Take Back the Sky: Protecting Communities in the Path of Aviation Expansion

In this timely book, author Rae André alerts us to one of the most insidious threats to the health and well-being of many Americans: the environmental impacts of aviation. Written from her experience as an activist and a flight-path dweller, Take Back the Sky dramatizes the extent of this growing problem in case studies around the country where communities have fought (and usually lost) battles against airport expansion. More alarmingly, it details how communities have lost virtually all control over their local skies, with that power having been usurped by special interests and an unresponsive federal government. When André bought a charming bungalow in a Boston suburb, the small nearby airport handled only private and charter aircraft and a few military flights. Soon after, it began to accept commercial flights--and the quality of life for André and her neighbors plummeted. As she explains, aviation-related pollution from noise, emissions, and chemicals leaching into water tables is among the least-known--and least-regulated--hazards Americans face. André plunged into research, organizing, and protest, discovering not only the ugly facts about aviation-related pollution but the extent to which unbridled commercial interests have infiltrated our government and our lives. André makes a powerful case that citizen action is crucial at this time, when plans are afoot to transform hundreds of small airports into busy commercial jetports. But how can we make the aviation industry more environmentally responsible? How can citizens and communities take back the power to determine their own fates? In Take Back the Sky, André provides the tools we need to answer these critical questions.