Barry Commoner and the science of survival: the remaking of American environmentalism

Abstract

For over half a century, biologist Barry Commoner has been one of most prominent and charismatic defenders of American environment, appearing on cover of Time magazine in 1970 as standard-bearer of the emerging science of survival. In Barry Commoner and Science of Survival, Michael Egan examines Commoner's social and scientific activism and charts an important shift in American environmental values since World War II.Throughout his career, Commoner believed that scientists had a social responsibility, and that one of their most important obligations was to provide citizens with accessible scientific information so they could be included in public debates that concerned them. Egan shows how Commoner moved naturally from calling attention to hazards of nuclear fallout to raising public awareness of environmental dangers posed by petrochemical industry. He argues that Commoner's belief in importance of dissent, dissemination of scientific information, and need for citizen empowerment were critical planks in remaking of American environmentalism.Commoner's activist career can be defined as an attempt to weave together a larger vision of social justice. Since 1960s, he has called attention to parallels between environmental, civil rights, labor, and peace movements, and connected environmental decline with poverty, injustice, exploitation, and war, arguing that root cause of environmental problems was American economic system and its manifestations. He was instrumental in pointing out that there was a direct association between socioeconomic standing and exposure to environmental pollutants and that economics, not social responsibility, was guiding technological decision making. Egan argues that careful study of Commoner's career could help reinvigorate contemporary environmental movement at a point when environmental stakes have never been so high.