Outdoor Conservation Book Club discussion

I know people probably don't want to buy a book every month and sometimes libraries don't have what you need, so here's a few resources to read the December book!

Silent Spring is available free online from archive.org in multiple formats (including kindle & epub)

There's also PDF versions available here and here

Thanks!! I’ve not read this one yet!!

I started our next book a bit early, but I was just so excited to get into it! Who else is reading Silent Spring in December?

I have it on hold on Overdrive...but I am 10 of 10!!

I finished Silent Spring. I've read this book once before, in high school, because I considered it to be required reading before I entered university to pursue a degree in wildlife ecology. It astounded, educated, saddened, and motivated me then in 2003, and has done the same in 2018.

My review/thoughts:
A classic. Though written half a century ago, many of the problems are arising again today. The pro environment movement that followed this book's publication sparked a slew of regulatory legislation that created the relatively clean and safe environment we have today in 2018. But political leaders are ignoring the past and rolling back these protections and I fear we are facing a repeat of the 1950s. History is not to be forgotten, but to be learned from and known so that we do not make the same mistakes of the past. I do not want a silent spring. Do you?

Well said!

“The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather then the deliberate pace of nature.”

She could already see the writing on the wall. We will be our own worst enemy. Although she was speaking of radiation, this could also be said of climate change.

Also her quoting Albert Schweitzer, “Man can hardly recognize the devils of his own creation.” Our society is driven by the relentless desire for more money and ownership of things, with little regard for the wider ramifications of those choices.

Just some thoughts and only barely into chapter 2!

There is a lot of foreshadowing in there, as it turns out :(