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

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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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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 modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.
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If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
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World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
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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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When you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
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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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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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Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law in journalism, literature and art.
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The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
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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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Nothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
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The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
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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.
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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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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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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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Everything is connected to everything else.
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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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