When I was nine years old, the cafeteria at my elementary school replaced the reusable plastic food trays with paper plates. Incensed by this wasteful act, I frantically circled the cafeteria tables, insisting that my peers hand over their used paper plates for me to bring home and recycle. That day, I saved hundreds of plates from their fate in a landfill. This was perhaps my first major act of environmental activism. Many years later, as an employee of the NYU Office of Sustainability and Masters student in Steinhardt’s Environmental Conservation Education program, I find myself (less frantically) continuing to encourage our community to intentionally disengage from wasteful or unsustainable practices. For fifteen years, I have been fighting the same fight.

For those of us who have been steeped in environmental activism throughout our lives, we know that our tireless efforts are only a small part of a much longer history of the fight for environmental protection. This month, as we recognize the incredible women who have led the environmental movement, we want to of course pay homage to the renowned Rachel Carson.

Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist, writer and naturalist and is often cited as one of the most influential people of the 20^th century for her work to advance the global environmental movement. Carson’s most famous book, Silent Spring, warned of the dangerous consequences of chemical pesticides like DDT and drew attention to the long-term environmental impacts of modern science’s short-term solutions. Silent Spring’s publication reversed trends in national pesticide policies, eventually leading to the ban of DDT and spurring a grassroots movement that birthed the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2012, the American Chemical Society deemed Silent Spring a National Historic Chemical Landmark.

I often wonder what Carson would think of today’s environmental movement. I think she would be moved by the students calling for their colleges to divest from fossil fuels. I think she would applaud the more than 400,000 climate activists who took to the streets during the People’s Climate March. I think she would be proud of the many women leading the modern movement. But I think Rachel Carson would also be calling on us to think more creatively and to develop innovative solutions to truly address the full scope of the problem.

Today, we continue to live out Carson’s legacy. In Carson’s words: “The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.”