"What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology"
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Barry Commoner argues that society must redesign how it makes energy, food, and goods at a depth that surpasses the postwar industrial upheaval. The benchmark he invokes is not modest: after 1945, petrochemicals, plastics, pesticides, nuclear power, and mass motorization transformed production and daily life. Those shifts delivered spectacular output but also embedded linear, toxic, and fossil-fueled systems whose wastes and risks spread through air, water, soil, and bodies. The environmental crisis, in his view, is not a series of isolated accidents; it is the predictable outcome of production systems built to ignore ecology.
Writing amid the first Earth Day era and debates with population-focused thinkers, Commoner shifted responsibility from abstract growth to concrete technological and economic choices. The choice to adopt synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, for example, restructured agriculture around high throughput, monocultures, and dependence on fossil inputs. Similar choices in energy and manufacturing optimized for profit and speed, pushing ecological costs downstream. Incremental fixes at the smokestack or tailpipe cannot undo designs that violate his ecological maxims: everything is connected, everything must go somewhere, nature knows best, and there is no free lunch.
Calling for a transformation more profound than the postwar wave signals a reversal of its logic. Where mid-century innovation amplified throughput and disposability, the next transformation must prioritize prevention over cleanup, circular flows over linear waste, renewables over combustion, durability and repair over obsolescence, and public health over private convenience. It is as much political as technical, since the selection of technologies reflects who holds power and who bears costs.
Seen from today’s vantage point of climate instability, biodiversity loss, and persistent toxic burdens, Commoner’s demand reads less like hyperbole than a scale-setting truth. To change outcomes, society must change the systems that produce them.
Writing amid the first Earth Day era and debates with population-focused thinkers, Commoner shifted responsibility from abstract growth to concrete technological and economic choices. The choice to adopt synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, for example, restructured agriculture around high throughput, monocultures, and dependence on fossil inputs. Similar choices in energy and manufacturing optimized for profit and speed, pushing ecological costs downstream. Incremental fixes at the smokestack or tailpipe cannot undo designs that violate his ecological maxims: everything is connected, everything must go somewhere, nature knows best, and there is no free lunch.
Calling for a transformation more profound than the postwar wave signals a reversal of its logic. Where mid-century innovation amplified throughput and disposability, the next transformation must prioritize prevention over cleanup, circular flows over linear waste, renewables over combustion, durability and repair over obsolescence, and public health over private convenience. It is as much political as technical, since the selection of technologies reflects who holds power and who bears costs.
Seen from today’s vantage point of climate instability, biodiversity loss, and persistent toxic burdens, Commoner’s demand reads less like hyperbole than a scale-setting truth. To change outcomes, society must change the systems that produce them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reinvention |
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