Excerpts from the Globe’s environmental blog.
If you are of a certain age - or lean toward the trees - you’ve no doubt read Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring,’’ which alerted the US public to the devastation wrought by DDT and other pesticides on the environment. By many accounts, Carson’s book launched a new age of environmentalism in the country that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yet I never really knew the extent of Carson’s relationship to Massachusetts, especially to Woods Hole and Plum Island.
At the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Madison, Wis., earlier this month, I met Bill Souder, a Pulitzer finalist and environmental author who is writing a book about Carson to celebrate the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring.’’ Also, after this blog post appeared, I heard from Carson’s biographer, Linda Lear, who notes Carson’s Massachusetts connection is well documented in her book “Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature,’’ which has been reprinted this year. Also, coincidentally last night, there was an annual Rachel Carson Harvest Dinner scheduled in Falmouth with proceeds going to local food pantries.
Souder - along with some reference material from the federal government and local research institutions - gives insight into Carson’s Bay State days. After graduating from Pennsylvania College for Women, Carson spent six weeks in 1929 as a research zoology investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.
Three years later, as a Johns Hopkins University graduate student, she returned to MBL to conduct embryological research on bony fish. She returned almost every year, in large part to make use of the institution’s scientific library, according to Souder.
By 1936, Carson was working for the US Bureau of Fisheries (today called the US Fish and Wildlife Service) in Washington, D.C., rising to become chief editor of the agency’s publications. She often would travel to newly established federal refuges to write pamphlets on wildlife and conservation in them. Carson first went to the newly formed Parker River Wildlife Refuge in Newburyport in 1946.
An e-mail from Souder notes Carson “was accompanied by Fish and Wildlife Service illustrator Kay Howe, who was also a close friend. They stayed at an inn in Newburyport and made daily expeditions to Plum Island with the refuge manager, traveling by car and on foot through the dunes. They were engaged mainly in observations of birds and habitat improvements underway there.’’
In 1949, Carson and another research woman scientist took a 10-day trip on the agency’s research vessel, the Albatross III, from Woods Hole to the cod-rich grounds of Georges Bank more than 100 miles offshore.
Boston council candidates talk green
All eight Boston City Council candidates told more than 200 people Thursday night of their green space intentions as part of a debate hosted by Boston Park Advocates, a citywide network of organizers and individuals championing urban parks.
Organizers say the lively debate touched on issues from funding to arts in parks to community gardens to bicycling.
The laugh of the evening came when candidate Felix Arroyo was asked, “What does the Asian longhorned beetle mean to you?’’ (The beetle is an invasive pest wreaking havoc in Worcester.) Arroyo, stumped, responded that if the insect had horns it must not be good, but then pledged to learn everything he could about it.
The candidates pledged various efforts that included the creation of a dedicated funding stream for parks, more concessions in parks to raise money for maintenance, taking away car parking spaces to increase and support bicycling, and ensuring parks remain safe and well maintained.
