Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson - by Amy Ehrlich

Several years ago I was asked to find and read a passage from "a book that changed my life". I chose "A Fable for Tomorrow" from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring - the book that launched the modern environmental movement. Carson's research and expose on the effects of pesticides on humans and the environment continues to resonate today. When my daughter was little I bought two children's books about Carson to share with her: Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich; and A Clean Sea: The Rachel Carson Story by Carol Hilgartner Schlank and Barbara Metzger. Today, in honor of the the 49th anniversary of Carson's death, I re-read them. Of course, I was not surprised to find that this incredibly intelligent, curious girl, who would grow up to be a marine biologist loved to read (both books say so!). As a young woman she worked at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, where, according to Ehrlich's work, she

liked to walk by the ocean when the tide was low. The currents of the water crossed over each other in rippled lines, like the tide lines edged with seaweed on the beach. And when the tide was coming in, there was a great whoosh of water and the earlier lines were erased. Rachel watched the sea with a writer's eyes and then went back to the Woods Hole research library to find out why it ebbs and flows.

This was the only passage in either book to specifically mention a library, but we can safely assume that someone who enjoyed reading and writing so much much and who did so much research was a frequent user.

Rest in Peace Rachel Carson May 27, 1907-April 14, 1964

Silent Spring - by Rachel Carson

If I believed in reincarnation, I would have good reason to think that I was Rachel Carson in a previous life. She died about six weeks before I was born which was, in fact, on the anniversary of her birth. Both of our births are celebrated today. I recently also learned that her iconic work, Silent Spring was originally published on the same day that my sister was born in 1962. Furthermore, Carson has ties both to my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland (where she studied at Johns Hopkins University and wrote about natural history and the Chesapeake Bay for the Baltimore Sun) and also to my adopted home state of Massachusetts where she worked at the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory. 

Carson wrote for the general public, not for the scientific community. My limited scientific education did not deter me from being able to access and discuss this work, and defend it to skeptics. Anyone who wants to know more about the consequences of the overuse of pesticides will find this work accessible.

When I was once asked to read from a book that changed my life I chose the Introduction to this work - "A Fable for tomorrow" - which describes a future in which there are no birds or insects. A future in which the landscape has been decimated by the use of insecticides. This book was integral to the banning of DDT and launched the modern environmental movement.

I know from my own research about Carson that this work was meticulously researched, and that she made good use of libraries while writing it. She names two librarians in particular in her Acknowlegements.

"Every writer of a book based on many diverse facts owes much to the skill and helpfulness of librarians. I owe such a debt to many, but especially Ida K. Johnston of the Department of the Interior Library and to Thelma Robinson of the Library of the National Institutes of Health".

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel - by Carl Safina

It has been five years since I posted my rave review about Safina's The View from Lazy Point. Like Rachel Carson, Safina writes science for all. His delightful prose is accessible, witty, and smart leaving one with a true sense of wonder. This passage about humans discovering the use of tools by chimpanzees provides a clear window onto his clever writing style

In 1960, Jane Goodall rocked the world with "news" that chimps were using twigs - in other words, tools - to extract termites. Up to that moment, scientists had believed that only humans made any tools, and that tools "made us human." But - wait a minute! In 1844, a missionary to Liberia named Thomas Savage wrote that wild chimpanzees crack nuts "with stones precisely in the manner of human beings." Science did not rediscover the missionary's position for more than a century.

I began reading this book in August on the ferry from New Bedford, Massachusetts to Nantucket on our way to hear Safina give a talk about his work with elephants. 

Both the book and his presentation discussed the question of anthropomorphism (the attribution of human emotions to other animals). Throughout much of the twentieth century scientists only observed and reported on the behavior of animals, but did not seek to understand why they (the animals) might do something, or how they might feel about it. In fact, scientists who suggested that animals might have reasoning skills were considered un-academic. Safina, however, pointed out in his talk that "it is not scientific to not be open". And explains in the book " that [b]y banning what was considered anthropomorphic, the behavorists perpetuated the opposite error that only humans are conscious and can feel anything". Safina simply asks animals the question "Who are you?". The answers, however, are complex.

It took me several months to get through this book because although I read it in small chunks there was always so much to digest. It certainly had me re-examining my own belief that animals don't reason. A belief, no doubt, instilled in me by the fact that I grew up in the 70s and 80s, when behaviorism was the science of the day and so any education I received would have reflected that. I was especially thrown by this explanation about the care of baby turtles

in 2014...scientists announce[d] their discovery that hatchlings and adults of a species of river turtle vocalize to one another, using eleven types of calls. The scientists observed that the calls functioned "to congregate hatchlings with adults for mass migration." Had you asked me before I read that, I (and most turtle experts) would have told you-wrongly-that no turtles provide parental care, at all. 

The passage made me recall the lesson in my second grade science class in which we learned about how turtles laid their eggs, covered them up, and then left the babies to their own devices when they hatched to find their way to the water. I remember a few years later pointing out to our music teacher when she taught us a song about a mother turtle taking care of her baby that such a thing would never happen.

Safina wraps up this section with a quote from his neighbor J.P. Badkin: "if you're not careful, you can learn something every day." 

This is sure to become my new librarian mantra.

Scarce on any actual libraries (the only mention of the word is in a discussion of a the vast scope of elephant noises, which he refers to as a "sound library") Safina's work is included on this blog not so much for this one library metaphor but because the book demonstrates Safina's love of lifelong learning. As a librarian my hope for everyone with whom I interact is that they, too, will develop such a passion.

We were able to have our copy of the book signed by the author when we attended his presentation on Nantucket.

Safina's Ted Talk "What are Animals Thinking and Feeling" can be found here:

A Sand County Almanac - by Aldo Leopold

I'd been meaning to read this for a long time. It had been just sitting there on my shelf for ever so long. My husband read it decades ago, and although my intentions were always there, there was always something else I wanted to read. Now its time has finally come.

This was really a mood piece. The nature descriptions were soothing and poetic. I felt much like I was simply floating in a dream, awakened now and then by the word "library". Often this is used metaphorically. Leopold understands that landscapes, like so many things can be "read".

The autobiography of an old board is a kind of literature not yet taught on campuses, but any riverbank farm is a library where he who hammers or saws may read at will. Come high water, there is always an accession of new books.

...he who owns a veteran bur oak owns more than a tree. He owns a historical library, and a reserved seat in the theater of evolution.

        A farmer and his son are out in the yard, pulling a crosscut saw through the innards of an ancient cottonwood. The tree is so large and so old that only a foot of blade is left to pull on.                Time was when that tree was a buoy in the prairie sea. George Rogers Clark may have camped under it; buffalo may have nooned in its shade, switching flies. Every spring it roosted fluttering pigeons. It is the best historical library short of the State College, but once a year it sheds cotton on the farmer's window screens. 

    This state of doubt about the fundamentals of human population behavior lends exceptional value, to the only available analogue: the higher animals. [Paul] Errington, among others, has pointed out the cultural value of these animal analogues. For centuries this rich library of knowledge has been inaccessible to us because we did not know when or how to look for it. Ecology is now teaching us to search in animal populations for analogies to our own problems.

Perhaps, though, my favorite was this:

If I were to tell a preacher of an adjoining church that the road crew had been burning history books in his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book?

Librarians know well that books themselves can be weeds. Our shelves are gardens, and outdated books are removed in order to make our gardens grow.

Literacy can take many forms. The ability to read, and interpret the printed word is but one. The ability to read and interpret our surroundings is another. It is a literacy that even when this book was written over 70 years ago we were losing. We have lost more ground since.

Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, this work uses exquisite prose to explain science to the layperson.

Little Changes: Tales of a Reluctant Home Eco-Momics Pioneer - by Kristi Marsh

In conjunction with Bridgewater's One Book One Community Read program, Marsh came to speak at the Bridgewater Public Library to talk about "Goin' Organic with a Budget Friendly Attitude". After a diagnosis of breast cancer, Marsh set out to discover how the chemicals we "smother" on, and "devour" into our bodies, by way of health and beauty products and food, might be playing a part in rising cancer rates.

Marsh began her presentation by saying it was appropriate for her to be speaking at Bridgewater Public Library because some of the research she did for her (very recently published) book was conducted there. While she does not specifically mention Bridgewater Public Library in the book, she does describe "constant trips to the library...[seeking] to fill [her] brain with information." And she does specifically mention Bridgewater State College (now University) as the place where she was first awakened to the reality that the abundance of chemicals in our "health" and beauty products, and our food, could be contributing to the the high rate of breast cancer in the United States. Library as gathering place and community center is made clear in this book when Marsh describes giving her first presentation to a group of other mothers at a local elementary school library. She uses a library methaphor to describe the quietness of the conference room at the Massachusetts Department of Health, where she gave testimony against the use of BPAs in food in beverage containers, and again to illustrate how her her mind worked upon hearing about the President's Panel on Cancer "my mind raced like fingers running through an old library card system." Well, Krisit, you certainly date yourself, here!

Although the message is similar to the one in Michale Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, this was a much easier and quicker read. If I have any qualms about the book, it is this: I don't think Marsh tried to reach a big enough audience. It is clear that her target is other "Moms", which not only excludes fathers, but also anyone who is not a parent. My husband and I attended the presentation together, and based on what we heard have already begun making changes to our food purchases. And although he has not yet read the book, he did look through it to find out what it had to say about chemicals in hair dye, after our teenage daughter left a mess made of the most unnatural pink color on our bathroom walls, floor and countertop, some of which will never come out!

Marsh's message is clear, upbeat, and encouraging. She is realistic about what kind of changes can be made, without being discouraged by setbacks. I was particularly interested in what she said about school fundraisers, and how so often the rely on selling junk food, or cheap products, belying what we otherwise try to teach children about healthy eating and sustainability. I think about annoucements in my church where it would not be unusual to hear about a book discussion of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, followed immediately by an annoucement that one of the kids is selling (preservative laden) cookie dough.
For more information see Kristi Marsh's Choose Wiser website.