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The modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.

Barry Commoner

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Barry Commoner
Age: 95 †
Born: 1917
Born: May 28
Died: 2012
Died: September 30
Academic
Biologist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Military Officer
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
World
Assault
Immediately
Environmental
Began
Environment
Modern
War
Years

More quotes by Barry Commoner

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The gap between brute power and human need continues to grow, as the power fattens on the same faulty technology that intensifies the need.
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In every case, the environmental hazards were made known only by independent scientists, who were often bitterly opposed by the corporations responsible for the hazards.
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Because the global ecosystem is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost and which is not subject to over-all improvement, anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. Payment of this price cannot be avoided it can only be delayed. The present environmental crisis is a warning that we have delayed nearly too long.
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Recycling is a good thing to do. It makes people feel good to do it. The thing I want to emphasize is the vast difference between recycling for the purpose of feeling good and recycling for the purpose of solving the trash problem.
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In general, any productive activity which introduces substances foreign to the natural environment runs a considerable risk of polluting it.
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Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
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When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
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Technologists practice faith too 'Faith that problems have solutions before having the knowledge to solve them.'
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The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.
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Nothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
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The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
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The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
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If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
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No action is without its side effects.
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After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it - removing that advantage for all firms.
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The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.
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What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.
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For that reason the simple test of the slogan 'Consume Less' as a basis for social action on the environment would be to tell it to the blacks in the ghetto. The message will not be very well received for there are many people in this country who consume less than is needed to sustain a decent life.
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World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
Barry Commoner
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The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.
Barry Commoner