WEBVTT

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[music]

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[music]

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I ask younger people

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the name Dave Brower means nothing to them.
They don\'t know him.

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[music]

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I think David was a giant. I think in many
ways, he was more important than John Muir.

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He accomplished so much more

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than anyone else, if there is
no way to make a comparison.

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[music]

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You start talking about the
Grand Canyon, Point Reyes,

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The Red Wood, you\'re talking about things so
powerful, that you almost can\'t comprehend,

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and if there was this(ph) Titanic, it\'s facts and
symbols of our relationship to nature and (inaudible)

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effect is on each of these things.

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[music]

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Brower was a crusader, no question
about it. He was the icon among the

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uh… environmentalist who wanted
everything to… and to stay the same.

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[music]

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He\'ll be remembered almost

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as an instance of pure act. He came
at a time, when act was necessary.

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He made a strong impression and he was,

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umm… a person of convictions,
uh… a person who is a fighter,

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I always thought later that maybe his, he experiences
as a mountain climber influenced his life.

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When you look at the mountain and
say, \"Well, let\'s give it a try

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and that was David Brower.\"
He loved wilderness,

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he loved the natural land
and he wanted to save it,

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and that… that was the
highest thing to him.

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And sometimes, he would sacrifice
other values to get there.

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[sil.]

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We weren\'t trying to get anything our way. We wanted it
that way for our descendents, for the rest of the world.

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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Americans had always thought of the
landscape almost in scriptural terms.

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It\'s in the Hudson River school of painters.
Uh… who were brought out here to California

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in the 1860s. Swedenborgianism was a
very strong influence in California.

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The Emanuel Swedenborg, the great \"Lutheran
theologian,\" in the 18th century

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talked about spirit and matter being
conjoined, that they… that you… uh… are almost

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uh… inducted by nature into conditions of
spiritual insight. So that was the tradition

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out of which the early Sierra Club came.

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It was the Sierra Club of California
and it was a bunch of hike,

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rock climbers and other
people who loved the Sierra.

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[music]

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[music]

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The impetus for joining the Sierra
Club, when I was the rock climber.

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[music]

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I like to take people out from that, I\'d like to see their
reactions, when acting sort of if the guy or something.

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Not much have been done, it
was ropes in the Sierra,

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and we did something like 65 climbs and
interview first to send something this sort of,

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as we\'re never still first to sense that, and you know,
like the… the feel when you… when you get up on top.

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[music]

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We are old members of the Sierra Club.

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A bunch of young, old climbers and
we they claimed that Ship rock

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could not be climbed.

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We were very excited
about it because it was

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uh… the nation\'s number
one climbing problem.

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[music]

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That is Dave.

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Dave did have a dynamic personality.
It could be

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a little dictatorial other times. We… we
can do, push one another… another around

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and uh… taken stride.

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We uh… climbed four days.

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[music]

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In another sheer drop(ph)

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around 1300 feet or so,
right down to the desert.

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Just plain ordinary uh… great
(inaudible)tennis shoes.

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[music]

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It\'s a very pleasant sensation,
uh… arriving at a point

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where no man has been before.
Yeah, we done it.

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I think this is the sunrise

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from… from a good work, yeah.

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[music]

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And Navajo Indians just
wandering across the desert.

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On our way, he and we had to stop at

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the Navajo training post and got acquainted
with uh… Mr. Evans, who sent off

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in an advance communication
to Associated Press

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that a Sierra Club party, had
come in, or attempt to Shiprock

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and (inaudible)and we had more fun
within the evening after we got back

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uh… watching him, he to need crawl.

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So we were, a bit on the jubilant side

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and uh… when we hardly out
back… just civilization again,

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we were down right cocky about.

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The Sierra Club I joined was

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primarily oriented toward the other doors
uh… and just the… the use of the Sierra\'s,

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a place to enjoy wilderness
without been concerned

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particularly about what was happening
to it. But it was not really

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same just as the Sierra Club
preservationist until 1936.

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One of the things by David and
I\'ve long since have read was,

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of course, the all the Sierra Club (inaudible)
and have, have gone through every bit of

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with that sort of… sort of
(inaudible) and though certainly

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much taken by the writings of John
Muir and the other contributors to it.

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[music]

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My father just finished climb of pilot snob. He\'s
coming down through the forest beneath to his camp

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and met this bearded man, walking through with, there was a
tripod over his shoulder and he said, \"You must be Ansel Adams?\"

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And… and, Ansel agreed that\'s who he was and
complained about the clouds going over being

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unsuitable for photographs, and that began
the relationship and it was very close.

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Ansel was a mentor of my dad in many ways. My
father had come from uh… kind of an austere

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father himself. So I think that Ansel\'s
ability to party really attracted him

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and it was a live scene.

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Ansel certainly helped to create a part of
it. He developed photographs for my father

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which is an honor, not many people can, Ansel
working in the… in the dark room for you

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and was his mentor also in environmental
things. It was a very much uh… older brother

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sort of relationship back then.

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That changed my life. His knowledge of photography
and like to be done with it shaped everything

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that we were going to do ever after.

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Ansel Adam\'s photographs
make a powerful statement

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about nature in of itself. Nature that
is not destroyed, that is preserved,

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that is protected, and I think that David Brower
learnt from Ansel Adams that power of Art,

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in this case photography, to promote the
cause of environmental preservation.

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[music]

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So I was brought into this
Sierra Club on half-time basis,

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at $75 a month extensively, to
prepare a members handbook.

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Instead, I got into the Kings Canyon.

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Part of when I get there to make
the Sierra Club\'s first movie,

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of a \"Skyline Trails of the Kings,\"
made in course in the 1939,

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1940, high trips. He went back to
(inaudible) or shown by the parks service

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to the members of congress and one of these, the things… the
things that helped to get the park set aside, one of many.

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[music]

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The establishment of the Kings
Canyon, national park was not

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a new development for the Sierra Club. The Sierra
Club at the turn of the century played a major role

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in the establishment of the national
park system. There is a lyrical,

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idyllic quality to the relationship to the
landscape, to backpacking, to rock climbing

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and suddenly uh… after American
entry into the war, the same skills

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become of a military importance.

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He began to develop equipment and
technique for use in winter and summer

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and snow and on rock, for
the US mountain troops

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or ski troops that was were my mountaineering
experience reached its whole usefulness.

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It was really extraordinary

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and surprising contribution
that happened out of

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what was put together by the Sierra Club, the
up close of course, John Muir was trending.

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[music]

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[music]

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We were able to go up, a (inaudible)up fairly
major cliff river ridge, in the dark at night

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was using ropes and so on. We… we arrived
on top and really quite surprised,

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we… the Germans, on a key position
in that line, it was at position

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providing observation, which provided in the
churning out (inaudible)direct artillery fire

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and… and reliving to
defeat your own efforts.

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[music]

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He didn\'t think, he was gonna survive. He was in some of
the most intense battles in Europe in 1944 and in 1945.

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Uh… a person who came through the uh…
existential crucible of that kind of combat

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uh… who in effect like
John Muir was born again

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by surviving the war, he finishes the
war with an appreciation for pure act.

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He was poetic, yes. He had a mystical side,
yes. He had an intellectual side, yes.

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He had a literary side, yes.
But all these things fade

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uh… in comparison to his being

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a champion… a champion of proactive interventionist
action on… on the heart of the environment.

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[music]

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People would ask me about what my dad did and I would say, \":
He was a conservationist and they wouldn\'t know what that was.\"

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If you like wilderness, you got to work to try
to save some of it. So there be some aura left,

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or the next generation.

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He was such a persuasive and such a
evangelical and such a seminal man.

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He intensely believed in what he was doing
and it was never too small a group.

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It was us at the dinner table, his whole family who
talk about preaching to the choir. But every night,

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you know, he would get fired up and
he would, he would try to sell us.

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I mean, just… just he and me walking down the trail,
he would do this. He would get excited by these ideas.

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[sil.]

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People who founded the Sierra Club
and who more or less guided it

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and were its substance for
the first 20, 30, 40 years.

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Cared about the Earth, but they cared about
it being pretty. They wanted to enjoy it.

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The old timers in the conservation movement,
John Muir might have been an exception,

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although, he himself was a businessman.
They tended to be those

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who\'s lives had profited from
the corporate structure that

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we all believed in, that was America,
that was our way. In their world,

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there was always going to be
plenty, uh… plenty of substance

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and plenty of scenery and plenty of space and they
didn\'t realize that we were coming together gradually

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and wiping out the beauty of the Earth.

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Ansel was strong in defending Yosemite.

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He wanted desperately to have the
Sierra Club make a big fight

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over the Tioga road, where broke
through the glacial polish up

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near Tioga and I asked Tuolumne Meadows, Ansel
Adams was desperate to have the club save that

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and the club did not respond well. They
borrowed it and there was a noble fight,

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but he didn\'t win. We
didn\'t really get into gear

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until it was too late.

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It was a battle to, to bring more and more people
into the parks. To provide more and more access

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for the people who have rejected
to be intending to visit

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and this led to an extraordinary
amount of national park damage.

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It was a removal of the one filter(ph)

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that could protect the parks
to make what was there

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something you had to earn. I shot a lot of

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16 millimeter color footage for a two road
for them. The road that we should have had

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and the road we got, and the kinds of damage
that were undertaken to make the new road.

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[music]

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Keep the standards difficult. Let people spend
more time driving. Driving really what amounted to

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a… a motor trail through the woods, so
you could see the flowers alongside,

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so you could reach out back then, cuts the branches. Get
the feel of the country from the car, driving slowly.

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[music]

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[music]

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[sil.]

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When David Brower joined the Sierra Club in… in
the late 1930s, the population of California was

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7 to 8 million people. It was still virtually
unsettled. Yet, it was on the cusp of

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the extraordinary growth that would
occur during and after World War II.

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Here is a population that would go from
7 to 8 million to 12 million in 1962

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to 17 million in the 1960s, to 35
million by the… by the new millennium.

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So, Brower represents a generation that anticipated
the need for a more \"Activist intervention.\"

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He believed that you had to

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stand up against things that were wrong

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regardless of how inconvenient it might be.

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Uh… That there… the are
things that you that cry out

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uh… for help and you have to be
there and you have to do it.

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The big build up as it\'s been called
in the west, was going to destroy

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great deal of the wild landscape.
The government agencies stopped

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seeming like custodial agencies
and started seeming like,

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agencies for development of natural resources,
largely at the expense of the public\'s domain

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and for the profit of the exploiters.

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When Eisenhower became president,
he put together an administration

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which included the secretary of
interior, who\'s name was Douglas McKay.

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He was pro-timber, he was pro-development.
The first major

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conflict with McKay was over dams
in Dinosaur National Monument,

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planned for the Colorado River drainage.
Brower and his colleagues

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decided to quite specifically use the
comparison between Yosemite and Dinosaur,

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in order to say, this happened once
before, it shouldn\'t have happened

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and we cannot let this happen again.

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This is the story of two Yosemites.

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One of the Yosemite Valley everybody knows, is
one of the most beautiful valleys in the world

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and some cliffs and water
falls in a charming setting,

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trees to train the visitors, meadows
to look at and to look from,

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natural beauty underfoot and to
walk by, a setting with open space,

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living space that a million
people see and enjoy every year.

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The other Yosemite is only a little
less beautiful than this one,

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and a few miles to the
North, the Hetchy Valley.

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Wapama Falls was one of Hetch Hetchy\'s
finest, but now the setting is gone.

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You see, Hetch Hetchy was a remarkable
storage vessel but the fine dam site,

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where the walls crowded together.

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John Muir, the Sierra Club and other conversation groups
fought hard against this destructive park invasion.

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San Francisco argued that without
this water, it would wither.

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This once beautiful valley, part of a
national park is bloodied. This zone is

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ugly enough at the dam. At
the head of the reservoir,

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its routes, there it\'s much plow
down means two miles of desolation,

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for the ventures.

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We walked a mile up into it.

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Although, it was still early in the season, 1600
people came into Yosemite Valley that same day.

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Two came to Hetch Hetchy,

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and we didn\'t count the pleasure.

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Brower showed the film

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is viewed by the appropriate congressional people as well as
the administration people. The idea was to get the word out,

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to educate the public and
public liked the movies,

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so that helped. Before it\'s to
Dinosaur National Monument,

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echo park dam and the split
mountain dam came up.

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Uh… I started publishing articles in
the Los Angeles Times, big spreads.

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Southern California was depending on all
that Colorado River water and any dams

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
that slowed that down, they didn\'t like. So
editorially, I had a good field to work in.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
And David Brower saw these articles and I
wasn\'t special interested in the Sierra Club,

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
I said it was, it was I can do
more without it and I can with it

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
and then he told me in one way or another and I don\'t
remember the words. He said, \"It\'s going to change,

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
I\'m in in-charge.\" But he may
not have used those words.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:05.000
He let on that, there was a new
horizon for the Sierra Club.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
Dinosaur National Monument

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
was a place so wild that it
did not have a constituency

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
and therefore it was subject to
development in secret and essentially

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
because the American public would never know
what was actually in Dinosaur\'s Canyons.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
We did begin a series of

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
very popular river trips to Dinosaur. Where a lot of
people got to see what it was and how important it was,

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
to know personally what was there, because
of their own personal stake in it

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
to be part of the battle uh…
troops, fighting for it.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
He took people out into the wild. He
showed them what the places were like,

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
and then they went home and
wrote to their congressmen.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
[music]

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
The new tools that David Brower
experimented with in the 1950s

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
had to do with public opinion formation.
How do you reach the public?

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
You do it through film and you do it through
books, you do it through color photographs

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
and each one of those media was used

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
in the Dinosaur fight and
used very effectively

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
[music]

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
Take another look. Yes, take a good look

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
at this wilderness river country of yours.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
2000 feet straight down from Harper\'s corner into
the heart of it. Remembering what it was like,

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
when you were down there looking straight up, hitting
the surge of the river that carried you off.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
Remember too, that our great National
Park system isn\'t an accident.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
Men worked hard. Men with vision,
save these places for us.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
Give us the opportunity of being inspired
and thrilled and renewed by them.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
American through the ages will learn of it,

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
who want to see it and see it again, if we
don\'t allow it to be flooded by reservoirs.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
[music]

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
Yes, take a good look

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
and then come back and think
about this miracle of the Earth,

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
and think about your kids too.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
Shall we let man undo this miracle or
(inaudible) for your children and theirs.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
This friendly Canyon country and
its seen wilderness rivers.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:58.000
[music]

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Eisenhower had stood up and said, \"Oh,
those dams will be built.\" And we said,

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
\"They will not be built.\" Uh… We
weren\'t doing this out of vanity.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
The idea was not to win, so we could
say, \"We won.\" The idea was to win,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
so that the America of the future
as of that time would have been

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
somewhat more beautiful than it had
been otherwise. They were greatly

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
after extremely crazy project.
I\'m forced to infer

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
that they knew they were lying, because I don\'t think
they could otherwise it would have been so stupid.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
The Bureau of Reclamation had
suggested at various times vastly

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
different of evaporation rates
for its dam and Brower simply

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
did… did addition and subtraction and pointed
out that their balance sheet did not balance.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
Dave was excited. He had
not completed college.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
He was dealing with engineers and
bureaucrats who had long pedigrees

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
and he proved them wrong.
Dave testified in congress

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
and pointed out those errors.
This was the beginning of

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:30.000
a challenge to government.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
[music]

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
David Brower\'s victory

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
uh… at the Dinosaur National Monument,
protecting it from dams umm… made him

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
\"The protector of our national parks,\"
but what about the possibility of dams

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
outside the national parks? Some 50
possibilities after all, and as time went on,

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
David Brower himself became more and more concerned
that in achieving the victory within the parks,

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.000
he had let nature vulnerable outside the
park to dangerous and destructive damming.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:50.000
[music]

00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:03.000
[music]

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
I had heard from people that
Glen Canyon was beautiful,

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
but it was not part of the national
park system and I was willing

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
and able at that time to
make the horrible mistake of

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
being willing to sacrifice Glen Canyon
in order to save Dinosaur The Gold Park,

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
simply because \"I didn\'t know what
was in Glen Canyon and that was

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
one of the bitterest
lessons I\'ve ever had.\"

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:43.000
[music]

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:15.000
[sil.]

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
[sil.]

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
In 1960, Brower wrote an editorial for the
Sierra Club bulletin, which was about boldness.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
And he believed that what the Sierra
Club had to do was take a bold stance

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
towards conservation issues, not
to compromise. And in particular,

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
he could take as a case in point, the
loss of Glen Canyon. He believed that

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
compromise always led
to disaster and regret

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
and guilt finally. Not just on his part,
but for the entire environmental movement.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
This was his case study in,
\"Why not to compromise

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
in these fights,\" and umm… and
it was one of the beliefs that

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
distinguished him and distinguished him
from a lot of other people in the movement.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
Anybody who was there was so affected by the place that
you just, you don\'t get over it. And you don\'t get over

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
regretting it and he certainly
never stopped feeling that loss.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
Between the mid-50s and the mid-60s,

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
Dave Brower got the idea
of environmental effects.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
He read his (inaudible), understood the land ethic,
he understood that we weren\'t doing this for us,

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
that we couldn\'t compromise something that we didn\'t
create and that we didn\'t own and that we had to be

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
good stewards of this
community that we share.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
The American political game is played as
we all know with the word \"Compromise.\"

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
Little give, little take, we bend this way, we
bend that way. David Brower by the mid-1960s,

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
and increasingly later on and toward the end
of his life was unwilling to bend at all.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
One planet, we\'re the big impact on this planet,
we are the 800 pound gorilla, we need to

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:15.000
discipline our civilization. No
compromise in defense of mother nature.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:45.000
[music]

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:55.000
[music]

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
[music]

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
In 1960, the American public didn\'t have

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
a concept of planet Earth, which is to
say the Earth as an integrated whole,

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
a living, interdependent, eco-system.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
Most Americans looked to the environment
as a resource. There isn\'t very much

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
that you can do today, that will materially
all your life in the next three or four years

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
in the field of conservation. But you can
build for that future. You can build

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
for the 70s, as those who went ahead of us,
build for us in this great dam and lake

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
that I flew over today. Kennedy didn\'t have

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
a strong campaign on conservation.
He wanted to build more dams.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
That was the democrat\'s policy and that was

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
kind of a religion and Western congressmen
and senator, I can tell you, I was one,

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
the one thing they could get out
of Washington to bring home,

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
to deliver the bacon is, we used to
say was… was, \"Authorization for dam

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
and money for a dam,\" financed
by the federal government.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
Stewart Udall wasn\'t our friend to start
with, we had to educate him, you know.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
He wanted to be, and more you know,
Morris, you know, his brother

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
uh… they had good instincts,
but they were from Arizona

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
and it was practically against the law to be a conservationist
in Arizona. It got to where we could speak with him.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
It took a while. I guess
Dave Brower educated him,

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
brought him around. Dave would
come to Washington every so often.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
He usually came by my office and hammered
me a little bit. I mean, he… he wasn\'t…

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
he wasn\'t the shy (inaudible).
I mean, he tell you this that,

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
you\'re not gonna pass this through
congress. He would bring books to me and

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
this is the American Earth, the reports
was, the first and the most famous of these

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
because it uh… established a pattern,
this was one of Dave\'s big achievements,

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
I think as an educator, these books.
The key congressman senator,

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
\"He would go by their office and
leave one and talk about it

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
and… and uh… I think it,
it made a big impact

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
in congress uh… to get people
thinking about preserving

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
what was left uh… of the best of America.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
Here, he was testing the waters,
understanding that the most important tool

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
the environmentalists had was people who
didn\'t know country because they were in it,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
but people who knew country because they saw
pictures of it. They thought about the idea.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
This was after all the idea of wilderness that
(inaudible)wrote about so eloquently in the early 1960s,

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
part of the geography of hope, \"The
idea of wilderness.\" David Brower

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
outstanding for the fact that he recognized
that there was political muscle in that idea.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
I made two Western trips with Kennedy

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
and uh… uh… we talked about
conservation issues.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Uh… I think I was educating him,
you know, we went to Yosemite

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
and… and some of these issues
were already bubbling up

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
and we talked about wilderness and so
on, and he was interested and in fact,

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:35.000
said to me, \"Go ahead, do what you can.\"

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:50.000
[music]

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
President Kennedy assassination was…

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
it was just uh… uh… a heavy
brawl and I had… I was just

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
on top of my job. 55,000 employees,

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
17 different agencies and
uh… I had worked against

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
Lyndon Johnson and… and uh…
uh… I was the last one

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
that he saw to tell, I\'m gonna keep
you on, but(ph) I don\'t think,

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
he didn\'t haze me uh… to show that
he remembered that I was on trial,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
but uh… I thought I had the best
job in the country and I started

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
working with and taking trips
with Lady Bird Johnson

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
and we became great friends and I think
from then on, the president wouldn\'t have

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
dared to fired me, because we were
so close and had such harmony.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
The dedication of Point Reyes
seashore, that was the type of thing

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
that we did, that dramatized for the
country that, \"Oh, we were spending money

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
and congress is behind and a large
amount of the national park system

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
and a large amount of wilderness and a large
amount of wildlife. It was a wonderful time.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
The growing needs of an urban America,

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
a quickening the tick of
the conservation clock.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
Let us dedicate, Point
Reyes National Seashore

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
to the vitality of the American people

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
and to generations yet
unborn, who will come here

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
with the continent at
their backs and gaze afar

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
into immensity. Thank you so much

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
for letting me share this time with you.
In the 1860s, David Brower has

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
strong connections to the white house.
As radical

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
and as determined as David Brower was,
he never moved outside the system

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
and the early 1960s see then, the fulfillment of his
relationship to the system in making the system,

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
do things that perhaps, the system didn\'t want to
do otherwise. Like, \"The wilderness act of 1964,\"

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
in which he played a major determinant role
in seeing through the passage of that act.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:28.000
[music]

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:48.000
[music]

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:08.000
[music]

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:38.000
[music]

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:03.000
[music]

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
I don\'t think there is any better
system than to have the opportunity

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
to take the matter to congress
and to have the opportunity

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
to (inaudible) people that they can make a difference
and to remind them that the price of liberty

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
is eternal vigilance and that goes for wilderness
that taking you\'re never (inaudible)in the battle.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:50.000
They will have the wilderness, they won\'t.
The battle isn\'t over.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:08.000
[music]

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
While (inaudible) had written about the
wonderful assay, when you said, \"We need it,\"

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
even if we never go there as part of

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
the geography of hope. In my department,

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
along with Brower and the Wilderness
Society and others, we were orchestrating

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
the emergence of the environmental
movement. The ecology was

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
a word nobody, only scientists
understood in the beginning.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:08.000
[sil.]

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
In Red Wood Creek,

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
they had cut down a tree
that was 390 feet long.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
(inaudible) Redwood who did that and what
they called their park preventive program.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
They went into the land that they owned
and cut down the best of the trees

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
in the most beautiful forest, to make it
unsuitable for park purposes. The part of the tree

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
that was on the ground not
counting the stump was 390 feet,

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
five feet taller than any tree that exist
today. We are talking about private land,

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
but it had been stolen from the
country by the homestead act,

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
where the timber people would buy a
guy a drink in order to get him to

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
file a homestead. You could get a 160 acres,
just by trying in a tab of paper, you know.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
And then the timber people would
cause all this to happen,

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
consolidated those uh… parcels and
ended up with millions of acres

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
uh… which they were free
to blog(ph), destroy.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
They had done nothing to create the riches.
The wealth was there in the trees.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
[sil.]

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
They are conducting a war in behalf of the
timber harvest and wilderness be damned.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
They use practices that show up well,
on the year end financial statement

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
and would show very poorly on the
century\'s financial statement.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
It\'s the kind of thing thinking
that says tree(ph) cutting is good,

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
simply because in their basic
understanding, they know the tree cutting

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
is cheaper and nobody is gonna
have to pay the differed cost

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
that will show up a hundred years from
that. Nobody, now making a decision.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
The (inaudible) is been
(inaudible)the system too long,

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
grip of a child today. Particularly,
one that hasn\'t been born yet.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:30.000
[music]

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
My father is passionate for the
environment. It was like a religion fervor,

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
but, you know, he didn\'t believe in me who
is (inaudible)he didn\'t want to be rational.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
Umm… he liked it when people said he was
unreasonable, that was a compliment to him.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
Brower came up with the
idea of uh… running some

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
full page ads in a number of
prominent national newspapers,

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle
and which was nearing where the club

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
had its headquarters. Somebody had
recommended an ad agency in San Francisco

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
that have done some clever ads for the
Irish Whiskey Board. They were Freeman,

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
Gossage and Mander. The mass of people

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
really… really cared about these
parks and saving trees and so on.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
And they just had to mobilize and
the first time somebody put big

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
umm… clear, aggressive statements, concerning what
was going on and what they could do about it.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
And they responded. Yeah,
it was people out there

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
uh… who were conservationists
and who saw that they had power

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
and they did have power.
It is going at long last

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
for the Redwood National Park, then make no small plan,
because they don\'t have the power to inspire people.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
Make bold plans and this should
be a bold plan, that really get

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
lots of excitement going. And
we got Lady Bird Johnson

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
to come out. This was for the park was
created. And She stood on a stump

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
and said all the right things.
I think all of us here

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
are a fellowship of people, who love
nature and who revere these great trees.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
This is not first trip to the
Redwood, except in my imagination

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
and in reading articles and
looking at beautiful pictures

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
for years and years, but wanting
to come here all my life.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
The controversy went on,
that\'s the… there was all a

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
(inaudible) middle year kind of compromise,
but the Sierra Club in effect,

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
their drive put that law and
that park on the books.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
I believe that this act, establishing the
Redwood National Park in California,

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
will stand for all times, as a monument to

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
the wisdom of our generation.
Yes, the Redwoods will stand.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
So long as they do, they
will give the light,

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
they will give instruction,
they will declare for

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
(inaudible) here, whenever great
conservation battles are being fought.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
We stand because a nation found

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
its greatest profit in
preserving for its heritage,

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
its greatest resource
and that is the beauty

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
and the splendor of its land.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:03.000
[music]

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:23.000
[music]

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:18.000
[music]

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
Well, reclamation uh… is… is
really not the proper name

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
for what we do. The purpose
of the bill of reclamation

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
was to harness the rivers of the
west, and put the water to work

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
for the benefit of people. It was
recognized if you couldn\'t settle the try

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
and some arid, and arid regions
of the great west without having

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
an adequate water supply.
Dams were proposed inside

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
the Grand Canyon that would
have just ruined everything.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
And uh… the amount of destruction is
incomprehensible to people today.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
All these crooks, gangsters and what
not were gonna be ultra billionaires

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
from the water that was going throughout across
Arizona, make all their 25 cent acre land

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
worth $25,000 an acre.
A reporter was killed.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
He was… he was investigating
the uh… subject

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
uh… from the Arizona Republic, for Phoenix paper.
His car was blown up. He was blown to bits

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
and that sort of thing went on. Anybody who
dared question, the Central Arizona Project

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
was in trouble. I was approximately

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
19 years old when the gates on Glen
Canyon dam closed. For my generation,

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.999
however, the dams in the Grand Canyon were

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.999
a real possibility and a bleak possibility.
This was the one

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:59.999
environmental battle where David Brower
stood essentially alone as the leader,

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
and for most of us growing up in the 60s,

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
this was the major environmental
battle of our time.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
When I first ran the Grand Canyon in 1965,
there was scaffolding on the walls,

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
drilling, people were down there, barges. We thought,
well, \"This is gonna happen.\" What we hadn\'t counted on

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.999
people like Dave Brower and Martin
Litton, and the others who stepped up,

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:29.999
stood tall and said, \"Wait a minute, this doesn\'t have
to happen.\" Dave Brower is a very imposing person.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.999
Uh… he\'s tall, he\'s uh…
grayed hair and handsome

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
and uh… very uh… he speaks very well

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
and uh… and is certainly very opinionated.
He uh… he has his views

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:49.999
and (inaudible) and he hates dams.
Floyd Dominy,

00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:54.999
the commissioner of reclamation at
that time who was pushing everything

00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.999
uh… was a… a clown who came
along at the right time

00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:04.999
to rhapsodize over dams. Glen Canyon dam,

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:09.999
the one that was built was something
he could use as an example

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:14.999
as to why the Grand Canyon dams were needed
because so many people had recreation there.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:19.999
And you had this deep blue lake as he
called it, where there was no lake before

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.999
and he said, \"It seems to put
man a little closer to God.\"

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:30.000
Well, it placed man about 400 feet closer
to God. You can look at it that way.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:54.999
The lake borders,

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:59.999
the land of the Navajo. A
people born to the desert,

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:04.999
for centuries, the Navajo has lived
among the (inaudible) and red sands.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.999
Into his land, came Lake Powell

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.999
which he had woven into his
pattern of ancient ways.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:19.999
And the land speaks again
of beauty and harmony.

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.999
[music]

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.999
Water skiers try their skill on hundreds
of our country\'s lakes. But few lakes

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:34.999
can match Lake Powell for the sheer
spectacle of its scenic backdrop.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:39.999
[music]

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.999
This was going to be spiritual.
This was gonna be beautiful.

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.999
And he\'s on the side of the angels.
Uh… we\'re on the side of the mud

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.999
and the dirt and the wilderness and all
these bad things, scorpions and bumblebees.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:59.999
Oh, no, he never saw anything like that.
He saw beautiful paintings

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:04.999
and uh… people having fun, enjoying
themselves, recreation, you know.

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:09.999
I\'ve taken two helicopter
trips and Glen Canyon Dam,

00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:14.999
cleared the lake meet (inaudible)and
photographed every inch of that canyon.

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.999
And I showed it to the
congressional committees.

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.999
I had them absolutely convinced that we weren\'t gonna
do any damage to the Grand Canyon National Park.

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:29.999
Uh… There\'s Arizona water
project was considered

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.999
uh… the biggest opportunity
the state will ever have

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:39.999
uh… to get a big federal project.
As I told senator Goldwater once,

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:44.999
if you\'re from Arizona and you weren\'t
for the Central Arizona project,

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:49.999
just forget it, get out of politics. Congressman
asked, when (inaudible)all is starting

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:54.999
the hearings presumably on the
Grand Canyon dams on February 21.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.999
And that the administration goes in without a position
against this dam, we are in the same trouble we were.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:04.999
(inaudible) It really hasn\'t been alleviated. Well,
doesn\'t today\'s action by Udall give you hopes

01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:09.999
that he will take some position on the
other dams? I very much hope he will,

01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.999
but uh… this… this has to be clarified, it is not clarified
as you will see and the prepared statement to secretary Red,

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:19.999
this morning in Washington. David
Brower and others were successful

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:24.999
in marshaling the American public opinion in
a way that never been brought out before.

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:29.999
Huge defense, this was the Grand
Canyon they are after this time,

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:34.999
the Sistine Chapel, Dave called (inaudible)in
one of its ads. Environmentalism was moving

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:39.999
from an economics issue, the
old conservation type of issue

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.999
to an ethical issue, to a spiritual issue
was now a matter of right and wrong.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:49.999
One of the arguments that was being made
for putting dams in Grand Canyon was

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:54.999
that… that would create a lake and tourists
and rowboats and power boats could then

01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:59.999
be on top of the lake and be
very close to the Canyon walls.

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:04.999
That\'s what (inaudible)we came with the headline, should we also
flood the Sistine Chapel, so tourists can get near the ceiling.

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:09.999
It was really not okay with most
people, once they really got the idea.

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:15.000
These things were… were preposterous and outrageous
and… and people understood them that way.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:29.999
[music]

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:34.999
When the uh… mail starts into congress

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:39.999
from all over the United States uh…
that\'s when I knew it was serious.

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.999
Uh… He had the public believing, we were
gonna flood the Grand Canyon National Park

01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:49.999
from rim to rim. I thought,
he was very unfair,

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.999
this sanctimonious puritan
lie, he deliberately lied.

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:59.999
There is no point in writing an ad
unless, it\'s going to be talked about.

01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:04.999
It can\'t be just an advertisement. It
must be an event. It must do something.

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:09.999
The responses kept pouring in and pouring
in… pouring in and it definitely activated

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:14.999
a movement that didn\'t exist before.
That was really a stroke of genius

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:19.999
and then of course, yeah, it put heat on
you, yeah… yeah if you\'re in my position,

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.999
you had to respond. I made a trip with
my family through the Grand Canyon

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:29.999
and I came out and wrote
an article which said,

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:34.999
\"Dump it and believe me, the
Arizona people didn\'t like that.\"

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:39.999
That of course was a victory for the Sierra Club.
I think, it was a victory for conversation

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:44.999
uh… and I\'m very proud of the
fact that I did change my mind.

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.999
We are of course grateful that the administration is no longer
supporting a dam in the Marble Gorge of the Grand Canyon,

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.999
and that it now wishes to see the Grand
Canyon National Park, expanded upstream

01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:59.999
to protect one of that part of the world\'s
great wonders. The Grand Canyon battles

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.999
really elevated David to a huge

01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:09.999
amount of public visibility. I can
remember working with the San Francisco

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.999
about the time of the Grand
Canyon dam defeat 1968-69.

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:19.999
He was riding high. He had been anointed.

01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:24.999
Certainly the entire far west, the
Grand Canyon must rank as the,

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:29.999
fact and symbolic expression of all that
wilderness was in the American west.

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.999
And David Brower, saved it, and in saving
it he touched greatness in himself,

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:39.999
he achieved great things and
it was known after that

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:44.999
uh… as something more than an
ordinary person as an American hero.

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:53.000
[music]

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:09.999
The IRS hand delivered a notice

01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:14.999
uh… revocation of our statuses
of tax deductible organization.

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:19.999
Apparently, they made a decision
and acted on it within 24 hours.

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:24.999
Never even in times of war did the U.S.
government

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:29.999
had such resolve and dispatch.
My father didn\'t mind this all.

01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:34.999
He said, you know, \"I suppose it by the
beginning.\" But he… he by a lot of the people

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:39.999
at the Sierra Club, but he said, \"The heck with
tax status again.\" Was this… \"His idea that

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.999
bottom-line doesn\'t matter. If we lose our
tax status, good, let\'s… let\'s fight.\"

01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:49.999
I think maybe the board of director lost more
sleep about it than he did. By that time,

01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:54.999
the club was 70,000 members, it
was a national forest, it was

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:59.999
uh… emerging rather clearly is the
number one conservation organization

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.999
in the country. It had
the legacy of John Muir

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:09.999
and many of us felt, you don\'t play
with that. At least, you don\'t

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:14.999
play recklessly with that. And that\'s
what led to all the problems between him

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:19.999
and the board. Uh… at least on
their side, what led to them,

01:05:20.000 --> 01:05:24.999
on this side was he didn\'t think
that they were bold enough.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:29.999
In 1968, they ran a double spread ad

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:34.999
in New York Times entitled \"Earth
National Park\". He put into that ad

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.999
every ounce of vision he had, about staking

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.999
the claims for environmentalism
on the broadest possible canvas

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:49.999
and with the biggest program, he could
conceive of. This was the first time

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.999
that we had done an ad that was not specifically
about a place or a particular threat.

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:59.999
Uh… since it\'s a dam or the cutting
down of forest but it was more broadly

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.999
arguing about there is this ecological
system and integrated ecological system

01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:09.999
that have to be protected and we have
to be aware of all of the threats.

01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:14.999
Chemicals, Nuclear, uh…
overdevelopment, pollution

01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:19.999
umm… corporate prerogatives, all of these
things were completely uh… hooked together

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:24.999
and they needed to be argued
about comprehensively.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.999
Previously, Brower had been told that before
running any full page advertisement that

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.999
the text of it and the commitment to do it had to
be cleared with the president of the Sierra Club

01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:39.999
who was then Ed Wayburn. He did
not clear this ad with Ed.

01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:44.999
Brower told me, he was gonna run the ad.

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:49.999
I got a glimpse of it. Wayburn asked me, \"What\'s
going on?\" I hear something is cooking.

01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:54.999
I said, \"Well, Ed, you
may have good sources,

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.999
but I can\'t tell you anything about that.
You would have to ask Dave.\"

01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:04.999
It was beyond the
comprehension of old guard

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:09.999
members of the board that the club should
come out with anything as grandiose as that

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:14.999
and Dave Brower should be responsible for
it, and he should spend club money on it.

01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:19.999
Uh… They all opposed or appeared

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:24.999
to be worried about what he was doing.

01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:29.999
He was executive director, just an
employee, but he was the one who mulled

01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.999
all the clubs opinions according to the outside
world. He was the representative of the Sierra Club.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:39.999
So, when Dave came out against
the Diablo Canyon plan,

01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:44.999
strongly, uh… then the old guard directors

01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:50.000
uh… they can\'t stand that, and they were gonna
get rid of this guy. He\'d embarrassed them.

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.999
PG & and E-, Pacific
Gas and Electric Company,

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.999
had the idea of the club, big
nuclear power plant was needed on

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.999
the south central coast of California and this
is how they were fulfilling their obligations

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.999
as they thought to provide
enough power for everyone.

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:19.999
The Sierra Club could not let
that happen because Nipomo Dunes

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:24.999
were famous for their beauty and so forth.

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:30.000
[music]

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:50.000
[music]

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:59.999
Dave\'s firing was because of Diablo Canyon.

01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:08.000
[music]

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.999
The past two years of the
Sierra Club have been

01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:24.999
the most turbulent in the club\'s history.
They have been bitter in a personal sense.

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.999
Yet at the same time, they have had fantastic
achievements in the area of conservation.

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:34.999
Now beyond any doubt, the Sierra
Club moves into a new era…

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:39.999
an era of a conservation club without
the leadership of David Brower.

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.999
Please keep fighting for humanity and
nature. I thank those, of who\'ll gave it

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:49.999
for all the good effort you put in a lot of years in
chief in staff, I hope to make many more speeches,

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.999
praising the Sierra Club\'s achievement and this
to be my last speech as a Sierra Club employee

01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:59.999
and I resign.

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:08.000
[sil.]

01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:24.999
We all thought that uh… you know,
giant had fallen, that uh… this was

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.999
the end of an era, but it was
also the… the end of the tensions

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.999
which had to be resolved. David
Brower why did you finally

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:39.999
decide to give up the fight? I haven\'t given
up the fight but I\'ve… I\'ve moved out of

01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:44.999
the Sierra Club, not out as a member but into another
sphere of activity that I hope a lot of meant

01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:49.999
what the Sierra club is doing and will carry on things
that the Sierra Club is not willing or able yet to do.

01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:54.999
It\'s an organization that we don\'t have the name
of yet. I think, we\'ll have an announcement on it

01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:59.999
by the end of the week. Do you feel any
bitterness? No, I don\'t. I… I feel disappointed,

01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:04.999
but I made an adjustment over several
days ago to the likelihood of this

01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:09.999
and I… I uh… I joined the army by
enlisting before they drafted me

01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:14.999
and this is working the same way, a little bit backward, but I
think there is a great deal for many people to do on conservation,

01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:19.999
to augment the Sierra Club\'s work.
Nationwide and worldwide,

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:24.999
I think something very good is going to come out of this. I\'m
quite optimistic about it and I hope to be able to out more soon.

01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:33.000
[music]

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:20.000
[music]

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:43.000
[music]

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:58.000
[music]

01:13:15.000 --> 01:13:23.000
[music]

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:43.000
[music]

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:04.999
[music]

01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:09.999
He was way ahead of so many people

01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:14.999
who are given so much credit.
They felt the right way.

01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:19.999
They wanted things to be right. But
Dave took the bull by the horns

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:24.999
and he made things right.
He didn\'t just worry,

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:29.999
he didn\'t just aspire to
better… a better world

01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:34.999
uh… he helped to make it better and without
him who knows how bad things would be now.

01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:39.999
He\'s only one person, he couldn\'t do
everything. But everything he pitched on,

01:14:40.000 --> 01:14:44.999
made the Earth better than it
would have been otherwise.

01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:49.999
Uh… they say, he was a greatest
conservationist since John Muir.

01:14:50.000 --> 01:14:54.999
Well, he was the greatest conservationist

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:59.999
including John Muir. I mean, Dave was
10 strides ahead of all of them.

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:08.000
[music]