Rachel Carson：Witness for Nature

◎供稿：Yao

也許二十世紀最偉大的自然作家就是雷切爾·卡森，她的著作《寂靜的春天》（1962年）提醒了人們濫用化學殺蟲劑對所有自然系統的危害，并質疑現代科學的范圍和方向，內容相當令人震撼，引發了當代環保運動。

Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother1)bequeath［bI?kwi?e］ v. 遺贈；把……傳下去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［?fed?r?l］ adj. 聯邦的；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［?IrI?vз?s?blI］adv. 不可逆地irreversibly.

Disturbed by the5)profligate［?pr?flIɡ?t］adj. 放蕩的profligateuse of6)synthetic［sIn?θetIk］adj. 綜合的；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. 殺蟲劑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［?segm?nt］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.

雷切爾·卡森是作家、科學家和生態學家，她在賓夕法尼亞州斯普林代爾的鄉村河流小鎮中長大。她的母親教育她一生要熱愛自然和生活。卡森于1929年畢業于賓夕法尼亞女子學院（現為查塔姆大學），曾就讀于伍茲霍爾海洋生物實驗室，并于1932年獲得約翰·霍普金斯大學的動物學碩士學位。

在美國經濟大蕭條期間，她被美國漁業局聘用，撰寫廣播劇本。1936年，她以科學家和編輯的身份在聯邦機構開始了15年的職業生涯，之后成為美國魚類和野生動物管理局所有出版物的總編輯。卡森于1952年辭職，專心寫作。

她還撰寫了其他幾篇文章，旨在教人們有關生活世界的奇跡和美麗，包括《幫助您的孩子去奇觀》（1956年）和《我們千變萬化的海岸》（1957年），并策劃了另一本關于生態學的書。卡森所有著作中都包含著這樣一種觀點，即人類只是自然界的一部分，其主要特征是人類具有改變自然的能力，在某些情況下是不可逆轉的。

第二次世界大戰后，受濫用合成化學農藥的干擾，卡森很不情愿地改變了工作重點，以警告公眾濫用農藥的長期影響。在《寂靜的春天》（1962年）中，她對農業科學家和政府的做法提出質疑，并呼吁改變人類看待自然世界的方式。

當我們通過科學或甚至通過媒體看待世界時，我們將世界隔離開來，而我們只關注其中很小的部分，就好像它們之間沒有聯系。由于世界上所有事物都是相互聯系的，因此一切都承擔著責任。

卡森遭到化學工業和政府中一些人的警告，但仍勇敢地大聲提醒我們，我們是自然世界的脆弱部分，遭受的破壞與生態系統其他部分一樣。卡森于1963年在國會作證，呼吁采取新政策保護人類健康和環境。雷切爾·卡森經過與乳腺癌的長期斗爭后于1964年去世。她對生活美麗和完整性的見證繼續激勵著新一代，以保護生活世界及其所有生物。

環境保護署將卡森視為創始靈感：“毫無疑問……《寂靜的春天》促使聯邦政府采取行動對抗水和空氣污染，以及對農藥的濫用，要在這些成為事實的幾年前采取行動，否則可能會出現轉移。”綠色和平組織和地球之友等組織直接將其起源追溯到卡森的書。