Sierra Club Books announces:

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.

The book is rewritten and updated from the previously self-published version. Since then the U.S. has suffered the September 11 attacks, and there have been important changes in the aviation industry. The FAA Reauthorization Bill of 2003 further reduced industry accountability. Among the more important new developments on the air pollution scene is the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) – Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) study showing that pollution from Logan, Bradley and Manchester is already significant compared to other major emissions sources in the area, and in some components will be greater than the other sources by 2010.

Rae André is Professor of organizational behavior and theory at Northeastern University. Her books include the best-selling parody: The 59-Second Employee: How to Stay One Second Ahead of Your One-Minute Manager (coauthored with Peter Ward); Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Mastering Loneliness and Achieving Self-Fulfillment; and Homemakers, the Forgotten Workers. Her work has also appeared in publications as diverse as the Wall Street Journal and Prevention. She lives in the Boston area.

Order the book at:
http://www.sierraclub.org/books/catalog/1578051169.asp

The book is also available at Amazon.com, www.sierraclub.org, and all other major retail outlets.