Air 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 COMMONERThe first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.—->I dont believe in environmentalism as the solution to anything. What I believe is that environmentalism illuminates the things that need to be done to solve all of the problems together.
More Barry Commoner Quotes
-
-
We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.
BARRY COMMONER -
In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
BARRY COMMONER -
The AEC scientists were so narrowly focused on arming the United States for nuclear war that they failed to perceive facts – even widely known ones – that were outside their limited field of vision.
BARRY COMMONER -
Everything is connected to everything else.
BARRY COMMONER -
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.
BARRY COMMONER -
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 -
Technologists practice faith too; ‘Faith that problems have solutions before having the knowledge to solve them.’
BARRY COMMONER -
The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.—->I dont believe in environmentalism as the solution to anything. What I believe is that environmentalism illuminates the things that need to be done to solve all of the problems together.
BARRY COMMONER -
Finally, 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 COMMONER -
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.
BARRY COMMONER -
Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.
BARRY COMMONER -
Seen that way, the wholesale transformation of production technologies that is mandated by pollution prevention creates a new surge of economic development.
BARRY COMMONER -
No action is without its side effects.
BARRY COMMONER -
In general, any productive activity which introduces substances foreign to the natural environment runs a considerable risk of polluting it.
BARRY COMMONER -
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.
BARRY COMMONER