DDT: The Pesticide Behind Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” Still Persists Today

In 1962, Rachel Carson published the famous book “Silent Spring,” which explored the impacts of the pesticide DDT on the environment and human health and catalyzed a movement that led to the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act, establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the ban of DDT in the U.S. in 1972. But DDT is still poses problems today: all the DDT we used to spray still persists in the environment, and some parts of the world still need to use DDT to control malaria and don’t yet have a viable alternative. Today, we discuss why we’ve used DDT, what impacts it’s had, and how we might improve. With special guest Dr. Jessica Templeton: Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science at the London School of Economics.