This is Chapter 9 of the exhibition “Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: A book that changed the world” by historian Mark Stoll.
This virtual exhibition presents the global reception and impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as well as the book’s legacy in popular culture, music, literature, and the arts.
This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2012 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.
Mark Stoll
For the special section “Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities,” Eben Kirksey reflects on the nature of hope and argues for the importance of grounding it in communities of actual living animals, plants, and microbes.
This film investigates the cost of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster on Lousiana communities, and criticizes the relationship between British Petroleum and the U.S. government.
This film recounts the story of activists aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic 30. Protesting against the first oil drilling in the Arctic ocean, they were jailed by Russia and charged with piracy and hooliganism, sparking a bitter international dispute.
A container ship of the Greek shipping company Costamare Inc. crashes into the Astrolabe Reef off the northern coast of Tauranga, causing New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster.
A supertanker suffers an explosion while offloading oil near Genoa, Italy, triggering a huge oil spill; quick action by Italian authorities limits the extent of the disaster.
In January 1990, four oil spills occured in New York’s Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull waterways, popularizing the heavily traversed channel.
On 3 June 1979 the Ixtoc I oil rig exploded in the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico, and a continuous flow of oil released into the marine environment for nine months. Oil pollution reached coastlines and beaches, and damaged local shrimp populations.
During the Gulf War, Iraqi Military dumped oil from tankers and pipelines into the Persian Gulf to ward off United States military landings and operations.
