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No action is without its side effects.

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
Sides
Action
Without
Effects
Side

More quotes by Barry Commoner

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The environmental crisis is a signal of this approaching catastrophe.
Barry Commoner
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If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
Barry Commoner
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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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Technologists practice faith too 'Faith that problems have solutions before having the knowledge to solve them.'
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The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over.
Barry Commoner
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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 modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.
Barry Commoner
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When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
Barry Commoner
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The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
Barry Commoner
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The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
Barry Commoner
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Everything is connected to everything else.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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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Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline - which prevented it from entering the environment.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
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Nothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
Barry Commoner