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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.

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
Independent
Responsible
Bitterly
Case
Hazards
Cases
Scientists
Known
Opposed
Often
Corporations
Made
Environmental
Every
Scientist

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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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Technologists practice faith too 'Faith that problems have solutions before having the knowledge to solve them.'
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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.
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The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
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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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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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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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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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World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
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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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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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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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If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
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The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.
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The environmental crisis is a signal of this approaching catastrophe.
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When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
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Nothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
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I see no reason to have my shirts ironed. It's irrational.
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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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No action is without its side effects.
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