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01:00:01 1.17 |
Interview with environmentalist, Davis Brower.
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01:00:08 8.86 |
Interviewer 0:09
What role did the save the bay efforts play in provoking local interest in conservation? David Brower 0:17 I think the Save te Bay operation was one of the best things that happened here that everybody around the bay knows how important it is. And it took three diligent women to wake us up to it, but they did a very good job of it. And I'm certainly glad they did. And I was supportive of it myself and I support just grew all over. I remember one letter in the Chronicle that spoke of the Los Angeles zation of San Francisco and vegans by Dr. Miller at the California Academy that had a pretty good bit of sympathy evoked a lot of sympathy around the bay and then delivery know that San Jose was going to do it anyway. But the three Mark I came up with back then is why should we build another Los Angeles in the state that deserves only one. And John McCreary, reported that in his book and Carter's the archdruid but now I'm saying that as I go to Phoenix or Tucson or to Denver, why should rebuild another Los Angeles in a nation that deserves only one and I guess we can go on around the world. All you have to do is fly over Los Angeles to see that's the wrong way to go. That's a good people, but too much spread, just lost the ability to pull things together. And very certainly trying to imitate that. I suppose the thing I was first impressed about and about the bay was that I used to commute across the bay on ferry boats and very few people that can remember that but I'd bring over I wrote some my first articles on ferry boats, have watched them build a bridge. But the the whole experience of crossing the bay on a ferry boat is one that just come back and time and again, I measure the time it takes me to get to BART by the diameter a few holdups. I walked down to it and get across to San Francisco, I did the same time within a few minutes with the old red electrics and the ferry boats. And I think we might come back to sanity if we get the ferry boats back. But then that's being nostalgic, isn't it? Interviewer 2:11 That's okay. That's what this program is David Brower 2:15 But but the save the bay people and like I was Gulick occur? And Sylvia McLaughlin, they certainly did a great job. I'm glad they did it through, we wouldn't have very much bay left they frightened us just in time. Interviewer 2:31 How about the transition from working on protecting parks, to the interest in industrial pollution and urban pollution and air pollution in general? When did that take place? David Brower 2:51 Well, in my mind, it took place about the middle of the century, and they had resources of the future was formed on the basis of a letter and promotion by Horace Albright, who was great on national parks. But he got the Ford Foundation to fund this outfit called resources of the future. And they held a mid century conference on resources into the future. The thing that shocked me when I went to that is that the industries are just assumed that one of the functions of rivers is to carry away their waste. And don't ask any questions. And it didn't take long after that before people said that's not a good idea that they didn't like a river like the Cuyahoga they could catch fire. They didn't want to be a basket case, if they fell into one such as the East River, there was a general feeling that we've got to do something a lot more conscientious about the world we live in. More specifically with respect to the broadening of the concern and the environmental different parks, to the environment as a whole. I think a great deal of that happened in the course of our struggle to get the Wilderness Act. And the National Wilderness system established. The designer of that the chief architect was Howard Zahniser then the executive secretary of the wilderness society. He made the proposal in 1951. And shortly after his death in 1964, we got it takes a long time. And it was he along the line had pointed out to me that if we want to save wilderness, save wild places, then we got to do better, where we've already developed. So if we want to save forests that are wilderness forest, primeval forests, and we've practiced better forestry and the other forests that are commercial forests, we want to save Dinosaur National mining from a dam we have to do better water management, better use of water, so it's spread out. So you'd have to learn about forestry. You needed to learn about agriculture do we want to do all this irrigating high price irrigation when we can grow crops in a better way. So that meant if you wanted to save wilderness, and you had to have good reasons for using the alternative of intelligent use of the resources that are already developed? And that I think was the key just Ready to give the word out? All right, Rick, we are not against jet travel, we maybe should be. As we will all use jets. We're not against the automobiles, although I think I'm just about getting there. Now. I don't like good luck that much. But we're going to do the best we could to civilization has existed, but we wanted to have wild lands in the civilization, the way to get them was to see if we could run civilization better, more efficiently. And that was a had a very broadening effect. And that I think, is pretty much swept the movement that the Audubon Society was primarily concerned with birds are there across the board. Now the Izaak Walton League with fish, they're across the board, the National Wildlife Federation, likewise, is international. And then the new legal outfits, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Legal Defense Fund, all these people began to reach out and do other things. So you finally get the situation which I think cats right now are the Natural Resources Defense Council has run its own diplomatic service is worked with the Soviet Union for testing the effects of nuclear tests within their boundaries and helping them do that here. So that that is where citizens have superseded their government. And it was necessary because the government seemed not to know what to do. Again, and again, the government is supposed to serve people. And I think that when Eisenhower said that people want peace, so much, the government will have to get out of the way and let them have it. This is what is happening as the people are trying to get it whether the government gets out of the way or not. And that's the challenge now, because after all the great traders environmental threat is what happens if we have the nuclear exchange, or what happens to everything else that we put into excellence in our civilization, our nation and other nations, who spend all our money, our genius and resources, trying to figure out how to blow the place up instead of how to heal it. So the move now is to restore it to heal. That's what I'm gonna do now. It's time to heal the earth. Interviewer 6:55 What was the legacy of the 60s in the conservation movement? David Brower 6:59 The principal legacy of the 60s I think, was what was done in the Kennedy administration, and the Johnson administration. But that had gotten enough momentum that when Mr. Nixon came in, some good things continue to happen. And we forgot all about those when Watergate, Watergate arrived. But Richard Nixon's Principal Advisor, on environment, redressal train, who had been president of the Conservation Foundation, and it was a judge. And it later became the head of the EPA and so on. But through rush trains, urging, Nixon was ready to sign the National Environmental Policy Act, which was a historic it was a milestone that of legislation that Nixon did it. Richard Nixon made the best speech on population control any President has ever made before, since nobody thanked him for it. And he never tried one of those again, but this our failure, we forgot to thank people. But that carried on there are a lot of things that didn't go so well. And the the trans Alaska pipeline didn't please us very much, and restaurant didn't help us stop that. But he was one of the and is one of the outstanding conservationists of the world, and that you could interview him, I think you'd find some very good accounts of what has been happening in the movement. One of the things he was able to do early on, was to talk to the Soviets about mutual environmental concerns. Those went and those talks went into a doldrum period, I think, but they're back on top now. And there's a lot of work being done. And I think under Mr. Gorbachev, some amazing things may happen. Yet. Already have |
01:08:31 511.63 |
Interviewer 8:32
We're asking everybody about a couple of days during the 60s, regardless of what their specific expertise during those years was. The first day is the day what they remember the day JFK was assassinated. And what that meant. David Brower 8:48 Well, that was I was in the Sierra Club office at the time, and people were crying, and just, we couldn't believe it. And he had all sorts of high hopes and that he was he was a hero for all the people around our office. And it just knocked us over. And I just don't know what would have happen that you might have had tried another Bay of Pigs? I think not. I think that there was the chance to talk to that man, and he was able to listen, I had only two conversations with him, but I still remember those very clearly. And one is unemployment rate seashore signing. But in any event, that was a bad day. Interviewer 9:32 What did you talk to him about? David Brower 9:34 That was just the environmental movement in general. And I remember the one thing or just a strange coincidence, but there was a White House Conference on conservation held in the State Department. And he addressed it and I was about three rows back. And he gave his entire speech to me. I don't know why but he was just looking at me through my speech. But that was quite amazing. speakers do get eye contact now and then and I I find that I, and when I'm speaking, if I can find somebody that seems sympathetic, I have my eyes get back to the person who is likely to be prettier than me rather often than somewhere else, rather than looking at the people who are asleep, for example. So I was pretty much impressed that he spent that much time talking to me. There were about 800 people in the room are you back again? Here it comes again. I've said quite a bit. He's going alright. Interviewer 10:36 So in the other day, we're asking everybody about is the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? David Brower 10:42 Well, that's the day certainly I remember I was crossing the country on an airplane and the pilot came on and said Granger has landed I guess that's the was that the name of the ship Rangers landed. And there was a gasp across through all the audience. And I came home and got my television set where I could watch it. And look out at the moon has binoculars. So I watched the two simultaneously as they finally climbed out, and took the giant step. I was enormously impressed. I, my wife was less impressed. And I guess my middle son was thinking they were faking it. But I was quite impressed that I was also a little distressed, that I didn't mind there flying around it. I didn't like the idea of are taking something of ours and polluting another planet with it. There's just had a disturbed my sense of ethics a little bit that we've until we treat our own better, we shouldn't go around spreading our problems anywhere else. And a total though we know of no life that exists in the moment, according to the standards we've developed for life, that there may be ways life can exist without oxygen and other ways. And I just wanted didn't want us to mess it up. And I was a little disturbed when they came back that into the Pacific and error quarantine immediately, so that they wouldn't spread anything they brought back from there that we couldn't handle. And they took showers. And I noticed that they turned the shower water. They forgot that one little thing, well, nothing happened so well. But I didn't find the space exploration or things that I give higher priority to, but I'll go along with hazel Anderson, I don't like to say, Well, if we do that we can't do this. I like Herbold. And she says it's not either, or, it's both. And and I'll go along with hazel on that women. So we can do this, we can inquire this space, I'm as excited as anyone else. I'm sure when I look at the moon of Jupiter close up and see a volcano on the moon erupting. And when you can get all the structures you can get through the picture that is sent by television that we could never get with telescopes. To me, I'm just quite impressed with what we found out. And that I liked the inquiry. But I I'm I have a strong feeling that there should be limits to science, science should not take something apart, you can't put back together or put together something that can't take apart. And they don't seem to feel that that's a valid restriction. And I think it is. But in any event to explore space, so long as you don't just preempt other important things is that I think important that gives this challenge. And I do think that when we landed on the moon, when our people speaking English landed on the moon and talked to us from the moon, and told us about this oasis, this blue oasis in the grass desert, a space our planet. It changed our whole attitude. And I think it's swept around the world that we've finally realized we were just this little thing where there's nothing else to go to. And I think that was a strong message that we'd better take care of this because there's no other place to go. Interviewer 13:46 Looking at the 60s as a whole, if you you know could put the advances and conservations on one side of the scale and the increased threat to the environment, you know, with technology on the other side of the scale. How would the 60s weigh out? Was it a good decade for the environment or event? David Brower 14:04 I think it was a good decade, I think we were beginning to pull out of it. And we continued to pull out of it in the early 70s After Earth Day. Some people think and the environmental movement was born on earth David, I think it was a grandparent by then in any event. The 60s had a great deal to do with what happened in the early 70s. And we've been going downhill since that. The our ability to take things apart as far exceeded our ability to repair things. And that's I think what must be done now that in the future we must defer and determine what is sustainable, not just for a week or two but in perpetuity and govern our our handling of ourselves and our planet and that way that we don't want to interrupt something that goes it's going so well. You look outside of nature, everything is recycled. There are no plows in nature, nothing is wasted. And we seem to think we can get away with breaking that circle of well, we can't, but we can learn how to live within it. And I think That is the challenge. So right now my my big plea is that we get a restoring Earth conference going at the United Nations I understand is going to happen that we get restored restoring restoration departments going within governments and cities. curricula within universities and things UC Santa Barbara is gonna make a try out that and I'm trying to sell it also to the University of Arizona. We should begin to do this to get make careers not only in preservation but in restoration. And there are lots of jobs there. Plenty of jobs, put things back together, and it's the best investment I can think of. Interviewer 15:37 Thank you |
01:15:39 939.25 |
End interview
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01:15:51 952 |
End reel.
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