The Backfiring Ignorance of Human Kind Concerning its Role in Earth's Ecosystems

Rachel Carson’s text “Of Man and the Stream of Time” was first published in the Scripps College Bulletin in June 1962. It contains the transcript of a speech in which she adresses the next generation directly. She states out that she was invited to speak to them by the President of the college. Then she gives the topic of her speech: “man’s relation to nature and more specifically of man’s attitude toward nature” (421). She points out that humans are a part of nature but humans lack awareness of that fact. In geologic time humans have been existing only for a moment until now but the effect they have on earth is “tremendous” - especially because there is no “wisdom to avoid destruction of itself” (422) despite the highly developed brain functions. Knowledge replaced fear and superstition of the past but with too much arrogance and no humility (ibid.). The Jewish-Christian concept of man as “master of all earths inhabitants” (423) considers the creation made especially for the purposes of mankind. The utility of nature has value but not nature’s existence itself. There is the “idea of a world arranged for man’s use and convenience” (ibid.). Before Hiroshima Carson wasn’t even sure if nature needed protection from humans because it seemed untouchable (424). But afterwards she knew that she was wrong. She describes the thread posed by nuclear waste and weapons and modern chemistry as a “war on other organisms” (ibid.) - and this war against nature must be understood as a war against himself. Not only nature needs protection from humans but humans themselves (425). She then closes the circle to the title of the speech: “Through all this problem there runs a constant theme, and the theme is the flowing stream of time, unhurried, unmindful of man’s restless and feverish pace. It is made up of geologic events, [...]” (425, emphasis in italics by the present writer). The present balanced state of earth in the 1960s is the result of accommodation of hundreds of millions of years, but this balance is in great danger because of a man-made artificial environment put into pre-existing nature at a highly rapid rate: “There simply is no time for living protoplasm to adjust to them” (ibid.). Actions aim at shortrange gain and do not consider their impact on earth and ourselves (426). Scientific knowledge which predicts these effects would be available but Carson states an “unwillingness to be guided” (ibid,) by it in the age of technology where it is possible to split the atom and use the energy for war and peace endangering earth and every living being. She admits the responsibility of her own generation that brought this destructive power upon the world and puts her hopes into the next generation which “must face realities instead of taking refuge in ignorance and evasion of truth” (427) – to master the challenge not to gain control over nature anymore but human kind’s actions that influence nature so harshly and destructively. So the central problem of the dilemma described by Carson is the limited mindset of human kind which separates its own existence from nature and ignores the effects every man-made impact has on humans themselves. The solution proposed by Carson in her speech is to make the next generation aware of the responsibility on their shoulders to challenge themselves and change this mindset and the following actions. From Carson’s explanations is to be taken that the willingness to adhere to solutions proposed by ecology or other environmental sciences could be crucial for this undertaking (compare 426) because “...half of mankind is busily preparing to destroy the other half and to reduce our whole planet to radioactive ashes in the doing” (427) – the need for protection of the whole ecological system is more than urgent for human kind’s survival itself because the stream of time consists of feedback loops no-one can escape from. 

Sources: 

Carson, R. “Of Man and the Stream of Time.” Silent Spring & Other Writings on the Environment. Ed. S. Steingraber. New York: Library of America, 2018. Pages 421–27