Global peril, local action:
McCarthy, Abigail
OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy GLOBAL PERIL, LOCAL ACTION ORGANIZING FOR AN AQUIFER think it was Russell Baker who wrote years ago that the greatest obstacle to environmental reform was the...
...If this source is contaminated or destroyed it will be so for the whole of the Cape, from the canal separating it from the mainland to Provincetown at its tip...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy GLOBAL PERIL, LOCAL ACTION ORGANIZING FOR AN AQUIFER think it was Russell Baker who wrote years ago that the greatest obstacle to environmental reform was the adaptive nature of humankind...
...The total effort will be under the supervision of the Cape Cod Planning Commission, and a coalition is working on the formation of a political action committee...
...Presumably the next administration and the next Congress will take some action...
...Planning, he insists, will allow for affordable housing for Cape residents and for camp sites and access to the beaches for those who love the Cape as visitors...
...In addition to all this, in the face of widespread fire and flood, we came alive to the global nature of our peril-that we all suffer, for instance, from the extensive attack on our forests and the consequent disappearance of life-giving trees...
...We were warned against eating fish drawn from infected waters...
...Tsongas points out, however, that the alternative is not to do anything, "to build the Cape like Coney Island," and make it unliv-able...
...large areas of our once beautiful country became almost unlivable...
...Ocean beaches were sealed off because of medical and human waste in the water and on the shore...
...The Cape-that lovely narrow spit of land that reaches from New England into the sea-has been seriously affected by unplanned hit-and-miss development endangering its water supply...
...The Cape has what is called a sole-source aquifer- ground water...
...There is some ground for hope in the slow and ponderous efforts being made by governments...
...There are no rivers or streams to supplement its wells...
...Senator Paul Tsongas...
...Acid rain in the Appalachians and the Black Forest, record-breaking fires in the Rockies, the torching of the rain forest in Brazil, clear-cutting in the Cascades, the Smokies, and the mountain slopes of Nepal-all take their toll and have almost reached the point of no return...
...Canada continues to pressure our government on acid rain...
...Such well-planned and reasoned efforts to control the environment can have widespread and widening effect, like thrown pebbles sending rippling circles across a pool...
...But what...
...Individual efforts seem puny in confronting a problem grown so great...
...Affected industrial nations have organized to agree on ways to reduce the threat to the ozone layer...
...Humidity and pollution combined to make the air in our cities perilous to breathe...
...But this last summer we began to wake up to our danger...
...Already," says Tsongas, "I've had inquiries from communities in the Berkshires...
...Great Lakes' swimmers reported wading through litter and emerging from the water coated with sticky residue...
...Elected officials, Tsongas says, have been bystanders as overdevelopment went on...
...Public approval of the idea was almost startling...
...A stalled jet stream united with the greenhouse effect sent temperatures soaring to unprecedented heights and made mockery of the term "the temperate zone...
...The idea is to send them a political message...
...There is no doubt that part of the support for the moratorium comes from property owners who see the value of their property rising if building slows...
...But there is more immediate hope in the collective efforts of people to cope with their local and regional problems- if only because they bear witness to the ability of human beings to cooperate with each other on rational solutions to their problems and because their doing so is an example and stimulus to governmental bodies...
...A nonbind-ing referendum will be on the ballot in November...
...One of the most promising of these efforts is under way to save Cape Cod, and it is promising largely because of the leadership of former U.S...
...Moreover, it is not only a sole-source aquifer but also a single-source one...
...This will be done with the help of the MIT graduate school for urban planning...
...On the Cape the building industry is at the heart of the problem, but Tsongas distinguishes between local and off-Cape builders...
...Our mightiest river dried to a trickle...
...As a nation we have been almost passive as we watched without really seeing the reckless exploitation of natural resources and the advancing despoliation of the environment...
...Time called our response to all this an outbreak of ecophobia, but our alarm is not a phobia-it is an answer to real and present danger...
...Seemingly far-off threats became realities...
...Senator Tsongas has begun to raise money for this help, and his law firm is providing pro bono legal services...
...All plans to limit growth are criticized as elitist and inimical to local industry...
...Eventually the ripples could spread across America...
...Drought cracked the farmlands and our crops withered and died...
...I hope it is not too little and not too late...
...And to show them what can be done...
...Congress has set the Environmental Protection Agency to preparing two reports-the first to describe and define the greenhouse effect and the second to estimate the possibilities of restraining and stabilizing the accumulation of the gases that cause it...
...We are at last agreed that something must be done...
...Key to Tsongas's plan is the selection of four model towns which will examine the impact of development on their environment and quality of life and seek ways to plan and control it...
...A scientific poll by the Boston Globe showed 67 percent in favor, and a sampling of reader opinion by the Cape Cod Times and the Cape Cod Business Journal showed 72 and 80 percent respectively...
...The local builder who lives here and raises his family here will become an ally of the moratorium...
...The idea of a limited moratorium on construction on the Cape was suggested in the draft report of the governor's commission on the environment which was chaired by Tsongas...
...We adjust, we adapt to conditions even when they are hostile to our health and well-being...
...It's the off-Cape builder who wants to do the huge shopping centers -and condominium developments that I would like to stop...
...Nor is there any access to the reservoirs of a large region should the wells run dry...
...It was a summer of nightmares come true...
Vol. 115 • October 1988 • No. 17
