On September 27, 1962, with the publication of an unprecedented book, a quiet woman launched a revolution through methodical research, eloquent prose, and an impassioned cry for placing precaution over profit. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted the world to the dangers of unabated chemical usage for the natural world and for human health. Seldom does a book stir such emotion, spark controversy or inspire new social movements, but Silent Spring was no ordinary book. Its passage led to the banning of DDT, the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and greater regulation of air and water, while inspiring individuals around the US and across the world to lead their communities toward environmental responsibility.

Carson, a 1929 graduate of the Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham College, did not live to see the impact of her work. She was dying of breast cancer as she wrote about the toxic chemicals later linked to spiraling environmental health disease. She passed away on April 14, 1964. While being poisoned with the radiation treatment to control her cancer, Carson had unprecedented courage in the face of industry attacks on the credibility of her research. Her research is heralded in today's understanding of environmental contaminants and their effects, while Carson has been recognized as one of the world's most influential figures of the 20th Century.

Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She grew up loving both nature and also writing. Carson worked hard throughout her life, to study the environment and protect it. Yet a hundred years after her birth, humanity's precarious dance with nature is still, one of the most defining challenges the world faces in the 21st Century. We use nature as a commodity at our peril. Depletion of non-renewable resources, climate change, rapid and irreversible loss of biodiversity, and chronic human illness linked to pollution threatens our habitat, our health, our very survival. We must return to an understanding that our lives thread through the leaves around us. We are interconnected and interdependent with nature. We must heed Carson's warning and renew the call for precaution.

For the 40th anniversary of Silent Spring, on September 27, 2002, Chatham College launched stage two of our campus sustainability project, Chatham eCollegie, by simultaneously purchasing ten percent of campus energy from renewable resources, launching the TRAC initiative to eliminate toxic chemicals on campus, through the phase out of pesticides and non-toxic cleaning products and paints, as a most fitting way to commemorate Carson's message that uncontrolled and unregulated chemical usage was fundamentally altering natural and human health. Chatham's 40th anniversary initiative set the bar for College and Universities across the country to commit to 10% or higher in purchasing renewable energy, while offering a model of campus sustainability that includes elimination of pesticides.

To commemorate Rachel Carson's 100th Birthday, Chatham College will recommit itself to its environmental mission in practice, in education and within the regional and national public debate. The year 2007 will be set aside to remember Rachel Carson and her life's work.

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