The Audubon Naturalist Society actively opposed chemical spraying programs and recruited Carson to help publicize the U.S. government's spraying practices and related research. Carson began the four-year project of "Silent Spring" by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She tried to enlist essayist E. B. White and a number of journalists and scientists to her cause. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with "Newsweek" science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when "The New Yorker" commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon it became a solo project. Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of "Silent Spring".