What is new is that environmentalism intensely illuminates the need to confront the corporate domain at its most powerful and guarded point – the exclusive right to govern the systems of production.
BARRY COMMONERWhat is new is that environmentalism intensely illuminates the need to confront the corporate domain at its most powerful and guarded point – the exclusive right to govern the systems of production.
BARRY COMMONERAs 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 COMMONERWhen you fully understand the situation, it is worse than you think.
BARRY COMMONERIf environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.
BARRY COMMONERRecycling 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 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 COMMONERThe age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over.
BARRY COMMONEREnvironmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.
BARRY COMMONERFinally, since human beings are uniquely capable of producing materials not found in nature, environmental degradation may be due to the resultant intrusion into an ecosystem of a substance wholly foreign to it.
BARRY COMMONERIt reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance.
BARRY COMMONEREarth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.
BARRY COMMONEREverything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
BARRY COMMONERBy adopting the control strategy, the nation’s environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
BARRY COMMONERThe modern technologist is less ‘sorcerer’ and more ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’.
BARRY COMMONERIn nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
BARRY COMMONERThe AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
BARRY COMMONER