法提出质疑，并呼吁改变人类看待自然世界的方式。

当我们通过科学或甚至通过媒体看待世界时，我们将世界隔离开来，而我们只关注其中很小的部分，就好像它们之间没有联系。由于世界上所有事物都是相互联系的，因此一切都承担着责任。

卡森遭到化学工业和政府中一些人的警告，但仍勇敢地大声提醒我们，我们是自然世界的脆弱部分，遭受的破坏与生态系统其他部分一样。卡森于1963年在国会作证，呼吁采取新政策保护人类健康和环境。雷切尔·卡森经过与乳腺癌的长期斗争后于1964年去世。她对生活美丽和完整性的见证继续激励着新一代，以保护生活世界及其所有生物。

环境保护署将卡森视为创始灵感：“毫无疑问……《寂静的春天》促使联邦政府采取行动对抗水和空气污染，以及对农药的滥用，要在这些成为事实的几年前采取行动，否则可能会出现转移。”绿色和平组织和地球之友等组织直接将其起源追溯到卡森的书。