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Rachel
Carson
Rachel
Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 � April 14, 1964) was an American marine
biologist and nature writer whose writings are credited with
advancing the global environmental movement.
Carson started her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of
Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her
widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her financial
security and recognition as a gifted writer. Her next book, The Edge
of the Sea, and the republished version of her first book, Under the
Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. Together, her sea trilogy explores
the whole of ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep
sea.
In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation and
the environmental problems caused by synthetic pesticides. The
result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental
concerns to an unprecedented portion of the American public. Silent
Spring spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy�leading to a
nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides�and the grassroots
environmental movement the book inspired led to the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
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