Scientist-activist Barry Commoner dies at 95

New York Times : Biologist Barry Commoner died 30 September at 95. This long front-page obituary calls him “a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers in making environmentalism a people’s political cause” and “a leader among a generation of scientist-activists who recognized the toxic consequences of America’s post-World War II technology boom, and one of the first to stir the national debate over the public’s right to comprehend the risks and make decisions about them.” His work on radioactive fallout influenced the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 1970 he appeared on the cover of Time . He “made the science of ecology accessible,” in part with four informal rules: “Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.” He “insisted that the planet’s future depended on industry’s learning not to make messes in the first place, rather than on trying to clean them up.”