In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
BARRY COMMONERIn nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
BARRY COMMONERAll of the clean technologies are known, it’s a question of simply applying them.
BARRY COMMONEREnvironmental 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 COMMONERNothing can survive on the planet unless it is a cooperative part of larger global life.
BARRY COMMONERIf you ask what you are going to do about global warming, the only rational answer is to change the way in which we do transportation, energy production, agriculture and a good deal of manufacturing. The problem originates in human activity in the form of the production of goods.
BARRY COMMONERNothing ever dies, nothing ever goes away.
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 COMMONERBy adopting the control strategy, the nation’s environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
BARRY COMMONERIt is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
BARRY COMMONERThe proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.
BARRY COMMONEREarth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.
BARRY COMMONERSeen that way, the wholesale transformation of production technologies that is mandated by pollution prevention creates a new surge of economic development.
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 COMMONERI see no reason to have my shirts ironed. It’s irrational.
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 COMMONERThe modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.
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