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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.
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
Feel
Difference
Feels
Environment
Thing
Differences
Reuse
Good
Feeling
Emphasize
People
Purpose
Recycling
Feelings
Solving
Makes
Trash
Problem
Vast
More quotes by Barry Commoner
The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
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The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
Barry Commoner
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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World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.
Barry Commoner
As the earth spins through space, a view from above the North Pole would encompass most of the wealth of the world - most of its food, productive machines, doctors, engineers and teachers. A view from the opposite pole would encompass most of the world's poor.
Barry Commoner
Everything is connected to everything else.
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The favorite statistic is that the U.S. contains 6 to 7% of the world population but consumes more than half the world's resources and is responsible for that fraction of the total environmental pollution. But this statistic hides another vital fact: that not everyone in the U.S. is so affluent.
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The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
Barry Commoner
No action is without its side effects.
Barry Commoner
In general, any productive activity which introduces substances foreign to the natural environment runs a considerable risk of polluting it.
Barry Commoner
Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law in journalism, literature and art.
Barry Commoner
Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Barry Commoner
When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
Barry Commoner
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.
Barry Commoner
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.
Barry Commoner
If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
Barry Commoner
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.
Barry Commoner
