Friday, May 15, 2020

Arthro-Pod EP 75: The Rise and Fall of DDT Part 2


Welcome back to Arthro-Pod! Today is part two of our deep dive into the history of DDT, a long and convoluted story that has lots of effects on us today. This portion of the story is about the long fall that DDT had, beginning with the publication of "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson and ending with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. We talk about the way people viewed Rachel Carson and her work, what the problem is with believing in a "silver bullet", and how DDT may have helped politicize environmentalism. 


Show notes
Learn more about Rachel Carson and her work at https://www.rachelcarson.org


This is also a good look at current perspectives on her and her work
https://slate.com/technology/2012/09/silent-spring-turns-50-biographer-william-souder-clears-up-myths-about-rachel-carson.html

If you enjoyed the show, the majority of the research for it came from David Kinkela's book "DDT and The American Century". It's highly recommended if you want to see more of the primary sources and the inspiration for a lot of our discussion.

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469609775/ddt-and-the-american-century/


Questions? Comments? 
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This episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/




Beginning/ending theme: "There It Is" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0