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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

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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
Power
Faulty
Human
Brute
Humans
Brutes
Need
Continues
Needs
Gaps
Grow
Technology
Grows
Intensifies

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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 proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
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The modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.
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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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In general, any productive activity which introduces substances foreign to the natural environment runs a considerable risk of polluting it.
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The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
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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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When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
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If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
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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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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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