Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway | Book review. Rachel Carson is generally viewed as an environmental heroine, a courageous campaigner whose book, Silent Spring, alerted the world to the dangers of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Hers was a success story, the tale of a woman who highlighted a serious problem – that the anti-mosquito agent DDT was building up in the food chain where it was killing millions of birds and animals – and who helped introduce a global ban on use of the chemical.
At least that is the common appreciation of Carson. However, a brief search of her name on the internet today produces an unexpected response. According to many websites, Carson – by all accounts a pleasant, amiable woman – was a mass murderer who killed more people than the Nazis. "Millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm," states one site set up by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. So why this hysterical vilification? Collapse of Western Civilization. "Merchants Of Doubt" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Naomi Oreskes (NaomiOreskes) sur Twitter. Erik M. Conway (ErikMConway) sur Twitter.