Barry Commoner

</image> <group> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Relatives</label> <label>Affiliation</label> </group> <group> <header>Biographical information</header> <label>Marital status</label> <label>Date of birth</label> <label>Place of birth</label> <label>Date of death</label> <label>Place of death</label> </group> <group> <header>Physical description</header> <label>Species</label> <label>Gender</label> <label>Height</label> <label>Weight</label> <label>Eye color</label> </group> </infobox>Barry Commoner (1917 - 2012) was a cellular biologist, medical researcher, university professor, soldier, economist, radical ecologist and libertarian socialist.

Life

Ideas

Most of his work was focused on how we can redesign the economy to be more in line with natural ecosystems and reduce our impact on the biosphere.

Four Laws of Ecology

In 1971, he argued that the economy should be restructured around the unbending laws of ecology which are as follows:

Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.
Everything must go somewhere. There is no "waste" in nature and there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.
Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.

Three E's

In 1976, he argued that the three main ills plaguing our society were the environment, energy and the economy. These were all interconnected issues, the industries that use the most energy have the most negative impact on the environment, and the use of scarce fossil fuels means that prices will be pushed up as more energy is used, hurting the economy.

Quotes

"Everything is connected to everything else.""

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