Barry Commoner Quotes

I see no reason to have my shirts ironed. It's irrational.
Barry Commoner

Reason, Irrational, Shirts

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

Food, Through, Poor

If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong way.
Barry Commoner

End, Light, Wrong

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

Technology, Human, Social

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 Commoner

Powerful, Point, Production

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

After, Child, Social

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.
Barry Commoner

Environmental, Life, Education

If 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 Commoner

Change, Good, Human

No action is without its side effects.
Barry Commoner

Action, Side, Effects

The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.
Barry Commoner

Army, Command, Scientists

The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.
Barry Commoner

Crisis, Die, Sick

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

Change, Power, Powerful

There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Barry Commoner

World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
Barry Commoner

War, Technology, Important

All of the clean technologies are known, it's a question of simply applying them.
Barry Commoner

Question, Known, Simply

By adopting the control strategy, the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
Barry Commoner

Control, Between, Nation

Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.
Barry Commoner

Environmental, Wanted, American

Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.
Barry Commoner

Disease, Pollution, Incurable

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

Simple, While, Quality

I don't 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

Done, Together, Problems

In certain ways, I'm not very different than I was when I was a teenager.
Barry Commoner

Different, Ways, Teenager

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

Made, Often, Known

It is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
Barry Commoner

Impossible, Simply, Approach

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

Science, Through, Between

Nature knows best.
Barry Commoner

Nature, Best, Knows

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Scientist

Born: May 28, 1917

Died: September 30, 2012

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Cite this Page: Citation

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