Overload

Listening, Nim thought: there was a compelling logic to what Laura Bo was saying. He could, and did, dispute her view of the future; Nim believed that GSP & L and other organizations like it had absorbed the lessons of old mistakes, and had learned to be good ecological citizens, if for no other reason than that nowadays it was simply good business. However, no fair-minded person could argue with Laura Bo’s assessment of the past.

Something else she had already done during her short time on the witness stand, Nim decided, was raise the level of debate far above the gallery-playing pettiness of Davey Birdsong.

"A few minutes ago," Pritchett said to Laura Bo, "you stated that some strains of natural life at Tunipah have become extinct elsewhere. Will you tell us what they are?"

The Sequoia Club chairman nodded. She said with authority, “There are two that I know of: a wild flower, the Furbish lousewort, and the Microdipodops, otherwise known as the kangaroo mouse."

Here is where we part company, Nim mused. He remembered his argument with Laura Bo over lunch two months ago when he had ob-1jected: "You’d let a mouse, or mice, prohibit a project which will benefit millions of people?"

Evidently the same possibility had occurred to Roderick Pritchett because his next question was: "Do you expect criticism on those two issues-the Furbish lousewort and the Microdipodops? Do you expect people to say that human beings and their desires are more important?"

"I expect a great deal of that kind of criticism, even abuse," Laura Bo said. "But nothing changes the short sightedness and folly of reducing, or eliminating, any endangered species."

"Would you explain that a little more?"

"Yes. A principle is intervened, a life-and-death principle which is repeatedly and thoughtlessly violated. As modern society has developed cities, urban sprawl, industry, highways, pipelines, all the rest-we have upset the balance of nature, destroyed plant life, natural watersheds and soil fertility, banished wild creatures from their habitat or slaughtered them en masse, disrupted normal growth cycles, all the while forgetting that every intricate part of nature depends on all the other parts for continuance and health."

From the bench the commissioner injected, "But surely, Mrs. Carmichael, even in nature there is flexibility."

"Some flexibility. But almost always it has been pushed beyond the limits."

The commissioner nodded politely. "Please proceed."

Her regal manner unruffled, Laura Bo continued, “The point I am making is that past environmental decisions have been’ based on short term expediency, almost never a larger view. At the same time, modern science-and I speak as a scientist myself-has operated in self-contained compartments, ignoring the truth that ‘progress’ in one area may be harmful to life and nature as a whole. Automobile emissions-a product of science-are a huge example, and it is expediency which permits them to stay as lethal as they are. Another example is the excessive use of pesticides which, in preserving certain life forms, have wiped out many more. The same is true of atmospheric damage from aerosol sprays. It is a long list. We have all been moving, and still are, toward environmental suicide."

While the Sequoia Club chairman had been speaking, the hearing room had hushed to a respectful silence. Now no one moved, waiting for her next words.

"It is all expediency," she repeated, her voice rising for the first time.

"If this monstrous Tunipah development is allowed to proceed, expediency will doom the Furbish lousewort and the Microdipodops, and much else besides. Then, if the process continues, I foresee the day when a single industrial project-just like Tunipah-will be ruled as more important than the last remaining stand of daffodils."

The concluding words brought an out burst of applause from the spectator section. While it persisted, Nim thought angrily: Laura Bo was using her stature as a scientist to mate a non-scientific, emotional appeal.

He went on seething for another hour as the questions and responses -in similar vein-continued.

Oscar O’Brien’s subsequent cross-examination of Laura Bo produced nothing in the way of retraction and in some areas strengthened her earlier testimony. When the GSP&L counsel inquired with a broad smile if she really believed "that a few populated mouse holes and an unattractive wild flower-almost a weed-are more important than the electrical needs of several million humans," she replied tartly, "To ridicule is easy and cheap, Mr. O’Brien, as well as being the oldest lawyer’s tactic in the book. I have already stated why the Sequoia Club believes Tunipah should remain a natural wilderness area and the points which seem to amuse you are two among many. As to the ‘electrical needs’ of which you speak, in the opinion of many, the need for conservation, of making better use of what we have, is a greater need by far."

O’Brien flushed and snapped back, "Since you know so much better than experts who have investigated Tunipah, and find it an ideal site for what is proposed, where would you build?"

Laura Bo said calmly, "That is your problem, not mine."

Davey Birdsong declined to cross-examine Laura Bo, stating grandiosely,

"Power & light for people supports the Sequoia Club view, so well expressed by Mrs. Carmichael."

On the following day, as the last of several more opposition witnesses was concluding, O’Brien whispered to Nim beside him, "Get yourself together. You’re on again next."

13

Nim felt jaded, anyway. The prospect of new testimony and additional cross-examinations soured him still more.

He had slept only intermittently the night before and, when he did sleep, dreamed he was in a cell-like enclosure, without door or windows, in which all four walls comprised banks of circuit breakers. Nim was trying to keep the circuit breakers switched on and current-which he knew was needed-flowing. But Davey Birdsong, Laura Bo Carmichael and Roderick Pritchett had him surrounded and were determinedly snapping the breakers off. Nim wanted to shout at the others, to argue and plead, but his voice wouldn’t work. In desperation he sought to move faster. To offset their six hands against his two he tried kicking switches with his feet. But his limbs resisted; they seemed encased in glue and moved with maddening slowness. With despair Nim realized he was losing, could not keep pace with the others, and soon all the switches would be off. It was then he awoke, soaked in perspiration, and couldn’t sleep again.

Now, with Nim once more in the witness chair, the presiding commissioner was saying, "I remind the witness he is already sworn . . ."

When the preliminaries were over, Oscar O’Brien began, "Mr. Goldman, how many shares of Golden State Power & Light do you own?"

"One hundred and twenty."

"And their market value?"

"As of this morning, two thousand one hundred and sixty dollars."

"So any suggestion that you, personally, are likely to make a lot of money out of Tunipah is . . ."

"Ridiculous and insulting" Nim snapped before the question could be completed. He had personally asked O’Brien to get that into the record, and hoped the press would report it-as they had Birdsong’s charge about profiteering. But Nim doubted if they would.

"Quite so." O’Brien seemed taken aback by Nim’s intensity. "Now let us go back to the environmental impact statement about Tunipah. Mrs. Carmichael in her testimony argued that . . ."

The idea was to counteract testimony by opposition witnesses which had been erroneous, excessively prejudiced or incomplete. Nim wondered, while responding to O’Brien’s questions, what effect it would all have. He decided: probably none.

O’Brien concluded in less than half an hour. He was followed by Holyoak, the commission counsel, and Roderick Pritchett, neither of whom gave Nim a hard time and both were mercifully brief.

Which left Davey Birdsong.

The p & lfp leader indulged in his characteristic gesture of passing a band through his bushy, gray-flecked beard as he stood regarding Nim.

"Those shares of yours, Goldman. You said they were worth" Birdsong consulted a slip of paper-"two thousand one hundred and sixty dollars. Right?"

Nim acknowledged warily, "Yes."

“The way you said it-and I was right here, listening; so were others -made it sound as if that kind of money was just peanuts to you. A ,mere’ two thousand, you seemed to say. Well, I guess to someone like you who’s used to thinking in millions, and riding around in helicopters…"