My parents have never been activists nor strict environmentalists (although my mother did recommend Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring to me in high school). Now, suddenly, they are die-hard NIMBYs (an acronym for 'Not In My Backyard'), a term with a mostly pejorative air.

Commoner's passing reminds me that now I'm old, and the simplistic right and wrong/good and bad of my earlier environmentalist innocence has yielded to the crazy plaid complications of many issues.

"This is not what Rachel Carson would have wanted for her 50th anniversary present." Mardi Mellon, senior scientist with the non-profit Union of Co...

While powerful, the polluter playbook is no match for the truth and those brave enough to shout it from the rooftops. That is the lesson of Rachel Carson. Her courage inspired citizens to demand change, even as polluters tried to silence the author of Silent Spring.

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Just as she confronted the paternalism of postwar science, and questioned the paradigm of scientific progress and mastery that defined postwar America, I imagine Carson would today name the most disabling dynamic of our times: corporations running roughshod over democracy.

In 1962, Rachel Carson began sounding the alarm about the dangers of exposure to chemicals and the failure of the industry and regulators to protect people from those dangers. Fifty years later, Lynne Peeples's anniversary feature in Huffington is a reminder that we have failed to heed many of Carson's warnings, especially when it comes to protecting our most precious resource, our children.

In the 50 years since Silent Spring was published, the environmental movement it helped create has accomplished a great deal. It may be less popular to suggest, but it is no less true, that this seminal book and the movement it helped spawn have also caused a great deal of harm.

What a new report found is that women tend to support clean air, clean water, and overall environmental protections within the aim of promoting public health and resource conservation for future generations.

On this Earth Day, which comes nearly fifty years since the first printing of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's work continues to stand as a testament to the power of conscience, insight and our collective ability to make the world a better place.

Rachel Carson would be proud of the kids at Renaissance High School in Watsonville, California.

I keep thinking about Rachel Carson these days, because the current efforts to discredit climate scientists look a lot like the powerful resistance that met Carson's warnings about DDT.

Each year, our global biosphere endures an onslaught of 5 billion pounds of insecticides. These insecticides have caused a dramatic decline for many common grassland bird species.

the pervasive use of the herbicide atrazine raises a host of ecological and political questions that are strikingly reminiscent of those confronted by Rachel Carson.

Somehow Glenn Beck's wacky proclamations never cease to amaze both in their inaccuracy and outrageousness. In case you missed this, here's a video of ...

The particulates from our own medicated bodily fluids are so fine that there are no water processing plants in the world that can trap them.

It's a quiet film, one that asks us to set aside our hunger for over-dramatic portrayals of human conflict; watching it feels like a meditation of sorts.