Fairtide: Sailing Toward Long Island's Future

From the strange juxtaposition of the supersonic Concorde and the glossy ibis on the outskirts of Kennedy airport - not to mention their uncanny similarity in profile - to the pastel golfers and ruddy turnstones of the Hampton;s Sebonac Creek, Roger Stone's incisive book challenges the conventional wisdom that the balance between a vibrant economy and a healthy environment is a zero-sum game. Rather, he argues, Long Island's competitive economic advantage is its environmental quality. Aboard the elderly sailboat, Piper, Stone embarks on a modern-day voyage of discovery. In circumnavigating Long Island he seeks not riches or new lands, but a new vision for this well-worn region's future. Transcending the broadaxe frontier psychology that has ruled the country's development for so long, he charts innovative routes toward a more stable, environmentally based economy. Three hundred years of rampant exploitation of the island's once plentiful natural resources, coupled with unbridled, unplanned development has not led to the promised land so loudly ballyhooed by political leaders, but to a region groaning under a confiscatory tax burden, the highest energy costs in the nation and a seesaw economy more prone to bust than boom. But all is far from lost. The island's species diversity remains high, the beaches are splendid, the fishing is good and the climate continues to be modulated by the passing Gulf Stream. And most importantly, Long Island's people are waking up to their own strength. In this well-researched and hopeful book, Stone contends that pressure for change comes almost always from without the halls of entrenched power, and that an involved, organized citizenry is essential to promote new and better policies. He urges people everywhere to band together to seize the wheel of their own ship, as Long Island and the nation set sail towards a more rational future. --- from book's flyleaf