Barry Commoner, pillar of environmental movement, dies at 95

[ellisonz]

Commoner, a biologist, campaigned for a nuclear test ban treaty in the '60s and linked environmental problems to technological advances. He ran for president in 1980.
By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
October 1, 2012, 10:28 p.m.

Barry Commoner, a scientist-activist whose ability to identify and explain complex ecological crises and advocate radical solutions made him a pillar of the environmental movement, died of natural causes Sunday in New York City. He was 95.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Lisa Feiner.

Commoner was a biologist and author whose seminal 1971 book, "The Closing Circle: Man, Nature and Technology," argued for the connectedness of humans and the natural world. It said environmental problems were related to technological advances and had a role in social and economic injustice.

He conducted research that helped propel a successful campaign for a nuclear test ban treaty in the early 1960s and drew early attention to the dangers of dioxins, the potential of solar energy and recycling as a practical means of reducing waste.

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-barry-commoner-20121002,0,7763209.story

We're going to need a new generation of half-Socialist loud-mouth environmentalist gadflys...

[GliderGuider]

1. Barry, you were one of the white hats.

Thanks for all you did for us. May your time in bardo be as fruitful as your time here was. Good luck with whatever you decide to do next.

[xchrom]

2. More

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/01-1


Described in 1970 by Time magazine as the "Paul Revere of ecology," Commoner followed Rachel Carson as America's most prominent modern environmentalist. He viewed the environmental crisis as a symptom of a fundamentally flawed economic and social system. A biologist and research scientist, he argued that corporate greed, misguided government priorities, and the misuse of technology undermined "the finely sculptured fit between life and its surroundings."

Commoner insisted that scientists had an obligation to make scientific information accessible to the general public, so that citizens could participate in public debates that involved scientific questions. Citizens, he said, have a right to know the health hazards of the consumer products and technologies used in everyday life. Those were radical ideas in the 1950s and 1960s, when most Americans were still mesmerized by the cult of scientific expertise and such new technologies as cars, plastics, chemical sprays, and atomic energy.

Commoner linked environmental issues to a broader vision of social and economic justice. He called attention to the parallels among the environmental, civil rights, labor, and peace movements. He connected the environmental crisis to the problems of poverty, injustice, racism, public health, national security, and war.

Commoner first came to public attention in the late 1950s when he warned about the hazards of fallout caused by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. He later used his scientific platform to raise awareness about the dangers posed by the petrochemical industry, nuclear power, and toxic substances such as dioxins. He was one of the first scientists to point out that although environmental hazards hurt everyone, they disproportionately hurt the poor and racial minorities because of the location of dangerous chemicals and because of the hazardous conditions in blue-collar workplaces. Commoner thus laid the groundwork for what later become known as the environmental justice movement.

[bananas]

5. Two important paragraphs

Commoner linked environmental issues to a broader vision of social and economic justice. He called attention to the parallels among the environmental, civil rights, labor, and peace movements. He connected the environmental crisis to the problems of poverty, injustice, racism, public health, national security, and war.

Commoner first came to public attention in the late 1950s when he warned about the hazards of fallout caused by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. He later used his scientific platform to raise awareness about the dangers posed by the petrochemical industry, nuclear power, and toxic substances such as dioxins. He was one of the first scientists to point out that although environmental hazards hurt everyone, they disproportionately hurt the poor and racial minorities because of the location of dangerous chemicals and because of the hazardous conditions in blue-collar workplaces. Commoner thus laid the groundwork for what later become known as the environmental justice movement.

[xchrom]

6. I wish we remembered more of that now. Nt

[Iterate]

3. 1980 was the only election where I was certain my vote had been counted.

There was no chance at all that Carter could carry my state, so voting for Commoner was the best use of that vote I could think of. Besides, I had heard him speak several times, admired him, and had shared some short chats.

Sure enough, when I looked up the vote tallies in the newspaper after the election, he'd gotten one vote in my district.

The shame of it is, I don't think anyone saying the same things today would do much better.

"The peak of the campaign happened in Albuquerque, where a local reporter said to me, 'Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate or are you just running on the issues?' "

[AverageJoe90]

4. Rest in peace, Barry. History will judge you kindly for your efforts & dedication to mankind. nt

[Kolesar]

7. At the campus "Citizens Party" meeting

The group leader was lamenting that one of the students didn't come to the meeting when to report on a project they were working on. Another of the students relayed: "he said he had other plans", to which the group leader said "that's what they'll be saying when the Black Marias come".

[Iterate]

8. Barry Commoner: Capitalism versus the environment

Quotes & Insights #14

In the last thirty years many thousands of production decisions have been made in the United States. They have determined that automobiles shall be large and sufficiently powerful to travel at a rate of 100 mph; that electricity shall be produced by nuclear power plants; that we shall wear synthetic materials instead of cotton and wool, and wash them in detergent rather than soap; that baseball shall be played on plastic rather than grass; that the beneficent energy of sunlight shall go largely unused.

In every case, the decision was made according to the “bottom line” – the expectation of an acceptable profit. More precisely, as we have seen from the behaviour of U.S. oil companies, such decisions are based on the marginal difference between existing rates of profit and hoped-for, larger ones.

It would have been a fantastically improbable statistical accident if most or even a small fraction of these thousands of decisions, made on the basis of a hoped for marginal increase in profit, happened neatly to fit into the pattern of a rational, thermodynamically sound energy system.

Such an energy system is a social need, and it is hopeless to expect to build it on the basis of production decisions that yield commodities rather than the solutions to essential tasks; that produce goods which are maximally profitable rather than maximally useful; that accept as their final test private profit rather than social value.

Thus, the energy crisis and the web of inter-related problems confront us with the need to explore the possibility of creating a production system that is consciously intended to serve social needs and that judges the value of its products by their use, and an economic system that is committed to these purposes. At least in principle, such a system is socialism.

Barry Commoner, in The Poverty of Power (1976)

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2010/10/24/barry-commoner-capitalism-versus-the-environment/

That was 1976. Since then, a generation has spent nearly its entire working life seeing every gain in efficiency or productivity folded back into profit or lower wages. Or it's simply been wasted.

Maybe another generation is needed for the magical market solution to appear.