Rachel Carson honors blocked
Just in time for what would have been her 100th birthday on May 27, famed environmentalist Rachel Carson of Pennsylvania has been targeted by one of the more rabidly anti-environmental Republican U.S. senators, Tom Coburn from Oklahoma.
Coburn put out a press release boasting that he had put a hold on two bipartisan resolutions honoring Carson, one to honor her life and work against the scourge of DDT, the other to name a Post Office for her in Pennsylvania. A hold prevents the resolutions from coming up for a vote.
Why is Coburn so upset about these resolutions? Good question. According to him, it is because she promoted "junk science" with her 1962 book, Silent Spring and thus prevented the wonderful insecticide DDT from continuing to be used around the world. The DDT question is a complex one; it kills malaria mosquitos quite handily but also poisons the environment and harms other species. Carson's book, apart from alerting the world to the dangers of DDT, is considered as much as any book the Genesis of the 20th century environmental movement.
But one has to wonder whether Carson's quiet lesbianism was the real reason for Coburn's outrage at the proposed honors. Coburn is as much a homophobe as he is an anti-environmental zealot. Most notoriously, he made a public statement, for which he received considerable ridicule both inside and outside Oklahoma, that lesbianism was "rampant" in public school restrooms in his home state. Coburn has a long history of opposition to anything that might give gays and lesbians the same rights as everyone else, or to protect them from persecution by people like him.
Meanwhile, atop the Rachel Carson State Office Building in Harrisburg, Pa., you can watch via Web cam a nesting family of peregrine falcons, one of the species saved by the ban on DDT instigated by Carson. The link won't take you directly to the webcam; there is a further link on the right side of the page that brings up the live image. You can see the mother falcon feeding her chicks. It's quite amazing to watch.