Rachel Carson: Green Hero

2007 marks the centenary of the birth of Rachel Carson. The Independent has a profile and an exerpt of her monumental book, Silent Spring -
She was the mother of environmentalism, and in 1962 she published what turned out to be the founding text of modern ecology: Silent Spring. Its title was meant to evoke a time - not far in the future - when the season of new growth would be one in which, to quote Keats, "no birds sing", because they had all died from pesticide poisoning. It was a work which was to be listed - alongside The Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital and The Origin of the Species - as a book which changed the course of history.