Google Doodle Honors 107th Birthday of Rachel Louise Carson

In celebration of the life and legacy of the 107th birthday of the Mother of Green Movement Rachel Louise Carson, Google treats visitors to the search engine homepage with a doodle of blue and white colors of the ocean showing different marine species.

The doodle can be viewed in the countries of Australia, Unites States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Iceland, Ireland, Colombia, Lithuania, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria, Serbia, Ukraine, Oman, Iraq, Poland, Egypt, Libya, Kenya, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan.

According to RachelCarson.org, the ecologist was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Her love for nature and the living world was bestowed from her mother that she devoted almost all her life being a marine biologist. She graduated from the former Pennsylvania College for Women now called Catham College in 1929.She studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory and took her Master of Arts degree in Zoology from John Hopkins University in 1932.

She spent 15 years of her career life serving the U.S. federal services as scientist and editor to Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. She also wrote various articles for The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers.

Apart from editing scientific articles, and writing on conservation and natural resources, Carson also wrote lyric prose from her government research during her spare time. She wrote a number of books including Under the Sea Wind (1941); Fishes of the Middle East (1943); Fish and Shellfish of the Middle Atlantic Coast (1945); Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge (1947); The Sea Around Us (1951); The Edge of the Sea, Houghton Mifflin (1955); and The Sense of Wonder (1965).

She won a National Book Award for the book trilogy Mattamuskeet: A National Wildlife Refuge (1947); Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge (1947); and Bear River: A National Wildlife Refuge (1950). She was also given a posthumous award with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

Carson's most important published work is the Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin (1962) which dealt with the impact of synthetic pesticides on the ecosystem and human health. It demonstrated that pesticides could cause cancer and that other intensive farming practices could pose threat to birds and other wildlife. The book ignited a public turmoil and brought about extensive attention of the effect of these pesticides and other intensive agricultural practices.

She was criticised by the chemical industry and some government as an alarmist but she courageously remained steadfast in her stand. She testified before the Congress in 1963 and appealed for new policies to protect human health and environment. Her efforts did not go in vain for a reversal in national pesticide policy was made which led to a worldwide ban on DDT on agricultural use.

Aside from Rachel Louise Carson, Google doodle has been proactively featuring other notable personalities in the past decade such Mary Anning and Dorothy Hodgkin.