Richard A. Fineberg, a political science teacher whose years of scrutinizing the proposal and operation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System resulted in environmental safety measures, and his reporting of an under-sea detonation of a nuclear bomb spawned the Greenpeace organization, died Sept. 27 in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was 83.

Throughout his life, he was driven to hold oil companies accountable to their promises for environmental protections, according to The New York Times.