The favorite statistic is that the U.S. contains 6 to 7% of the world population but consumes more than half the world's resources and is responsible for that fraction of the total environmental pollution. But this statistic hides another vital fact: that not everyone in the U.S. is so affluent.
Barry CommonerEnvironmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.
Barry CommonerWe are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.
Barry CommonerEverything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Barry CommonerIt is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
Barry CommonerOur assaults on the ecosystem are so powerful, so numerous, so finely interconnected, that although the damage they do is clear, it is very difficult to discover how it was done. By which weapon? In whose hand? Are we driving the ecosphere to destruction simply by our growing numbers? By our greedy accumulation of wealth? Or are the machines which we have built to gain this wealth-the magnificent technology that now feeds us out of neat packages, that clothes us in man-made fibers, that surrounds us with new chemical creations-at fault?
Barry Commoner