Silent Spring: Rachel Carson’s epic work gave birth to the modern environmental movement. 50 Greatest Books. theglobeandmail.Tim Flannery. October 18, 2008. The 1950s were deeply disturbing times. Our fathers, traumatized yet intoxicated by their victorious wartime power, had turned upon our Earth, unleashing the same chemical and nuclear weapons they had deployed a few short years earlier on their fellow human beings.So unhinged were the times that serious proposals were advanced by Russian scientists to use nuclear weapons to destroy the Arctic ice cap and so ameliorate the climate of the world.[ See ]