The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
BARRY COMMONERThe AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
BARRY COMMONERIt is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
BARRY COMMONERAir pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.
BARRY COMMONEREverything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
BARRY COMMONERMy entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically – and destructively – demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons.
BARRY COMMONERIf you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong way.
BARRY COMMONERWe are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.
BARRY COMMONERNothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
BARRY COMMONERIn certain ways, I’m not very different than I was when I was a teenager.
BARRY COMMONERThe environmental crisis is a sign that the ecosphere is now so heavily strained that its continued stability is threatened. It is a warning that we must discover the source of this suicidal drive and master it before it destroys the environment-and ourselves.
BARRY COMMONERThe gap between brute power and human need continues to grow, as the power fattens on the same faulty technology that intensifies the need.
BARRY COMMONERThe proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
BARRY COMMONERThe 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 COMMONERIn nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
BARRY COMMONERWhen you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
BARRY COMMONERThe methods that EPA introduced after 1970 to reduce air-pollutant emissions worked for a while, but over time have become progressively less effective.
BARRY COMMONER