Rachel Carson: Today, Tomorrow, and Forever

By Jessica Kaplan

Sandra Steingraber examines similar issues to Rachel Carson, but adds a ton of personal anecdotes. Her personal struggles with where she lives are brought out in her book  Raising Elijah. “Ultimately the environmental crisis is a parenting crisis. It undermines my ability to carry out two fundamental duties: to protect my children from harm and to plan for their future.” Steingraber is able to intermingle throughout her book on two different fields. First, she informs her readers with scientific knowledge that is the underlying of her humorous and symbolic family stories. She is able to capture a reader through a funny, yet informative anecdote about a bat in the house, and then draw that back to the fact that we have such strict procedure for something like rabid animals, but not for toxins and carcinogens in our neighborhoods. She states, “I began wondering why we don’t bring a rabies approach- with its urgent, multitiered, take-no-chances, can-do lines of attack – to climate change” relating her personal story back to some of her main themes. In “The Fracking of Rachel Carson” Steingraber analyses Carson’s work. As I read the article I felt as though Steingraber is talking to me about a friend, describing Carson’s feelings about being in the limelight after shocking the world with Silent Spring. She includes numerous quotes from Carson to associate her writing with different subjects, such as, human rights and biodiversity. You can tell while reading the article that Carson was influential in Steingraber’s writing and environmental opinions. 

Steingraber approaches the same end result as Rachel Carson- to arm the reader with the knowledge to advocate for themselves and their families against negligence of companies and government. However, Steingraber adds something that Carson never did (perhaps because of societal norms or out of fear of giving her enemies a reason to discredit her) and that is adding the personal touch. Carson delivered powerful messages and information similarly to Steingraber, but Steingraber includes struggles behind her cancer diagnosis to support her arguments. Carson also struggled with cancer, but never in the public eye. Steingraber writes about her children because that’s how she is able to get her point across. She writes about Halloween costumes (while she questions whether or not her son’s polar bear costume will last longer than the polar bear itself), allowances, and those important childhood milestones every parent cherishes, drawing the reader to connect and laugh- something not common in environmental writing. Similarly to Carson, Steingraber is very easy to understand. She has a more conversational tone to her writing than Carson, which probably adds to the personal aspect of her writing as well. 

Dear Governor Cuomo is a film that is the background of Steingraber’s fight against the fracking industry. It incorporates musical performances set up by New Yorkers Against Fracking. Incorporating musical performances grabs the viewer and may even be able to reach more viewers in the first place. Personally, hearing the songs sung by so many activists is impacting because you can hear the emotion more clearly. Expression through art, especially music is a great way to inform people through an alternative to a written document that not everyone is able to connect to.  This film utilized some key people in the anti-fracking movement. Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Merchant, and Sandra Steingraber are some of the bigger names. Steingraber’s demonstrations at Seneca Lake and her confrontation with a New York lawmaker show a different side from her writing. It’s easy to have a soccer mom image of her from her books, but it’s important that the film highlights her powerful words vocalized. Written activism is just as crucial to the anti-fracking movement as getting out in the public eye and blocking trucks with fracking materials, as Steingraber did. You get to see the diversity of Steingraber as an activist. It compliments her writing in an influential and powerful manner. 

In my home state of Connecticut, there are no gas or oil deposits to even set up a fracking site- I’ll take it! However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a target for the waste of fracking. Many states struggle with the idea that they’re benefitting from other states drilling, but they aren’t willing to take the waste that comes from it. It is an issue based on morals- is it fair to make states that drill for oil and gas also deal with the associated waste? This should be the question trying to be answered in the article, but simply put-they don’t.  Connecticut has passed a moratorium on the importing of fracking products for treatment. This moratorium will expire July, 1 2017 and the evidence behind the risks of importing the fracking waste will decide whether or not a permanent ban will be put in place. In an article, “Fracking banned in Connecticut the word, not the deed” by Susie Cagle, on grist although now outdated (from 2012), demonstrates the confusion behind the meaning of fracking. It was “banned” from airwaves. It caused uproar because of fear that it will be used in comments to mean something else, instead of the terrifying reality of what it really is, and why the process, not just the word, should be banned. Although this article is no way very scholarly by definition, it’s important to see what material was accessible during different times. Looking at this now after seeing the process of fracking being banned in New York, is humorous, but also slightly embarrassing. 

I look around today at this portion of New York that I call home for most of the year, and sense what natives of this area are unable to feel. Like Steingraber points out, her children look around at her village in Utica, at the juncos on the front porch, or the sidewalks to the library and downtown shopping and are unaware of the shale beneath them. As an outsider I admire many aspects of the land and the people here. This makes me look back my actual hometown and begin to identify what makes it a special place to me. As a non-New Yorker I am inspired by New York’s road to the current ban on fracking, and hope that more follow.