www.greenbuildermag.com 06.2012
FROM THE TAILGATE Sage advice from the trenches
64 The View from Above A
FTER HITTING a reef off the Italian coast and running aground at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, on the night of January 13th, the luxury cruise vessel Costa Concordia par- tially sank, requiring the evacuation of more than 4,000 people on board. At least
thirty lives were lost, and more than twice that number were injured. Over the following days and weeks, the news media
swarmed the scene, delivering countless reports of the tragic incident. We were mesmerized by videos and still photos from every conceivable angle. The images came from shore, all kinds of boats and aircraft—and intrepid underwater photographers who accompanied rescuers into the bowels of the doomed vessel in their desperate searches for possible survivors— even as rough seas threatened to pull the ruptured ship off its pre- carious perch into much deeper wa- ter, taking their very lives with it. The coverage that followed in-
cluded another set of images; pho- tos of the captain, accused of aban- doning ship and arrested; family pictures of the dead, injured and missing; videos of crew members giving instructions to confused and frightened passengers. Later, we were relieved to see and hear the reports that so many had been accounted for, and that crews were fi nally successful in removing the vast sup- ply of fuel from the craft, averting yet another layer of environmental disaster. But there is another image of the Concordia that haunts
me, a black and white one taken through thin clouds from a satellite in orbit, miles above the waves and rocky coastline. In it, the vessel seems completely out of place, almost alien, as if it had plunged through the atmosphere from some unknown source of origin. It lies on one side with its under- belly partially exposed, like the carcass of some unfortunate beast that wandered too far off track. The most striking detail is the heavy boom line stretching from the stern to the nearest points of land in a frantic attempt to secure
the rocking hulk and prevent its escape to the ocean fl oor. I fi nd powerful symbolism in that picture, and especially
in the need to tether what is man-made, what is part of the built environment, to that which is part of the natural world—because there is so little, apparently, to connect them otherwise. Sometimes it’s as though gravity alone binds our enterprises, and the things we build, to that which is their very source. If we forget, or worse yet—choose to ignore— the neces-
sity of honoring our relationship with the world around us, piloting our ship with arrogance and carelessness, we do so at our own peril. GB
By Ron Jones
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