Tracking the fate of the metaphor silent spring in British environmental discourse

Towards an evolutionary ecology of metaphor

Résumé

The images and metaphors used in debates about the risks and benefits associated with cloning, genetically modified (GM) food and genomics have been relatively well researched. There have been less detailed studies of the metaphors and images used in the debate about agriculture and the environment. To fill this gap this article will explore how the 1960s book and the metaphor silent spring (Carson 1962) were rhetorically and politically exploited in British environmental, ecological and agricultural discourses between 1998 (a date that coincides with the height of the debate over cloning and GM food) and 2002 (a date that coincides with the height of the debate over the human genome, as well as the debate over sustainable agriculture). The first part of this article will be devoted to discussing the significance of silent spring in its past and present political, scientific and literary contexts. The second part will analyse the rhetorical and argumentative uses made of silent spring in British broadsheets and scientific journals in three types of debates: the debate about pesticides and their threats to birds and humans (where environmental and agricultural discourses intersect); the debate about GM food (where genetic, agricultural and environmental discourses intersect); and the debate about foot and mouth disease (where agricultural and environmental discourses intersect). This article closes with an appeal for an ecological study of metaphor.