A Convenient Spring

A Fable of Tomorrow

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.
Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the travelers eye, through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Other came to fish in the strams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.
Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by the new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.
There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example - where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribound; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chick hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs - the litters were small and the youong survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.
The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, desereted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.
In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.
No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962.


Though most people now acknowledge that DDT perhaps was not the wonderous multipurpose pesticide that one had hoped, Rachel Carson had to stand a lot of criticism from the pesticide industry in the early 60s, such as "She's not writing 'as a scientist but rather as a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature'" and "I think Miss Carson has indulged in hindsight, [...] in many cases we have to learn from experience and often it is difficult to exercise the proper foresight." Hindsight may be better than no sight at all.

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. He will end by destroying the earth. - Albert Schweizer

Hindsight may very soon be the only view of global warming. While most people seem to agree that it exists and there is something we can do about it, there are still those who feel they have to use every opportunity to raise doubts as to whether it exists, whether it's problem, and if we should bother. So they gather the handful of scientists and statesmen that they can get to make statements such as:

• Global warming - "It's a hoax. It's an outrageous hoax, and they know it!"


• It's very difficult to say that all of that temperature rise is due to climate gases.


• Well, statistics can't give your correlation.


• If a five day forecast is that unpredictible, how can it predict anything a decade into the future?


• We can take as much action as our economist allow...


• Hurricanes would get stronger with global warming, but only about 5% 100 years from now...

All of which is nicely rounded up with a nice touch of irony:
Here at Fox News we will continue to examine issues fairly and openly. We do not, and will not, advocate any position to our viewers. We report, you decide.

That's why it's nice to see former president to be, Al Gore, do a little stunt to raise attention around global warming. Watch this interview with Al Gore, regarding global warming and the movie based on his lectures, "An Inconvenient Truth".