.. >> we have been talking about it for a long time and we finally did it. you seem to have done it with such joy and humor and playfulness. usually when it comes to the

problems of the world, they are is an obliviousness that comes along with it. but you have thunder in this. >> thank you, and i did. it is one of the things i must've learned from my father. one of his complaints was he worked hard to often. >> he seems to have a wonderful knack. wonderful and memorable statements that he made. you know, a we also learned, and this is david brower. maybe people that don't know who

david brower is. maybe we ought to explain something about why we are doing this book and what david brower did. serene: >> david brower was my father. in 1952 he became a full-time employee at the sierra club. one of the things that knocked me back during the research. considering how big the sierra club is now. he was a full-time staffer and a secretary in virginia. his joining us as a staff double the staff. then they had to. one of the lessons from me is how young this environmental movement is. it hasn't been around that long, and it's gone very fast. my father is -- one of the things that is in full force and was in force in him a lot of

things. nobody helps to do any work except volunteer work members and then he had to be a publisher and pamphleteer and a grassroots organizer. he had to lobby in washington. he had to publish books and make movies and sell. i'm doing a book right now in my father in which my father filmed in one day. it was like an andy warhol project. >> he filmed them and went over there? >> he did. the drawdown was really great. we got in the car in the course of this one day, he shot 580 come film, and he had to make a good film.

nobody else was making these films. i played it and it is pretty good still. it is the kind of thing that necessity forces on you. so we get a lot of things that he did very well. that was one of the things that the book home. >> he went on to director of sierra club, then friends of the earth and people talk about him in terms of the institutes. you talk about him in terms of the personal effects and yet had on people. more than the institutional effects. it was the power of getting into this guy's personality. when you are with him come you always felt that you had to do something. there is a sense of urgency to it and that you have the power to do it. >> this is something i thought about a lot and it really crystallized during this book. trying to figure out where his influence was red the stars.

i think at first glance, you'd think that it was in the organizations. he always had an organization and he needed one. but he wasn't really an organization man. he got in trouble in all his organizations because he didn't like authority and he didn't like the director summoned him what to do. >> no, no, i'm shocked. [laughter] >> in an art book, it i compare him to a cicada, because of the 15 year old cycle. he told me about the cicadas. they there in the ground for 16 years, there are a few but in a larva. then it comes out end of things. and this is what happened to him every 16 years. he got kicked out of an organization. he finally got the board so fed

up with him that they kicked him out. and he split his skin and flew off and started another organization, friends of the earth. after 16 years. i realize in our book, i didn't quite finish the metaphor. the cicada only does this once. >> and i forgot to say that. as my father did a lot of times. at least three times he did it. the other thing i forgot to say -- and the sequel we can put that stuff in. the organizations, -- he began to be constrained by the organizations. they always wanted to tell him to slow down. he really felt that he could not slow down. we were saving the world.

and he didn't worry about the bottom line. he didn't care if we were in the red. but he said well, if we do the work, the money will come in. boards don't like to hear that. so here we are, he embedded this large-format, photographic nature book. it did not exist before the books that are illustrated in the series and exhibit. it didn't exist. ansell adams, -- no bookseller wanted to think about it. these books were too big for them to display. all the messages that he got were discouraging messages. tens of thousands of members in the sierra club and he introduced the greater public to these ideas that we were talking about in the book. the more i think about it, the more i think about its real

impact, his impact was one-on-one. he was a shy guy. he was not one who liked the middle range. so he was a one-man auditorium. he gave a wonderful speech called the sermon, kids in college said sign me up. or it was something he was famous for doing, closing bars. he could drink everybody under the table. >> informants that i have a reputation for being able to drink but i can't do with your father. i remember in new york, six martinis was nothing to him but obliterating to me. >> this was a man of heroic proportions. >> not your ordinary mortal.

>> he listened to them. one of the themes that came out of this book that i had not quite been ready for is how well he listened. and david phillips, in this building, he was one of the people who said do you know how empowering it is. he's one of the guys who came back from the auditorium and said sign me up. and now he is running an institute upstairs. and he is a great conservationist. but he said, do you know how empowering it is to have somebody of that dominance listen to you and want to hear your ideas. at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. over beers in the bar. in phillips case, my father said to him, what do you do? and he says, i did my dissertation on the big eared brown squirrel.

and i got to work with wales and i have been to the caribbean for a month. and i thought, we need that. that's just what we have to have. we need this kind of biological impact that you have, and you have to work for us. and this is the kind of thing that he did with everybody. >> i love when that story, when dave tells that story in your book, he meets this young guy and says you have to come work for us. it's like he got a job and had just been hired. he came over to san francisco into the office and david brower wasn't there and nobody else knew he was coming and there was no job. and he kind of found a desk. you're just recruiting strategies were really interesting. [laughter] this was not a department of human resources. >> it's funny because the way that dave tells the story is that he thinks he has a job.

and he says you have to work with us. and he is going up in the elevator who runs the international government. and they said are you okay? [laughter] you have heard this before and they figure out a way to kick some additional money his way and pretty soon he did that. it is something that works with a certain kind of person. a lot of them got lost by the wayside. >> hiroko must've been amazing. it was an amazing account where you can get somebody over there and he would say hey, you. why don't you just sit down at the desk and say this save this over here and no instructions and just coming up evil work. i guess it works out sometimes. >> it did. one of the things that i have learned in this book is that i

got signed up myself. he would drop anybody into this movement. i lived in the same house and that was handy. >> he drafted me as an editor. he also did mechanicals for ted turner. he drafted anyone who came down the street and i used to worry as my career began working for him about nepotism. i got my job for my father's publisher and that is not very seemly. the first book i didn't want my name on it because the book i didn't like this. but having done the research of this book. i don't feel so bad. it was very, paul.

he was a great energizer in the country. he was a young don. he was a genius and physics. at oxford university. taking pictures and sent the pictures into geographic. pictures of whales. he had bad knees and he was hiking in the mountains. and they said we don't do this kind of thing. this is another type of thing. it sat in my father's office for year with no response. one day my father said i'm coming to london, let's get together. and he spent half an hour looking at the pictures and said you're going to write a book for me. on the mountains of whales. and he said that i have never written a book before, and he said you're going to write one now. and you're going to lay it out. and i said i don't know how to

lay out a book. and he said it's time that you learn. and he did. this is the way worked with me. he drafted me out of my freshman year at berkeley. he took me away from school, to do a book. i spoke on the big sur coast. i got back and finished have my sophomore year and said would you like to go to the galapagos and spend 12 months there doing that in the sophomore year. and it was not a hard decision. >> the decisions, that his training. >> this book is offensive people of that era, it was like no institution, no environmentalism. there were no environmental impact studies, no endangered species act, there was no process, it was just people with

this spectacular sense of poetry. your father's use of language was art. it was not science or politics, it was art. and it was tremendously individually moving. >> the training that he had on this did not come from the academic world. it came from mountain climbing and campfire stories and some other place. but it didn't come -- he didn't study management. they were all winning this. >> it is true. on one hand he was an original thinker who came up with lots of new stuff. on the other hand, he was listening, and the line of

ibook says, it is a chain of one-liners and it is a wonderful description. because my father come to he recognized a good line and soaked it up. he incorporated it in his speech. he was very moved by the beauty himself and that was part of his time in the mountains. the beauty of it was that he saw so much beautiful mess. it is interesting what you see in the wilderness and the epa and what you have now. i thought a lot about that as a consequence of this book. how change movements. how someone like me who is watching it, really from the cradle, saw this huge change in

the environmental movement. the early 60s were such a time for the first time we are really feeling that we could actually stop some of these big projects. the first one, my father's first big success. the first time a group of citizens ever in the history of our country stopped a big government project. it wasn't known that we could do that. there was a purity in that movement we are almost a victim of our own success. these organizations get big. they get big with success.

they get a big budget. you need a manager. and so pretty soon, because you need to raise funds, you have corporate types on your board. and it begins to change. the kinds of scandals that we have had lately in the sierra club and other places, it is funny for me having remember those old conversations to hear words like brandon, what you hear now. you hear how are we going to brand ourselves. it is a corporate term that i don't think in my father's time, i don't think we ever want to use. it is less about the issues or any other issue -- and her

13-year-old daughter needs to be approached differently from a 15-year-old one. >> in terms of breeding environmental organizations come you have to breed back and some of that. i think what they are doing is necessary and it is plugged into the powers of the world. but you have to breed back. your dad was in line with people like john meer and cancel adams, it has to be brought back into it all. you talk about your dad and the sermon. and people talk about how he was a crusader. and there is all this religious analogy in there.

was this a metaphor? was the devil? >> interestingly enough, he didn't have a double. but he definitely had a religion. he spoke of it in terms of religion. he would say someone who had the fire. she has the religion. in the family we knew what that meant. and that person felt this in a very deep way. of course, it is a very satisfactory thing when it is respectably my father dead. instead of god, -- [laughter] >> let that be lauded. >> you know, you have creation. whether god may or may not exist, but creation seems to.

and you are defending the beauty of creation. that is a religious calling. he referred to him as the arch toured. in fact, is like a religion for this guy. and i said yes. i understood this perfectly well. of course it is like a religion for it. and he did call the sermon. you have that kind of yak yet, have that kind of passion. >> i have tried to escape religion all my life. nevertheless, the environmental movement in education. into the educational world, we don't educate anybody, we are failed. religion and religious

conversions and the things that is profoundly moved people and change them, as much as i am not personally religious, that goes to the soul and it causes sweeping changes. we could have sweeping changes, it is not to put things into a great cricket on. it can come from some other place, and i think your dad was right on to something there. >> used a quote and he preached the name. it was a priest or poet that said something about it was time to stop reading the bible and start reading the earth. and my job like that a lot and use it. that is where we have to do our studies. >> your father was so monolithic. he stroked the world like a colossus. he was so powerful and inspiring. in the book, you end up with interviewing these 20 people.

and you give these people the full character and you talk about them in their houses and you talk about the libraries and what is in there. they talk about their lives letters that they have written to other people. there is a portrait of the environmental movement and your father is almost like a cameo figure that moves. his personally seems to be embedded in a larger movement. even though and here they are, he is stunning. but it seems to be you are dealing with something else. this is not exactly the way i intended it to go. the more i interview these people, the more i realized that their stories were as important as my fathers. not a organization so much wonderful, but in this one-on-one uprising that he did.

in a way his legacy is counted. he's probably been dead for 12 years. i wanted to talk about the ongoing mess of what he did. it is incarnation on these people. all influenced by him and all carrying on. i thought that their stories were as at least as important. and i'm happy it worked out that way. >> he is interesting. he said it earlier, you said earlier, in a way he encapsulated the modern movement. a little bit the way that they talk about and how it is recapitulated. how it recapitulates the history. he reflects the history of the movement.

he directly originated a lot of this. you can actually follow the growth of this movement. >> you know, i've always wondered what it would be like to have a father like david brower. and i would have assumed it would take your you least 10 years of therapy to get over it. [laughter] >> but you seem to be approaching this with such ease and joy and collegiality it just seems to be so easy and affectionate and so continent. >> thank you. when i was growing up, for the whole duration, it is peculiar that i never did. something about the way he did it did not make me feel that i was in his shadow.

i never thought that way. part of it was, you know, i grew up in berkeley in 1960. it is a time when you were supposed to rebel against her parents. because they are fuddy-duddies. in regards to my father, he was more dramatic than anybody around and he was right. he was right about what the planet said. he saw what was going on. he was a very eloquent guy in many super persuasive case for it. i cannot disagree with him. everybody back then was wearing little jackets trying to look like lennon. and i wasn't interested. because there was a real guy in the family who wanted to change the planet you know, it was hard

to describe. >> usually people who want to change that also want to change you. you seem to have let people leave themselves or encourage people to just flour on their own terms. he had a lot of detriments, he had a a lot of young people, he gave people the wall on turn ball and got out of the way. he would get them going and a number of the interviews said this. he wasn't good at follow-up, but he was good at launching it. [laughter] >> tom turner wants to say something. tom was interviewed in the book and tom is the -- he knew david from the time he was born. he was editor and if the

environmental movement has these years of stone, he defined him and held them together. would you like to talk a little bit. >> step up to the pulpit. [laughter] >> is great to share all this stuff and thank you very much for this book. as some of you may know, i have actually done a deal with the university of california press to do a biography of david brower. it's going to take me a lot longer than i realized. but this book, i'm going to steal from shamelessly because there is wonderful stuff that will fit quite nicely. in fact, be a material that i go through scares me all the time. it is wonderful that a couple

hundred dollars of papers and letters and journals and clippings and all sorts of things that the bank has, the sierra club lesson did share histories with many of the old-timers. two or three dozen oral histories, and everybody had something to say about broward in these oral histories. some complementary and some less so. it is a great privilege and very enjoyable for me to do this. it is keeping me busy. it is something to work on for a long time yet. what he wanted to say? >> tell a funny story.

[laughter] >> funny stories are always great. >> well, i can tell a parallel story to what ken said about this with dave phillips. which was before that, earlier than not, almost the same thing. david had been up in seattle, talking to and he closed the door and one of the people was a young guy named chris common. he worked on the northwest passage, with was part of the free weekly papers. we had produced three issues of a little newsletter for beginning of the friends of the earth program. there were two parallel organizations working together, the john mayer institute and friends of the earth. friends of the earth was earth was about a year old by the time

this happened, i think, and chris common.after david said you have to have a proper newspaper. there's plenty of news to report, and there is a big hole in a good place for something like that in this movement. and they thought that was a terrific idea. and he encouraged them. until about a week later or two, david never said anything about the patent office. there were only three people there, i think. and so i am sitting at the desk and this kid walks in the front door and says hello, i'm chris common and they broward has hired me to start a newspaper for friends of the earth. and i have just spoke with rolling stone and can give me a check for $5000. and i said no. >> i don't have any checks. i don't know you from adam, if i

had $5000, i wouldn't give it to you anyway. we were living hand to mouth. we would buy stationery and pens once in a while. so in the end, this got a fire lit under everybody. and we started this paper within a couple of months, and we did it within the office to deal with rolling stone or whatever that might have been. chris was hired to be the first production manager and he was a catastrophe. there were one or two issues, i guess, and that he was let go. bob brower was hired to take his place. and take the steps and what have you.

there is a brower and again, he did that. so for every dave phillips, there was a chris common? >> that is the problem with human resourcing. >> he could really lockout but he could also bomb in his judgment. he hit home runs much more from anybody at any expectations that could be hoped for a, i think. i could keep you here for two weeks telling broward stories. i am learning a lot from all this here today. from all this stuff and this research. maybe i will just tell one incredible thing that is a fairly famous storied e-mail now. one of my favorite lines from some testimony he gave before a

house committee on the dinosaur case that kenneth alluded to before. it was about the small conservation movement. in those days, people from the wilderness society, communities in areas and national parks association, they were influential, and the izaak walton week that nobody has heard about probably anymore. they were fighting about these two dams. they were proposed for construction for a national monument, which is part of the national parks system. they are the same as parks, except for the bayer made by president consent of congress. and so the bureau of reformation had this proposal to build these

dams in there. in the sierra club and others were fighting, partly on the principle this is nothing that should have been inside a national park. but partly thinking about how, you know, whether justification for they were given for this project were legitimate, and so dave duggins all the studies and calculations and things that would be computer projections now. it was all being done by hand then. and he started to find some numbers that just did not add up right. and it was the main problem, it was calculating the lost to evaporation and seepage, which they called pink storage comment thinking they could get a deck sunday, which didn't happen.

between constructing these two reservoirs and fiddling with some of the other dams that were proposed, raising the level of the dam downstream which is another cool story, but if you raise that a certain amount, you would increase water capacity so that the dinosaur damage would not be necessary. brouwer sat down in one of the congressmen said, mr. brower, are you an engineer. and he said no, sir, i am an editor. that encapsulate quite a lot about it. he went on to explain that as an editor at the university of california press, just down the way, in fact, very near to where we are right now, the original

press in those days anyway. he explained that you are trained to be skeptical and look for things in the manuscript and try to find the weaknesses and ask the questions and point out the contradictions and so on. while trying to make it better. not trying to fight with the authors, but hope the authors and take them at their story. he did that about everything. he would take stuff at face value, he wanted to investigate and understand and analyze and see if what was being sold was the whole story. and this broadened, it started off as a sierra club mountain games and stuff and moved by

supersonic transport when we got kicked out of this year -- the sierra club, we push the horizons of the environment movement wider. nuclear power came to be examined and found to be wanting, and you could go on and on about all of these things. but it was dave's endless curiosity and interest in this kenneth said, he would absorb things. he read a lot of stuff for himself but he picked up many ideas from other people and repeated them and sold them and reframe them. >> the family version of that story, my father comes to my mother and says i discovered some bad figures about the evaporation numbers and my mother says oh, david, you have to go back don't make yourself a

spectacle. so my father goes back anyway, he doesn't listen to his wife he leaned into the microphone and says you are a layman and you are questioning the information in the bureau's information? and my father said i finished ninth grade and i know my math. he beat them in every blackboard duel of the bureau of information. [laughter] [applause]

>> is you're talking about chris and the guys in the mistakes of the me, he was once talking about study in which people look at successful individuals and wondered what made them successful. and i don't believe much in the semis but, but he said was that when people look at what their lives were like, whether they were the first born or the second one or whether they had a wealthy father or domineering mother or a good first grade teacher, nothing pans out. one thing that cannot was that successful people make more success undreamt mistakes and less successful people. he didn't seem to be afraid of making a mistake. the more mistakes but that he may, the more you get done, which is why it you get a tremendous amount on. would you like to say something? >> this is jerry, and jerry is a great guy -- i guess everybody knows jerry. he wrote for arguments in favor

of the elimination of television, he has a new book out, the capitalist papers, he runs the international global front and organization. >> the forum on globalization. >> i like my mistakes and jerry has been doing advertising and he did the wonderful ads, the sistine chapel one we get close to the ceiling, and capitalism have given advertising a lousy name. what you want is people's interest in people's souls, kerry has just used it so well for the good of the soul. >> take it away, joey. >> thank you, i didn't know you are going were going to try to say it with capitalism tonight. were advertising.

i want to congratulate you on this book. it is really a marvelous book. i have read it already. i got a laugh out of it, and it is extremely interesting and agreeable and i'm looking forward to tom's book, because one of the things, as i was driving over here tonight, i was in a terrible traffic jam, which is why i was late. it is wonderful but now people are talking about dave brower. you guys are opening up the circuit again, and there is this new film that is a documentary that includes early part of that movement, the 1950s and 60s, and then develops the environmental movement in this area, i mean, in the country. and that's very good. he spent a lot of time on dave brower and it's wonderful. when i think of david brower, i think he is a hero of

spectacular proportions. he is the monolithic king of the environmental movement if you want to make an analogy like that. he changed the environmental movement. it was the conservation movement before that which is a pretty good term. but he became he changed it from and he even talked about that from the change from companions on the trail to fighting activists, you know, people who would lie down in front of things and do things those who would seek to create a new consciousness in the country and a much tougher kind of way of battling on these issues. he was inspirational in that way. i was thinking that he -- he

knew rachel carson. we also had david brower. i feel like david brower could change the world in many ways. and he also changed people, including myself. that is one of the things i'm grateful about, because i was in the advertising business when i met david. i met him become because he came to talk to us about doing advertising. i had never met him before that. but i have this famous advertising and is that there is a guy named david brower who wants to talk about saving the grand canyon. and so we met with dave, indeed did not really take us for our talents. it turned out. he picked us because he liked the typeface that we use in our advertisements. we had a very old-fashioned style of advertising and we

believed that you could really change people more by getting them to think in a logical miss about their purchase. he really loved that. he said we don't have to bother to write the ads either because he would write the ads. [laughter] ..

you could run one ad on one hit of the paper and the next ad on the other heads so each it -- head of the paper got the other and so it's a complete equal display. so we have this competition and we want by 2-1 in terms of our index. and he was just joyful about that because he could just come over and talk about his radical ideas and we could translate them and from then on we had a great time although we always

thought -- phot. [laughter] but he got me so into this subject. working with him on the grand canyon and the redwood park and north cascades and later on the sst campaign and the antiwar ads and things like that, for which nobody in the environment of movie -- movement was ever interested in doing. i just learned so much and it changed me from an advertising guy. i mean i have a masters degree in commercial advertising, and as well as economics. and he helped me understand what was happening in the world and just by hanging out with him. usually it was over, six martinis was a very minor. [laughter] he would start drinking at 6:00

and go to midnight. it would only make him smarter and smarter and more awake and he would try to stay with them all the way in order to get that. one or night at the biltmore hotel in new york i remember particularly learning. it was an epiphany for me because he started talking about -- though this must have been after the seventh martini. i only had two. he started talking about -- the loss of a sense of wildness, the loss of a sense of our relationship to nature, the loss of a sense that is really the root of the problem. that we need to somehow recover that again. we need to get people to be able to experience that. and then he started to talk about the experience of -- he said there was a fire and in those days there was a fireplace in that room.

he said the experience of sitting and looking at this fire, we have to realize that experience is exactly the same experience as human beings had 2000 years ago or 5000 years ago or i guess it was 10,000 years ago. he says, we are experiencing exactly what they experienced, except bears was in another kind of context and ours is out of context so for us to understand that. to me that was like a wake-up. it's like the way of looking at the world that their relationship to nature as a visceral -- that we are part of the integrated quality of our relationship to nature. and i think that really changed my life. i think that evening, that evening of drinking probably change my life more than any single thing and he probably changed my life more than any

single person or certainly one of the top two or three in my life that made me change and walk through the rest of the next 40 years, 50 years, you know with a different worldview. and i am internally grateful to him for that. to me, he needs to really be -- so if you change me he also change the world. i am trying to make this point, that he changes individuals and the also impacts the world in a very important way. while i was sitting here listening, i just thought to myself, about what he brought that i could just jot down, what he brought to the movement in the time that i knew him. back in those days, in the 60's,

he was talking about growth, the impossibility of growth. we had just come out of the second world war and everyone was very excited because the gmp was increasing so rapidly at that point. he says, this is crazy. this is not going to continue. this is a limited planet. this is 1960. 1962 was when i met him and he said, this is impossible. so he was talking very loudly about growth in those days and nobody else was talking about that. it was like, he was like he was warning of the problems of too much interference in nature but dave brower was really arguing we had to fight the battle against growth then. i take it he was doing in that in the 50s before he even knew him, he was talking about that. the famous report about limits to growth didn't come out until 10 years later and that was

credited with being splashy big challenge to growth and of course just now in 2012, people are seriously trying to organize around the questions of growth. he was talking about in the 60's and the kind of got to shut down even at the sierra club. let's not talk about growth. let's just talk about saving this place in that place. he was talking about wildness and a personal story about that but wildness was something that was not being really -- it was being lost. john you are talking about it but it was being lost out of the mix of discussion. it was all about economics. he wanted to do an ad on earth national park, the idea of creating, and that was in the era when we were starting space travel. he said this is absurd. we have one home and this is their home and we have to relate to this home.

and so, let's do an ad on -- called earth national park. the concept being that this is the one place on the universe that we are connected and we are related to it and we have to realize that. and we did that and of course he never told us he didn't have permission from the board to do that ad. [laughter] so we did the add-in he got fired but then we went on with friends of your. and also another concept was that nature comes first and nature has fallen so far back on the list of priorities for -- am i talking too long? malcolm i am asking. >> oh, god, no. >> that nature comes first. that nature is the primary value of and you have to get that straight and you have to relate

clean to nature and in an integrated way or the rest of the activity is on rooted and less likely to succeed. and, as i think i mentioned earlier, he wanted to take on, or i guess he mentioned also that he wanted a broader discussion. his idea of an environmental movement included opposing war, opposing war. we ran a marvelous act together and he tried to run a campaign on the whole idea of war and what a problem it was and how instructive it is and how it changes the character of rings in the world and how terrible it is and so on. and he was the first major environmentalists certainly the wanted to say that social justice cannot be dropped out of the discussion either and that you have got to relate to issues

like war, even issues like poverty and issues like social justice. that has got to be part of the discussion, or you are battling in the environment, it's not going to succeed because you need to relate to the realities of the full picture. there were many other, there were many other as tom said, he could go on all night. but the book has a million stories like that from the various people that ken interviewed and i just think my one real message is that we need to celebrate. we have a hero, and the environmental movement right now is lacking i would say and certainly as charismatic. there are certainly a lot of fantastic people in them are mental movement that it is

charismatic. dave single-handedly carried the movement out of the -- out of date, i don't know, self-interested doldrums you might say for lack of another term and exploded on the scene, made it a powerful force. now is a good time for that to happen again because we are about to all died from our excesses on the planet. but we need dave brower back and i think it would be useful to celebrate his way as one way is maybe learning how to get back to that kind of aggressive campaigning. so congratulations. thank you. [applause] >> that was so moving. that was just so beautiful.

it was a religious experience. white only take a few questions are a few comments from people that knew dave and then we can celebrate dave's second favorite interest. speedway are actually filming tonight so if you would please. >> begin to the microphone. >> this is being filmed by c-span. >> we will be around so just raise your hand. thank you. >> rates. we can celebrate by going to the berkeley city council on tuesday night and helping them decide to float to close down these rotten nuclear plants that we have in california. they are going to fod on that on tuesday night and there will be a rally at six at lock and seven at rockets their meeting, 2134 martin luther king. i think that is really in the

interest of dave's legacy i am another one who was strongly influenced by dave when i was a teenager in my 20s and carrying it forward. i have some flyers about the meeting that i will give to people afterwards. [applause] >> anyone else? >> thank you both very much. i don't know all that much about david or our's work so i am accustomed to seeing him identified with wide-open spaces in preserving a certain amount of the environmental movement these days is focused on cities

on green cities, on the urban farming and all that. did mr. brower ever take an interest in urbanism as an environmental locale? thank you. >> i think the locomotive that drove him always was the wilderness. i think that was how he started and i think that gave him -- that is what he cared about most but what he did was, he was very quick on all these other issues that he correctly regarded as environmental. nuclear proliferation and i'm doing a piece now. he was very quick to -- he brought a lot of different themes into this movement and urbanism was one of them.

people like michael a. bowman who he mentored in in the smart farming and so i think he was -- he was interested in all of these things. >> this is your exercise program. the young people, i wonder if you have any millennials? are they embracing the same or do you have a read on the real young people? there seems to be something new and exciting that they are doing and i wonder if you might have an insight as to how it tracks

with your feeling of the movement from its beginnings? how is it changed if at all? >> there are a lot of young people doing great stuff. i think one of the things that i have thought of right now is sort of the resurgence of the love of technology. we are getting re-enamored in it all again. there was a period in the 60's when we were rightly suspicious of technology and in recognizing how much harm it was going to have. stuff is so spectacular now, a lot of the younger generation has been swept away and there's a lot of talk about how somehow cell phones are going to bring us all together and to get us to solve environmental problems. there is a whole stewart brand's school of thought that technology will be the solution and i think a lot of people by

it. i was surprising to hear people talking about geoengineering is a way of stopping global warming ludicrous themes that get treated seriously. freeman dyson who believes in this kind of thing, who believes that somehow technology, that's how we'll find her way out of this through technology. this idea that technology is going to rescue us. now it seems like that sort of misapprehension is growing again. we are not going to solve it by technology. all technology ever really does is get us in deeper and we are just going to have to completely change our way of looking at growth, looking about him what the ornaments of success are and if how we consume, and all

technology is going to do is put off the moment that we have to face that reality. >> let me get on with it. one of forces behind this book is the institute and there is that brower youth awards. if you want to see young people that will just knock you for a loop that have been doing specter where work that will just make your cry, go to those brower youth awards. october 23. speedway are in the process of evaluating this year's -- and the tradition of dave bauer. >> can people hear this? stick a microphone in front of kevin. >> it is one of the aspects of dave's influence and legacy that we at the institute honor and continue. i was fortunate as young men in

my early 20s to meet dave when i worked at the sierra club on earth island and he always had this ken said, future young people towards him and he spent time and he listened to young people and i feel really touched by that legacy and i'm honored to carry that onto my work in our work here at violet or kill our new leaders initiative is a core program of work carrying on on the tradition of dave valuing and listening to young people. he said one of his great thing coas did was bask in the glow of their accomplishing and. he lets them do their work and through the leaders initiative's, broward youth boards, we honor young people who carry on that vision of a whole range of environmental issues. ken mentioned that dave himself brought to the larger movement and i think there is a real diversity approach in thinking you know there is sort of the technology aspect of it in that

type of activism that we have honored young people who are out there in the trenches or out in the wilderness on a whole range of topics and invite you all to join us on october 23 in san francisco for the 13th annual broward youth awards. they were started in fact the year of dave's passing in the year 2000 so now we have over 70 young winners, alumni of the program over 31 years of age or younger who are making change happen as leaders in their own organizations as affiliated projects or with other organizations so definitely i think young people in the legacy that dave inspired we continue in that regard so check it out. >> we -- if we don't support these young people we are worms. make sure you go there there is the how about one more question? we are worms. [laughter] maybe i'm slandering worms.

[laughter] >> well i am someone that knew david our really well. as a young child, my family went on sierra club trips in the mountains for years that he led, and i enjoyed them tremendously. and, i think the book that has been written about him by his son is wonderful. i learned a lot about him, a great deal about him that i didn't know if and my focus started in high school when i heard the danger of nuclear weapons in power and that was my

focus for ages. and i didn't really understand the need to support nature as much as i did this other. and, david trower -- we have a vigil going at the front of the campus that has been going for years and we are trying to get the university to put a top-notch debate on nuclear weapons and power and get different points of view as well represented as they possibly can and have it televised so people will look things over and try and decide what should be done. and dave came to two of our

programs that we gave. we are called the circle of concern, and he came twice, and we didn't pay him anything. he talked with the speaker on -- two different years. we had been going for a think about 60 years or 40 or anyhow. but we are hoping to have this debate on campus by september 21, and whether we succeed or not i don't know. but i do also -- i will tell you one thing that is kind of interesting that i had a great grandfather who believed in the damning of head judge he.

he was instrumental in having that happen. this is something that nobody thinks is a good idea, including his son. my grandfather didn't think so either, and my great-grandfather did, because he felt that if there was not this damning, people would not be able to live in this area because there definitely was not enough water. and he was not a very conservative person. in the civil war, he led a black italian to try and win that debate. so what i have come to realize is how complex these issues are and how complex people are.

i appreciate it now more than i did when i started. i started out as a world federalist, someone who believes in you no world government, and i still believe we should go for that and not wait around. but rarely go and work that out. and so, i guess that's -- >> listen, we should and. there are time constraints. it's been a longer evening than i thought and there is one thing that i would just love if you would do. you told me once that -- a story that was a most beautiful story that i had ever heard and it was the story of that canyon. would you mind telling that

story? >> tom turner and my son david and i and several of us had a reunion at glen canyon, in glen canyon which was my father's greatest -- really the most beautiful canyon in the world. and we never wanted to go back. i think we almost had a pact we didn't want to go back. we never wanted to go on that reservoir, like powell we call the. or we would call it the reservoir. we wouldn't even call it a lake and we wouldn't go back. so what was the year? 2004, five, the level got far down enough that you could go back to the canyon so we finally had a little reunion. it'd been 40 years since this little group had left. just ahead of the rising water. so we went and to the canyon and

came to the most beautiful place of all in the desert. this wonderful chamber of sandstone that is absolutely like the inside of the cathedral but vastly larger and it is a beautiful sculpture and a beautiful ray of light comes through it. we got to this canyon and it was everything pitiful about it to us was gone. there was filled on the walls. this beautiful sculpture was now muddy by sediment. my sister cried. norgaard who was in this book, cried when he saw it. my son david, in the back of the room, he came up to me and said, dad, it's beautiful. and it was stunning. and i had to, i had to think,

yes. i tried to look at it through his eyes and yes it is still beautiful but it was so diminished from what was and it was and it struck me almost like a metaphor higher for how we use things -- might lose things a little bit at a time. it's like the frog in boiling water. it is a beautiful canyon david but oil you should've seen it when we were there. [inaudible] >> he no, no and that is the one of the things he discovered late in his life is how easy it is to wash that away so that it will recover, but not for a while. and i guess that was it, how the world gets taken from us in these little pieces. >> for me it's how the world is taken from us and how every generation finds beauty. [applause] >> be would like to hear from

you. tweet us your feedback at twitter.com/booktv. >> recently booktv toward a new library of congress exhibit called books that shaped america. we are going to show you that exhibit here in just a minute that we also want to issue an invitation to you to participate in an on line discussion about books that shaped america. what books do you think may be included or should be included? we are going to show you what library of congress looks -- looked at and if you're interested in an on line discussion with his e-mail us at booktv at c-span.org. now here is the tour. >> well there is a new exhibit at the library of congress and it's called, books that shaped america. booktv is taking a tour that exhibit and joining us is roberta schaefer who is associate librarian for the library of congress. ms. shaffer, why do you call it

looks that shaped america? >> well we actually call it looks that shaped america as opposed to some of the other words we considered like changed america because we think that books slowly have an impact on american society and shape seemed to be the better word to imply that kind of connotation. >> when you think of the work shaped and what you just said what book in this exhibit comes to mind? >> actually that is that was part of this exhibit. no one book is shaping america. so many books have had such a profound influence on american culture and society and indeed the very essence of what america is. it would be impossible and it really would be improper to pick one book from the 88 that are here. >> their 88 here. the exhibit starts out with commonsense. >> as it does although the earliest book is actually ben franklin spoke on electricity. that is from 1751, so we have to books about common sense and the

show. one is dr. spock's book on raising your child in a commonsense way and of course thomas paine's book that really kind of sparked or shaped the american revolution. >> now when we see these books are these all first editions, very rare? >> they are not all first editions are very rare although we have many books in our library of congress collection that would be first editions and very rare if not one-of-a-kind but we selected books for a friday of reasons. some of them have inscriptions by other favorite people or by the authors themselves. two books in this collection that i just adore are books that are part of the armed service book outreach to people who are serving in the military so we have two examples of looks that soldiers were sent i should say. i believe they were sent books to read at the war front on ipods and other things but at

least in the olden days. see what are the two books that you have? >> i believe one of them is tarzan and i'm trying to think now with the what the other one is. mica does. >> while you think of that, in this exhibit robertahaffer, a lot of novels. >> yes and novels are a critical part of american culture. not only novels of people read, the common people read that some very highbrow and complex models. and some children's books that appeal to all ages. the "wizard of oz," "charlotte's web," hardly limited to a children's audience. >> and gone with. >> and gone with the wind is here as well. how did those book shaped america? >> many of them identified who we were becoming or the aspirations we had have as a nation. others told about experiences that we had uniquely as americans like their for lewis

and clark. many others really defined our dialect. huckleberry finn or nora now hurston's book talk and dialect and so they really shaped not only that but how we speak today. >> you also have some shows will cultural books that i wanted to ask you about. you mentioned dr. spock. there. there are a couple of cookbooks in this collection and a book called the big book, alcoholics anonymous. >> we also thought it was very important to look at nonfiction and books that either were self-help or kind of rope barriers of certain kinds. so we looked across the broad spectrum of looks that shaped america. we did not want to limit ourselves to a reticular genre or a particular kind of book to read in a certain kind of author or writing style. we looked for many books that that were innovative. it kind of showed america as an

innovative country, a country that looked for practical solutions that shared experiences broadly, that used books and stories to inspire going to the front -- frontier and that could be literally or intellectually. >> here at the library congress, you are in charge of the winnowing process? >> that is an interesting question. it was definitely a large committee. we had a number of discussions as people brought forth titles and believe it or not it was not all that difficult to select these books, because i think as you have implied, this is not a definitive list. there is no article, the books that shaped america, in the title of this exhibition so we really decided what we wanted to do was choose books that would get america talking about books and that was not as difficult to

find consensus on as may be choosing the 50 books for the 100 books. so we didn't need a chairperson. >> some of the books in here have created social movements. i was thinking the ida tarbell, upton sinclair, rachel carson? >> i think one of the interesting things about many of the books here are that they not only created social movements but some even lead to legislation, so we see the jungle in here and we know that really created the forerunner rates is -- legislation to the food and drug administration being created so not really social movements but actually social change. >> and why 88? >> 88 is really just where we decided to staff. we were worried about using a number that is commonly associated with a definitive list so we avoided 10, 25 and 100. beyond that it was kind of up

for grabs and more make up to 88 we said you know, we think that's a good number. it won't give anybody the impression that we named this is the 88. >> poetry, religious books, are they in here? >> they are. we have quite a few exemplars of poetry, running a span of at least a century so we have got while what men. we have allen ginsburg. so we really try to be very clear that poetry has been an impressive part of american history and that americans have been very committed to both writing and reading poetry. and i think that continues today. >> what about religious books? >> well we do have a holographic bible. a lot of the books, while they wouldn't necessarily be associated with a religion, have a moralistic right kind of a too good tone to them. and we really felt that is more representative of america

then -- and our values than would be a particular religious book. so we tried to look at the values of america, her spiritual sort of persona rather than looking at particular religious books. >> roberta shaffer how did you get your start of the library of congress? >> oh my goodness. i started here over 30 years ago as the first special assistant to the law library and, fairly fresh out of law school. i absolutely fell in love with the library of congress and 30 plus years ago as the day you cannot keep me away. i run to work every morning and i think that working here and being here, surrounded by books, manuscripts, musical scores, movies, the whole gamut of what really is knowledge in america is such a thrill, such a privilege, if you really are going to have trouble getting me

to retire. >> is this exhibit opened to the public and for how long? >> is entirely open to the public. will be open through the end of september but let's say you can't come to washington. we have a virtual version of our exhibit on our web site and part of this exhibit, part of this conversation, is an open web site where we are asking people from all over the world to comment on the books we have selected but also to tell us why you think something we selected shouldn't be on our list and even more important, why something you think should be on the list should be added to the list. we want to hear from you. so far we have heard from over 5000 people and we encourage everybody to go to our web site, www.lse.gov/book fest and you will find a list of the books. you will also find the opportunity to complete a very very brief form telling us what you think of the books and what should be on this list.

>> reporter: . >> roberta shaffer the last book you had in here was from 2002. >> we decide to put a cut-off on it. we thought if we are really going to be looking at books that shaped america we have to give them an opportunity, give folks an opportunity to prove their worth in shaping america. this is an organic endeavor by the library of congress. we intend to keep looking at looks that keep shaping america but we thought you know about a decade, that's a good place to stop so since we are in 2012 now let's stop the 2002 and we will keep revisiting a. >> two of the later books you have in here, randy shelton, the band played on and caesar chavez 2000 to. >> yes they are and of course randy schultz folks had a huge influence on sort of raising our consciousness about the terrible disease. and caesar chavez of course a

leading voice of farmworkers but really a leading voice of america. >> roberta shaffer at these books in the exhibit, where they bestsellers and maritime? >> many of them were bestsellers and actually many of them continued to be and they have not gone out of print. even though that was not a specific criterion so many of them have been translated and carried american ideals across the world. >> i want to ask about on the specific look and that was emily dickinson's book of poetry. >> course emily dickinson is a must-have american poet but the particular books that we had here in the show isn't hard for. it's done by a cooperative in cuba and they have reproduced the book of poetry. they have also made a facsimile of her house in amherst and a little tree. it is made out of recycled materials. emily dickinson of course is a phenomenal poet but we really didn't know about her or discover her until the

mid-1950's when we finally were able to read her poems and love her poems unedited. >> who is doing the editing? >> will you know those professional editors, they like to take their fan and make it conform. for emily of all people that was a constriction. >> roberta shaffer associate librarian at the library of congress, books that shaped america is the name of the exhibit at the library congress located at first and independence avenue in washington d.c. right across from the masons capital. >> so that's library of congress's books that shaped america exhibit. is available to go see it you can also look at it on line at loc.gov. but we would like your input. what looks to you think should be included in such an exhibit and what looks shouldn't be included? if you would like to participate in an on line discussion with roberta shaffer associate librarian at the library of congress ones that we will then air on booktv, we would like

to hear from you. e-mail us at booktv at c-span.org. >> well where you want to introduce you to michelle fitzgerald. >> is the associate director of marketing and publicity at palgrave macmillan publishers. we want to learn about some of the new upcoming titles for fall 2012 if you have and if we could, let's start with the former president of france. >> jacques chirac. we have his new book my life and politics coming out this fall. was originally published in french and is the first time it will be available in english. you just did how is the history of u.s. french relations. it's a warm and candid memoir. he talks openly about growing up in france during and after world war ii, his time in algeria come his political career and his vision for the future of france, the u.s. and europe as a whole. >> will he be touring the u.s.? >> no, unfortunately he will not.

he is a bit under the weather at the moment so he will be doing interviews remotely from france and will be able to travel. >> danny to non. >> israel is probably our most controversial book on the list which makes it really fun to work on. he is deputy speaker of the knesset in israel and what people have referred to as a republican israili leader. he really details that the u.s. and israel have had a strong close relationship as allies but the u.s. really focuses on their own concerns and for it is real to prosper in the future they need to -- >> what kind of books does palgrave macmillan look at? >> you know we are a publisher of non-fiction. we are a global publisher and we really look to publish books that focus on all sides of the debate. we really want to contribute to the dialogue and we publish everything, wide range of ideas as long as they are thoughtful and well argued. >> another author who is a book coming out as jurong brooks and

done watkins. >> yes, free-market revolution. it has come to us from the executive director of the ayn rand institute and they really argue that for the u.s. to kind of pull themselves off the brink of the economic crisis we are saying we should revert back to the libertarian principles of ayn rand. be finally michelle fitzgerald one more book we wanted to ask you about from palgrave macmillan from our program. >> the largest spanish-language daily newspaper in the u.s. and she's written a book called killing the american dream which really argues against the anti-immigration policies in the u.s. right now saying that we are not only hurting ourselves economically by losing contributions for income tax but also a experiencing a brain drain with all these great thinkers being forced of the country. >> is this a book that will be published simultaneously with english and spanish? >> palgrave is only in