Contribution to the Good Society

Contribution to the Good Society

1. In Carson’s book, some of the tradeoffs between the four pillars of the good society, as highlighted in the executive compass is evident in her book.

One is the tradeoff between community and efficiency

1. With this tradeoff, Carson was geared towards the community pole in the sense that she advocated against human’s efficient way of dealing with the pest problem at the expense of human life, which is the use of harmful chemicals.
2. She gave an example of farmers in trying to be efficient in their crop production by protecting their crops against pests, they spray their crops with harmful chemicals to destroy these pests that attack their crops.  
3. When these chemicals are sprayed into the environment, they affect the wellbeing of the community by causing the death of animals who take in crops sprayed with these chemicals and causing diseases like cancer in humans, when humans inhale these harmful chemicals or take in crops sprayed with these chemicals.

The tussle between liberty and community’s interdependence

1. The second tradeoff evident in her book was the tradeoff between liberty and community.
2. Once again, Carson was geared towards the community pole, which is the environment, as she believes living things are interdependent of one another.
3. Carson was against the fact that liberty encouraged man’s freedom of destroying crops they find unattractive at the expense of community’s interdependence.
4. Carson believes there are no useless plants in our environment and hence, it was wrong for man to destroy plants they find unattractive, as this disturbs the interdependent relationship that plant might have with other living things in the environment.
5. Looking at the two communitarian threads highlighted in the executive compass: Humans, apart from nature and Humans, a part of nature. Carson believes humans are a part of nature in the sense as all living things are interdependent of one another, any negative effect on the environment affects every living thing in the environment.
6. She gave an example of how herbivores like antelopes feed on grass but once these plants are destroyed, there’s no food for the antelope. In addition, some plants which are not the natural food of some animals become attractive to these animals when sprayed with chemicals. These animals begin to feed on these plants and die from the poison.
7. Also she talked about how humans get infected with diseases when they take in drinking water from water bodies, which were used by animals, which fed on crops sprayed with harmful chemicals.
8. Overall, Carson advocated for protecting the environment to serve well for us and the future generation.