Barry Commoner, scientist and influential environmentalist, dies at 95

October 5, 2012
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Barry Commoner, a visionary scientist and author who helped launch the environmental movement in the United States and whose ideas influenced public thinking about nuclear testing, energy consumption and recycling, died Sept. 30 at a hospital in New York. He was 95 and lived in Brooklyn...

A biologist by training, Dr. Commoner showed that traces of radioactive materials could be found in the teeth of thousands of children. With Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, he circulated a petition in the 1950s calling for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. More than 11,000 scientists signed the petition.

He was credited with creating the momentum that led to the passage of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1963.

Along with “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson, Sierra Club leader David Brower and scientist-author Aldo Leopold, Dr. Commoner is considered one of the primary founders of the modern environmental movement. The Washington Post

Article originally appeared on Beyond Nuclear (https://archive.beyondnuclear.org/).