Barry Commoner and Today's Ecosphere Conservatives

Barry Commoner's ideas were a leading force in American recognition of the role human development plays in destroying the ecosphere in which all life participates. Today with a concern about global warming-a righteous concern, and recycling, it is easy to lose sight of the fundamental criteria that Barry Commoner recognized as a biologist and empirical analyst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Commoner

His 1971 book 'The Closing Circle' provided a clue to the effect that human fabrication of materials have upon the living environment. From the first appearance of life on Earth in a simple form processing minerals there was a need to 'close the circle' that would make the world firendly for life. Photosynthetic life forms developed to process the carbon wastes of simpler plants. As life progressed in complexity there was a continuum of biospheric synergy wherby the waste of one product support the development of others. The living biosphere is a self-reinforcing thing Commoner recognized. He also realized that mankind in producing synthetic products that are not bio-degradeable was laying waste to the ecosphere.

Barry Commoner wrote before the creation of scientific awareness of global warming. He also wrote before the advent of a formal discipline of low-entropy environmental economics. It would be a very great challenge to fabricate all of humanity's manufactured needs in a biophysical format apposite to the vitality ofthe ecosphere, yet that is the challenge before us today, and human development of the commons must needs respect human spiritual liberty and a natural conservatorship of a lawful nature until the laws of God and nature and written on hearts and minds.