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All Barry Commoner Quotes
It 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 Commoner
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It is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
Barry Commoner
54% of people like this quote
By adopting the control strategy, the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
Barry Commoner
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My 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 Commoner
53% of people like this quote
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
52% of people like this quote
The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
Barry Commoner
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In every case, the environmental hazards were made known only by independent scientists, who were often bitterly opposed by the corporations responsible for the hazards.
Barry Commoner
51% of people like this quote
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
51% of people like this quote
The modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.
Barry Commoner
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The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
Barry Commoner
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The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.
Barry Commoner
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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.
Barry Commoner
49% of people like this quote
The wave of new productive enterprises would provide opportunities to remedy the unjust distribution of environmental hazards among economic classes and racial and ethnic communities.
Barry Commoner
49% of people like this quote
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.
Barry Commoner
49% of people like this quote
Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.
Barry Commoner
48% of people like this quote
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