WP: The CBS Report That Helped 'Silent Spring' Be Heard

[MountainLaurel]

Before global warming was hot and Al Gore was cool, there was Rachel Carson, the maverick marine biologist from Silver Spring who sounded an environmental-awareness alarm. Memories of her work return periodically to remind us how far we have come in making the world a safer place, and how far we have to go.

Her 1962 manifesto "Silent Spring" -- in which she envisioned a planet imperiled by pesticides -- is still taught in schools and universities around the world. Each Earth Day her name is invoked as a godmother of the green movement. And now comes a screening of a 1963 "CBS Reports" episode, "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson."

There is, in the hour-long, black-and-white warning, a sort of retrospectral sense, an I-told-you-so from beyond the grave. Up against a smooth-talking scientist and befuddled bureaucrats, Carson cuts through the hazmat haze and warns that widespread use of biocidal chemicals will silence birds, still fishes and destroy innocent plant life.

The film, which has pretty much been locked away in the network's vaults since it originally aired, will be shown tomorrow night at the National Archives as part of the Environmental Film Festival. In addition, there will be a month-long exhibit of documents to honor Carson in the centennial year of her birth. She died of cancer in 1964.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001762.html