Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book, Silent Spring, is credited with triggering the global environmental movement over 50 years ago. She is known as the “Mother of the Modern Environmental Movement.”
Carson is proof that individual citizens can ignite change in the world. She taught us that “persistence is essential” to success in launching an international movement that brought the overlooked environmental issue to the forefront of scientific research. For example, she was battling breast cancer, raising a young grandnephew by herself, and providing care for her elderly mother while Silent Spring was written and then made waves across the scientific world. Her diligent research and careful observations made her the leader of the fledgling environmental movement by providing the expertise, authority, and confidence that made her the leader of the social-justice, economic-justice and eco-justice movements that we know today.
Fable noted the criticism that Carson received during her consequential life:
After Silent Spring was written, the chemical companies attacked Rachel Carson personally and labeled her a “radical” and a “fanatic.” Since Silent Spring was written during the Cold War, one chemical company even accused Rachel Carson of holding dark Communist motives by claiming that she wanted to restrict the use of pesticides in America so that American food supplies would be reduced to the poor food production in Eastern Europe. Critics even claimed that Rachel Carson was an amateur and a sentimental nature lover who distorted science and didn’t fully understand the subject of pesticides like a professional scientist. Magazines, like Time and Life, and the general media inoffensively portrayed Rachel Carson in a sexist way, implying that she looked like more of a teacher or stay-at-home mother and they failed to capture her successful career as a scientist and writer. The media, chemical companies, and agricultural industry all criticized Rachel Carson as being hysterical and irrational since they believed her arguments were all “one-sided and unfair.” Much criticism and controversy over Silent Spring continues to this day, as more scientists argue over the validity of Rachel Carson’s research and some critics argue that Rachel Carson was wrong and Silent Spring is tainted with lies and exaggeration.
Even considering all of the sexist and personal criticism of her intellect, it still makes her experiences pale in comparison to what today's female scientists endure. Her career was before social media created an opportunity for haters, using the anonymity of the internet, to launch lies and threatening attacks against anyone at any time. Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann, the founder of the hockey stick graph and whose research confirmed the reality of global warming, is Exhibit A when it comes to death threats and abuse. “Mann's research particularly infuriated deniers after it was used prominently by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in one of its assessment reports, making him a target of right-wing denial campaigners.”
Environmental and social justice activists across the Earth are murdered, villages torched and forests destroyed. Eureka Alert shared Chalmers University of Technology, the “world's first global research network into climate change denial has now been established,” where they pronounce that "two strong groups have joined forces on this issue—the extractive industry, and right-wing nationalists. The combination has taken the current debate to a much more dramatic level than previously, at the same time as our window of opportunity is disappearing." See story below the fold.
As previously noted, all climate scientists are at risk from right-wing attacks, but Scott Waldman and Niiana Heikkinen of E&E News report that it is women who endure the most wrath from the bullies in the right-wing.
The lengthy story in E&E News is quite compelling and is worth a read. Here are a few snippets.
Threats of death, rape and other forms of violence have left a number of researchers feeling concerned for their safety. They worry about opening envelopes with handwritten addresses and answering phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. Anonymous emails that try to entice a response cause agitation.
“We get this additional layer of hate mail, and people, I think, find it easier to put us down because we are women, or feel like they have more right in telling us what is right or wrong despite our expertise, which is always frustrating,” said Andrea Dutton, a geologist at the University of Florida and an expert on sea-level rise.
snip
The attacks aren’t new. But some scientists say the harassment they’re enduring is becoming more personal, increasingly sexist and less focused on their scientific conclusions. Some suggested that it coincides with rising societal tensions over gender and race, laid bare by President Trump’s political rise.
Unsurprisingly, the threats to female scientists come from men. Studies have shown that it is primarily men who are skeptical of climate change and perceive it as a threat to their masculinity. Afterall, what tough guy wants to walk into the grocery store with a reusable bag? “That’s just sissy,” I suspect they say to themselves.
Kim Cobb, a professor of earth and atmospheric science at Georgia Tech, who has been dismissively nicknamed “Climate Barbie” by the right, makes national TV appearances to discuss climate change issues. She notes that the rage and fury directed at her proves that “the nastiness” is “an indication that her message is reaching people”.
Cobb continues in the article stating:
“I do see a shift toward a lack of substance sharing,” Cobb said. “So much of the flak from the climate-denial community, I think, was in the form of trying to share graphs to show their point, trying to question you on the validity of the science. And a lot of that was very misguided, of course, but it was still pretending to be substantive, on the data, on the issues themselves. But it seems much of it today has turned completely to ad hominem attacks, these stream of emotionally laden insults with no substance whatsoever behind them, just trying to land one below the belt.”
“The environmental movement is, in my view, the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.” Myron Ebell who led the EPA transition for the incoming Trump regime before returning to the anti-regulation thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute.