Barry Commoner

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Barry Commoner

American biologist

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Sep 26, 2024 • Article History

Quick Facts

Born:: May 28, 1917, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Died:: September 30, 2012, New York, New York (aged 95)

Subjects Of Study:: environment

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Barry Commoner (born May 28, 1917, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died September 30, 2012, New York, New York) was an American biologist and educator. He studied at Harvard University and taught at Washington University and Queens College. His warnings, since the 1950s, of the environmental threats posed by modern technology (including nuclear weapons, use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, and ineffective waste management) in such works as his classic Science and Survival (1966) made him one of the foremost environmentalist spokesmen of his time. He was a third-party candidate for U.S. president in 1980.

(Read E.O. Wilson’s Britannica essay on mass extinction.)

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.