“Clearly, we have compiled a record of serious failures in recent technological encounters with the environment. In each case, the new technology was brought into use before the ultimate hazards were known. We have been quick to reap the benefits and slow to comprehend the costs.”

—  Barry Commoner

Quoted from "Frail Reeds in a Harsh World". New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Natural History. Journal of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LXXVIII No. 2, February, 1969, p. 44.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Clearly, we have compiled a record of serious failures in recent technological encounters with the environment. In each…" by Barry Commoner?
Barry Commoner photo
Barry Commoner2
American biologist, college professor and eco-socialist 1917–2012

Related quotes

Mike Lazaridis photo

“We have to be realistic about the history of [touch-screen] technology. We have to remember that this is not new — this has been done, this has been tried before.”

Mike Lazaridis (1961) Canadian businessman

RIM's Lazaridis: Qwerty is the next big thing http://news.com/RIMs-Lazaridis-Qwerty-is-the-next-big-thing/2100-1041_3-6239705.html?tag=nefd.top in CNET (16 May 2008)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“When we invent a new technology, we become cannibals. We eat ourselves alive since these technologies are merely extensions of ourselves. The new environment shaped by electric technology is a cannibalistic one that eats people. To survive one must study the habits of cannibals.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Hot & Cool (1967), p. 261

Pete Buttigieg photo

“We have to recognize that the China challenge is a serious one. This is not something to dismiss or waive away. China is using technology for the perfection of dictatorship.”

Pete Buttigieg (1982) American politician

28 June 2019
Debate night: What the candidates are saying on China
Axios
https://www.axios.com/debate-night-what-the-candidates-are-saying-on-china-a530a78a-d7e6-462c-b172-7d17e463d9f3.html
2019

Mikhail Gorbachev photo

“We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not the masters, of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

As quoted in Planet Savers : 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists (2008) by Kevin Desmond, p. 248
1990s

Marshall McLuhan photo

“We now live in a technologically prepared environment that blankets the earth itself. The humanly contrived environment of electric information and power has begun to take precedence over the old environment of "nature." Nature, as it were, begins to be the content of our technology.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, A McLuhan Sourcebook (1995), p. 276

Marshall McLuhan photo

“New technological environments are commonly cast in the molds of the preceding technology out of the sheer unawareness of their designers.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 47

Joel Mokyr photo

“The distinction between micro- and macroinventions is useful because, as historians of technology emphasize, the word first is hazardous in this literature.. Many technological breakthroughs had a history that began before the event generally regarded as “the invention,” and almost all macroinventions required subsequent improvements to make them operational. Yet in a large number of cases, one or two identifiable events were crucial. Without such breakthroughs technological progress would eventually fizzle out.”

Joel Mokyr (1946) Israeli American economic historian

Source: The lever of riches: Technological creativity and economic progress, 1992, p. 14

Herbert Kroemer photo

“The principal applications of any sufficiently new and innovative technology always have been—and will continue to be—applications created by that technology.”

Herbert Kroemer (1928) Nobel laureate in physics

in his Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2000/kroemer-lecture.html, Quasi-Electric Fields and Band Offsets: Teaching Electrons New Tricks, 8 December 2000, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University.

Tom Clancy photo

“In case you haven't noticed, we live in a world that is for the first time in all of recorded human history unlikely to have a major war. There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. The reason is our technology was better than theirs.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)
Context: In case you haven't noticed, we live in a world that is for the first time in all of recorded human history unlikely to have a major war. There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. The reason is our technology was better than theirs. Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. It was really a combination of SDI and CNN. They realized they couldn't beat us so they decided to change the ball game.

James Martin (author) photo

“As technology grows in power, its ability either to disrupt or to heal increases. We can destroy the planet more easily than we can heal the harm we have done so far. To heal, we have to move to new technologies, new social patterns, new types of consumer products, new ways of generating and spending wealth. Such changes will inevitably occur, whether they are brought by healing forethought or mindless destruction. The future will not be a repetition of the past.”

James Martin (author) (1933–2013) British information technology consultant and writer

James Martin (1978) The wired society. p. 3

Related topics