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It is by
studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having
as little misery and as much happiness as
possible.
Samuel Johnson, in Boswell's London Journal,
1762-1763 |
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The
defeat of project Chariot [a plan to create a huge harbor in
northern Alaska with the aid of up to six thermonuclear bombs]
represented the first successful opposition to the American nuclear
establishment and one of the first battles of the new era of
"environmentalism." Here the rationale for caution was not the old
logic of conserving a magnificent landscape or endangered species.
Rather it was based on a more holistic concept of environmental
protection, which recognized that insidious degradation was
possible because of the invisible connectedness of things. "Looking
back on my career in environmentalism," said Barry Commoner in a
1988 interview, ''it is absolutely certain that it began when I
went to the library to look up lichen in connection with the
Chariot program. That's a very vivid picture in my mind." Chariot
led Commoner into environmentalism, and Commoner led others into
what became known as the environmental movement. "And I think,"
said Commoner, "in so far as I had an effect on the development of
the whole movement (which I did, I have to admit), Project Chariot
can be regarded as the ancestral birthplace of at least a large
segment of the environmental movement."
Dan O'Neill, The
Firecracker Boys, 1994 |
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