Left Turns Rachel Carson into Hero for Children

The left wants to tell children a story about the founding of modern environmentalism, but their fairy tale version ignores the grim reality.

Storybooks abound about Rachel Carson, the marine biologist who wrote “Silent Spring” nearly 50 years ago. In fact, there are 130 children’s books about her available through Amazon.com that teach children to idolize Carson and how to become liberal activists, but without telling them the lives that could have been saved by DDT. Some of those books even promoted left-wing environmental groups like the George Soros-funded Natural Resources Defense Council.

The books are pro-environmentalist propaganda, sometimes targeted at toddlers and young children who would more typically be looking at books about animals and cars. One such picture book by Laurie Lawlor, called “Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World” tells little ones: “No one had taken a stand against big business, federal agencies that approved chemical use, or universities that performed shoddy research about the effects of chemicals. She knew she was walking into dangerous territory.”

“Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World,” released in February, is just the latest of many books for children of all ages about the lefty environmental “hero.” Left-wing eco-activists laud Carson as the foremother of today’s environmental movement. Former vice president Al Gore even wrote the introduction to a 1994 edition of “Silent Spring,” and credited her as his inspiration to become an environmentalist.

Gore wrote: “Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved in environmental issues.” Of course, the environmentalists who idolize Carson  and her 1962 book ignore the negative impact it. Without it, DDT could have been used to help prevent millions of people from dying a miserable death from malaria.

From beautifully illustrated picture books to young reader’s books, there is plenty of pro-Carson (anti-chemical) propaganda available to children. Many of these books come complete with sections dedicated to Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth” along with suggestions for how small children can become eco-activists.

“Rachel Carson” by Marie-Therese Miller, part of a book series called: “Conservation Heroes”, is aimed at older grade school children. Gore also has a book in this series. This book outlined the lefts vision of what Rachel Carson accomplished and her history. In the final chapter dedicated to Carson’s supposed legacy, the author failed to mention the real lasting impression of Carson — a continual state of environmental hysteria.

“Who on Earth is Rachel Carson? Mother of the Environmental Movement” by Glenn Scherer and Marty Fletcher, indoctrinates grade school children into thinking that population growth is bad. They wrote, “Rachel also saw what happens to nature when the human population increases rapidly and development takes place with little or no control.”

After sharing one-sided tales of Carson the hero, both “Rachel Carson” and “Who on Earth is Rachel Carson? Mother of the Environmental Movement” teach kids how to become environmentalists like her. Both books end with suggestions on where a child can go to get involved in the environmental movement. A child could visit the website for Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a Soros-funded environmental extremist group, or they could get involved at their local Sierra club.

Henry Miller, scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, argued in a Sept. 5 op-ed for  Forbes.com called “Rachel Carson’s Deadly Fantasies” that Carson’s real legacy lie in her disingenuous claims that stopped a useful life saver around the world.

“DDT was used with dramatic effect to shorten and prevent typhus epidemics during and after WWII when people were dusted with large amounts of it but suffered no ill effects, which is perhaps the most persuasive evidence that the chemical is harmless to humans,” Miller wrote.

Another expert, Dennis Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute, said Carson is indirectly responsible for millions of preventable deaths noting “The absence of DDT had led to the needless deaths of at least 30 million people from malaria and yellow fever in the tropics … Most of them were helpless African children.”