For over half a century, the biologist Barry Commoner has been one of the                  most prominent and charismatic defenders of the American environment, appearing on                  the cover of Time magazine in 1970 as the standard-bearer of "the emerging science                  of survival." In Barry Commoner and the 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 the hazards of nuclear fallout to raising                  public awareness of the environmental dangers posed by the petrochemical industry.                  He argues that Commoner's belief in the importance of dissent, the dissemination of                  scientific information, and the need for citizen empowerment were critical planks in                  the remaking of American environmentalism.Commoner's activist career can be defined                  as an attempt to weave together a larger vision of social justice. Since the 1960s,                  he has called attention to parallels between the environmental, civil rights, labor,                  and peace movements, and connected environmental decline with poverty, injustice,                  exploitation, and war, arguing that the root cause of environmental problems was the                  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 the contemporary environmental movement at a point when the                  environmental stakes have never been so high.

Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (Urban and Industrial Environments) PDF

The list of books you might like