A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [169]
Sylvia Earle and Charlotte Vick provided continual encouragement. I was first persuaded to overcome my initial reluctance to go to the Gulf by Steve Dishart and Myra “Just go” Sarli. As always, the indefatigable and always reliable Megan Smith arranged and backstopped my logistics. I thank also Kate McLaughlin, Alan Duckworth, and the staff of Blue Ocean Institute for their patience in my absence. Jesse Bruschini provided feedback and feed. For interest and encouragement and discussion, I thank the faculty and staff of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and School of Journalism’s Center for Communicating Science. I thank Judy Bergsma for introducing me to Mark Loehr. When I bemoaned my deadline, Joanna Burger provided her usual “you can do it” encouragement. I thank Jack Macrae for his graciousness, Jean Naggar for her diligence, and John Glusman for his confidence.
For their interest in my impressions and opinions, I thank congressional representatives Ed Markey, Lois Capps, and their able staffs, as well as the hosts and staffs of Democracy Now, PBS’s Need to Know, CNN, and, particularly, Richard Galant, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, Audubon magazine, the Blue Ocean Film Festival, the organizers and participants at the TEDxOilSpill conference, and Stephen Colbert and the producers of The Colbert Report.
I thank my family, Patricia and Alexandra, for dealing with a serially difficult summer on the home front. Being seventeen is not for the faint of heart, but as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and Alex has made us proud. Things were at times more difficult because of my absences and, at times, because of my presence. Not least, while I was in the Gulf, Pat had to deal alone with a middle-of-the-night decision to end the life of our dog, Kenzie. Sad though that was, we were again touched by the healing powers of the new young furred and feathered creatures who came—and literally fell—into our lives this year. Each time I returned home drained after confronting the grief in the Gulf, those young lives were my smile factory. The topography of life includes much rough terrain. When big things go off the rails, it’s the little things that keep one sane.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Safina has studied the ocean as a scientist, stood for it as an advocate, and conveyed his travels among the sea’s creatures and fishing people in lyrical nonfiction. His first book, Song for the Blue Ocean, was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and in 2000 he won the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction. Dr. Safina’s second book, Eye of the Albatross, won the John Burroughs Medal for the year’s best nature book; it was chosen by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine as the “Year’s Best Book for Communicating Science.” The New York Times selected both his Voyage of the Turtle as well as The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World as “Editors’ Choices.” Safina is founding president of Blue Ocean Institute and adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, where he is involved with its School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and its Center for Communicating Science. He has been named among “100 Notable Conservationists of the Twentieth Century” by Audubon magazine.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface: Know Before You Go
Part 1 - Disaster Chain
Blowout!
April
Déjà Vu, to Name but a Few
Part 2 - A Season of Anguish
Mayday
Late May
Early June
High June
Late June
Photo Insert
Like a Thousand Julys
Late July
Part 3 - Aftermath
Dog Days
Late August
Early September
The New Light of Autumn
References
Acknowledgments
About the Author