list. e-mail us at booktv@cspan.org. >> up next on booktv, kenneth brower talks about his father, sierra club founder david brower. the wilderness within is a collection of interviews kenneth brower did with well known environmentalists who were influenced by his father. this is just over an hour. [applause] >> amy, you forgot to mention that wonderful sculpture out there. >> oh, yeah, it's great. >> my son rubin made that sculpture that's hanging there. [applause] well, it was a lot of fun working with you on this as a publisher, and as they say in another area of life, was it as good for you as it was for me? [laughter] >> it wasn't, no. [laughter] we've been talking about it for a long time. we finally did it. >> we finally did it. and you seem to have done it

with such joy. i mean, and such humor and playfulness. usually when it comes to environmental literature, when it comes to the problems of the world, a grimness to it often. but yours is just so -- it sounds like you really had fun doing it. >> well, thank you, and i did. and t one of the things i -- it's one of the things i must have learned from my father because one of his complaints was he said of environmentalists and feminists, they don't have a sense of humor. and he thought it was just too dismal to have to keep beating people over the head with doom and gloom because that's what environmentalists so often do. he thought having a sense of humor was important. so he worked, he worked it in his speeches and in his books too. so i guess i learned it at his knee. >> you seem to have a wonderful knack for air rich, these wonderful, memorable statements that he made. and, you know, we ought to -- ken, we're in berkeley, and this

is david brower center, and everybody in berkeley knows david brower. there's cameras on us, there may be people who don't know who david brower is, and maybe we ought to explain why we're doing this book and what david brower did and what it means. >> david brower was my father. [laughter] he was the first executive director of the sierra club. in 1952 he became the second full-time employee of the sierra club. it's one of the things that kind of knocked me back in doing the research. i hadn't quite thought about that. considering how big the sierra club is now. that it was the only full-time staffer before he came on in 1952 was virginia ferguson, his secretary. so his joining up as staff doubled the staff. there was still only two. and one of the lessons for me is how young this environmental movement is. it hasn't been around that long. and, um, and it's grown very fast. my father's, one of the things

that this enforced in him was to do a lot of things. there was nobody helping to do any work for the sierra club then except volunteer board members. so he had to be a publisher, he had to be a panel me tier, he had to be a grassroots organizer, he had to lobby in washington, he had to, he had to publish books, make movies. i'm doing a book right now which my father filmed in one day. it was like an andy warhol project. he -- >> he went over there? >> phil hyde, the photographer, came up and said, hey, the dam -- the drawdown is really great. it's 180 feet of bathtub ring. we've got to go shoot it. so they jumped in the car, ran up in the course of this one here half spent in yosemite, he shot 500 feet of film which he

used every inch of in this film and made a pretty good film because he had to make a good film. there was nobody else making these films. and it holds up. i played it, and it's pretty good still. and it's the kind of thing that necessity forces on you. and so he did a lot of things very well, and that was one of the things that this book brought home to me. >> and he was, he was executive director of the sierra club, and then he went on to friends of earth, then he went to the earth island institute, and he's -- people talk about him in terms of the institutes, but you talk about him in terms of the personal effects that he's had on people, more than the institutional effects. it was the, it was the power of getting into this guy's personality. it was just, when you, when you were with him, you always felt that you had to do something. there was a sense of urgency to it and that you had the power to do it. >> this is something i've

thought about a lot, and it really crystal rised in doing this book for you, is trying to figure out where his influence was strongest. and i think at first glance you'd think it was, it was in the organization. see, he always had an organization. he always felt he needed one. but he wasn't really an organization man. he got in trouble in all his organizations because he, because he didn't like authority. and he didn't like his boards of directors telling him what to do. >> no? >> yes. [laughter] >> no! i'm shocked. >> and he, um, and in our book i talk about, i compare him to the cicada which has a 16-year cycle. in fact, my father was the guy who told me about the cicada, and he told me about the 16-year cycle. it's in the ground for 16 years as a pew pa and larva, and then it comes out, and it sings. and this is what happened to him. every 16 years he got kicked out

of an organization. [laughter] he finally got the sierra club 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, the same thing happened there. and i realize in our book i didn't quite finish the, um, i didn't quite finish the metaphor because, of course, the cicada only does this once. [laughter] and i forgot to say that. my father did it lots of times. at least three times he did it. the other thing i forgot to say is how much noise a cicada makes. >> oh. >> and so in the sequel we can, when we reissue it, we can put that stuff in. >> yeah. >> no, to finish your question, though, there were these organizations, and he didn't need an organization, but he just, he began to be constrained by the organizations always. they always wanted to tell him to slow down. he really felt that we couldn't

slow down. we were saving the world. and this got him -- he didn't worry about the bottom line. he didn't care if we were in the red. and, of course, that really bothers boards of directors when you operate in the red a lot. he said, well, if we do the work, the money will come in. and boards don't like to hear that. and so here was the publishing he did. he was, you know, he invented really this large format photographic nature book. they didn't exist before the books that are illustrated in the series in the exhibit, they really didn't exist. he, ansel adams and nancy -- [inaudible] invented this idea. these books are too big for them to display. well, we don't have shelves that big. and all the messages he got were discouraging, but he produced the 30 books we see out here which brought tens of thousands of members into the sierra club and introduced the greater public to these ideas that we

were talking about in the book. so there were these institutions, and they were impressive, but the more i think about it, the more i think his real impact was one-on-one. or -- he was a shy guy. he didn't, he was okay one on three or a big auditorium. he didn't like the middle, he didn't like the middle range. so he, it was one on auditorium. he gave this wonderful speech called the sermon at the end of which young kids in colleges and stuff would stream down and say, sign me up. or it was one on bar. you know, he was famous for closing bars. [laughter] he could drink everybody under the table. dave foreman in his book says, you know, i have a reputation for being able to drink, but i could not stay up with -- i could stay up with my father when i was in my 20s. i remember a six martini night in new york. it was nothing to him, but it was obliterating to me.

>> this is man of heroic proportions. >> yes. [laughter] >> this is not your ordinary mortal. >> his thing was to talk to the auditorium of students and close the daughter with the students that night and listen to them. and one of the themes that came out of this book that i hadn't been quite ready for was how well he listened to young people. >> oh. >> and dave phillips in this building, who's one of the people who said do you know how empowering that is? dave phillips came down from the back of the auditorium, said sign me up. and he's now running earth island institute upstairs, and he's a great conservationist. but he said, um, do you know how empowering that is to have somebody of that eminence listen to you? and want to hear your ideas? at 2 in the morning, you know? over beers in the bar? and in phillips' case, my father said to him, well, what do you do? he says, well, i did my -- i

guess a dissertation on ebert's ground squirrel. and i've done some work with whales and i've been in the caribbean for a month. and my father said, we need that! that's just what we've got to have, you know, the ground squirrel, we need this kind of biological insight you have, and you've got to work for us. and this is the kind of thing he did with everybody. >> well, i love in that story, when dave tells that story in your book, so he meets this young guy, he says you have got to come work for us. so dave thought he got a job, thought he'd just been hired. and he came over to san francisco, came into the office, and dave brower wasn't there, and nobody else had known he was coming, and there was no job, and he kind of found a desk. your dad's recruiting strategies were really interesting. [laughter] this was not a department of human resources.

[laughter] >> it's funny because, um, the way dave tells the story is he's arriving, he thinks he has a job. the guy says we've got to have you, you've got to work with us, and there was a different understanding there. and he's going up in the elevator with dave chatfield who runs the international program, and chatfield goes, well, who are you? he says, well, i'm working for dave brower. [laughter] he's heard this before. they find him a desk, and my father kicks some speaking engagement money his way, and pretty soon he's in there. it's something that works with a certain kind of person, but a lot of people got lost by the wayside. >> oh, the roadkill must have been amazing. [laughter] i mean, the other theory, there were these amazing accounts there'd be somebody over there, and he'd like and say, hey, you, why don't you just sit down at that desk and save this value over here? and no instructions and just put people to work. and i guess it worked out

sometimes. >> it did. one of the things i've learned in this book was i got signed up myself. he would draft anybody into this movement. i was handy. i lived in the same house. [laughter] and he, after my brother bob who -- the mechanicals for these books out here, he drafted me as an editor. he also did mechanicals for tom turner. so he drafted anybody who came down the street. and i used to worry since my career began working for him about nepotism. gee, my father's the publisher, and i'm working on these books, that's not very seemly. and, in fact, the first book i did i didn't want my name on it -- >> yeah. >> -- because i didn't like this. and, um, but having done the research on this book i realize he did this with everybody. he was neptistic to everybody, so i don't feel so bad. [laughter] ..

we don't do this kind of thing. it's not our kind of thing. so i thought this was never a typical scene. is that in my father sat sat this very eerie to respond. he set out go to london, let's get together. he spent half an hour looking at the pictures and said you're going to read a book for me on the mountains of wales. and he says i've never written a

book. he says you're going to write one now. it's about time you broke one and you're going to lay it out. i don't know how to lay out a book. he said it's time you learned. and he did. and this was the way it worked with me. he drafted me out of my freshman year at berkeley, took me out of school, thank my academic career to do a book and spoke on the big kos still has a successful book. i got back and finished half my sophomore year. he said was elected to the galapagos and spent four months in the galapagos doing a book? batter finishers sophomore year. it was not a hard decision. >> it was the decision he had made. you know, there is this sense of people, that area was like no institution or environmentalism. no one knew what you were doing.

no laws, environmental impact studies coming no endangered species act, no process, just people with spectacular sense of poetry. your father's use of language, your father's use of our, not science, not politics. it was hard. and it was tremendously, individually moving. the training he had on this did not come from the academic world. they came from mt. kiley, campfire stories, some other place. but he didn't study management. >> it's true. he was an interesting guy. on the one hand he was really an original thinker who came up

with lots of neat stuff. on the other hand, he was a great absorber. again, he was less than and sean xts, my father's servant, he said it's a chain of one-liners and it's a wonderful description because my father, he'd recognize a good line and soak it up. and he would incorporated in his speech. he was very moved and i think i was part of this time in the mountains. he saw, you know, the beauty of the wilderness was a large part. it was interesting what you say about the epa and wilderness act, people of his generation were the ones who got it. but it's true. i thought a lot about that as a consequence of this book, how

changed the movement is, how someone like me, who was watching it really from cradle, has seen this huge change in the environmental movement. it was so -- the early 60s with such a time for passing the movement because it was for the first time bitterly feeling as if we could actually stop some of these big projects. the first one, my father's first big success for stopping again in dinosaur national monument. the first time as a first time as a group of citizens in the history of our country stopped a big government project. it wasn't known that we could do that. we didn't think we could do that. we found that we could. we got a little too big for ourselves. and there is a purity that then. now for almost a victim of our own success.

these organizations get a. all the organizations my father started. take a pic with success. they get a big budget, you need management. pretty soon, because you need to raise funds coming of corporate tax on the board and it begins to change. the kind of scandalous you have lately and sierra club and other places would never happen. it's funny for me having to remember those old conversations among environmentalists, which you hear now -- he here, how are we going to brand ourselves? it's a corporate term but i don't think my father's term would ever want to use. if the language of the opposition. and all the talk -- also with

environmentalists now and it's less about issues of colin. to slow or any other issue. it's more about darwin and how a 13-year-old donor needs to be approached differently. as different from the way it used to be. >> in terms of breeding environmental organizations, you've got to brief back in. what they're doing is necessary and was plugged into the powers of the world. your dad was in line with people like those who created created the environmental movement. it got taken over by scientists and policy people, but it's got to be bred back into it all. you talked about jewel of the

many talk about the sermon. in many talked about your dad is a crusader. it was almost as religious analogy in there. was this his religion? >> you know, he didn't really have a dad, but he definitely had a religion. he spoke of it in terms of religion. he would say if somebody who had the fire we knew what that meant. and let that person felt this in a very deep way. of course it's a very satisfactory religion was practiced away my father did. instead of god, you have a level of -- [inaudible]

[laughter] you have creation and god may or may not exist, but creation seems to. and you're defending the beauty of creation and that is a religious calling and he thought of it as religious and mcphee realized it would be preferred to him as the airstrip. in fact, there's a passage in the book when i first read it i was sort of surprised because mcphee said this is like a religion for this guy, brower. i was like yeah, i understood this perfectly well. of course it's like a religion. in the speech he did call the sermon. and so, it had that kind of passion. >> in my own life i've tried to escape religion all my life. nevertheless, the environmental

movement has education in the educational world we don't educate anybody. religion and religious conversions and the things such as profoundly as much as i'm not personally religious, that goes to the soul and causes sweeping changes in it for sweeping changes it's not going to come by putting things in third grade curriculum. to some other place. he used a quote and i forget the priest named, but he was a priest poet who said something about reading the bible. that's where we've got to do it. you know, your father was so

monolithic. he strolled the world like a colossus. he was so powerful and inspiring. in the book, you end up interviewing these 20 people and you keep these people their full character, their full play. you talk about them, their house is, their libraries, they talk about their lives. you move letters he had written two other people. there's a portion of the environmental movement in your father was in some ways this figure in a larger movement. >> this is not the way i intended it. i didn't realize the shape it would take, but the more i interviewed these people, i realized their stories were can i be as important as my fathers.

because of what i said about where it begins. not in the organizations, not in the books, but in this one-on-one evangelizing eat-in sailing away his legacy is, and as he often did 12 years, i wanted to talk about the ongoing of what he did and its incarnations and on carrying on. i thought these stories were as least as important as his. i'm happy apart out that way. it's interesting, you said earlier in a way he encapsulated the movement, the modern movement. and a little bit the way they talk about how he recapitulates politely, the history of -- he

reflected the history of the movement. he's cheating a little because he did influence. he did originate a lot of this stuff. but in studying you can talk to growth of the movement. >> i've always wondered what it would be like to have a father late david brower. i would assume with a q. 10 years of therapy to get over it. but you seem to be approaching this with such ease and such joy in such collegiality. i mean, that's a remarkable compliment to you into your father father in that relationship. he just seemed to be so easy and so affectionate so kind. >> will thanks. it's a question i was always fast growing up, through the whole duration was coming to

chew feel shadowed? it's peculiar 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. i had my young man the 60s. he was mr. revell against her. because there fuddy-duddies and they're in another age. my father was more radical than anyone around and of course he was ready. he was right about where the plan at was. he saw what was going on. he was very eloquent guy and made a case for it. super persuasive. couldn't disagree with him. i would love to put everybody back then was wearing army fatigues jackets, trying to look like london. and you know, i wasn't

interested because there was a real radical in the family, a guy who wanted to change the way things were done on the planet. so i never -- you know, it was hard to disagree. >> usually people want to change the planet want to change you, but this doesn't seem to have been the case. he seems to have let people be themselves, flour and their own terms. >> he had a gift to give young people the ball to get out of the way. not even with very much support. to get them going. another of interviewees in the book said this. he wasn't going to follow up, but it is good at punching. [laughter] >> maybe tom turner wants to say something. thomas interviewed in the book and tom was -- you knew david

from the time you were born. horn in berkeley and was editor of the earth just as in the environmental movement has these medalist jones commandeers tom as signed then pulled them together. you want to talk a little bit? you can stand up at the pulpit. >> well, it's great to hear all this stuff in thank you very much for this book. as some of you may know, i've actually got california university press biography of deep broward that might take me a lot longer than i realize, that this book i'm going to steal from shamelessly because there's wonderful stuff in the other that will fit quite

nicely. in fact, the amount of material that i have to go through scares me all the time. it's wonderful there's a couple hundred boxes of papers and letters and journals and clippings and all sorts of things at the bancroft library. the sierra club gave world history as with many of the old-timers gave contemporaries in the older ones than younger ones. not matter when so much, but there are two or three dozen oral histories and everybody is to say about howard and these oral histories. some complementary and some less so. so it's a great honor and privilege and very enjoyable for me to do this. and it's keeping me busy. i'll have something to work on

for a long time yet. what he wanted to say? >> tell us a story. [laughter] >> well, i can tell a parallel story to what tim said about phillips, which was earlier than not, almost the same thing. david went up in seattle, talking enclose the bar and one of the people helping him close the bar was a young fellow named chris kahn and who worked on the new pseudo-called the northwest passage, which was equivalent for something that they are, the weekly paper. we have produced three issues of the little newsletter read at the beginning of the year is called during friends because there were two parallel organizations working together

than. the john meer institute and friends of the earth. and so, friends of the earth was about a year old at this time make inc. and chris, got after damon said, you've got to have a proper newspaper. there's plenty of news to report and there's a big hole and a good place for something like that in this movement. and dave thought that was a terrific idea and encouraged him. so about a week later maybe you're too, david never said anything about this too many of us back in office. they were all three people very think. and so i'm sitting at the desk and this kid walks in the front door and says hi, i'm chris condon and dave are our has started me to start a newspaper her for news of the earth and i just rented space at "rolling

stone." can you give me a check for $5000? [laughter] and i said no. i don't have any checks. i don't know you from adam. if i had $5000 i would give it to you anyway. dave would come and give us $100 so we could go buy stationery and pens once in a while. so in the end though, this got a fire lit under everybody and we started this paper are within a couple of lines and we did it within the office. we said "rolling stone," whatever that might have been. we went with our houses gerrymander, and so chris was hired to be the first production manager and he was a catastrophe. he lasted one issue come the two

i guess. and bob brauer was hired to take his place. surveyors dave brower acting on impulse once again. he did that. >> so for every one there is a chris condon. >> that's his problem. he could really lucked out, but he could also bomb in his judgment. >> he did on a few times, but he had home runs much more often than he had any right to even hope for anything. so i mean, i could keep you here for two weeks telling brower stories and i'm learning a lot from all this staff, all this research. maybe a try to be quick about one fairly famous story.

you may all know it. some of you may not. but one of my favorite lines he gave before a house committee in about 53 or 54 and the dinosaur that can alluded to before, as ken said, it was a very small group, the environmental movement, conservation movement in those days. there's people from the wilderness society and the national parks association was influential and prominent in the izaak walton lead, which no one has ever heard about anymore. anyway, they were fighting about these two dams that were proposed for construction inside dinosaur national monument, which is part of the national park system. the national monuments for the

famous parks except for their made by presidents rather than congress. and so, the bureau of reclamation had this proposal is to build the stands and the sierra club and others were fighting partly on the principle that this is nothing that should have been inside a national park, but partly thinking about how the justifications they were getting for this project legitimate. and so, dave dug into all these studies and calculations and things that would be in computer projections now and stuff that was all been done by hand fan. he started to some numbers that just did not operate. it was the main problem was calculating the loss to about duration and seepage, which they

call big storage, thinking they can get it back someday, which doesn't happen, between constructing these two dinosaur and fiddling with some of the other dams that were proposed and in fact raising the level of the dams downstream at glen canyon comeau which is a whole another story. but if you raise that amount, you would increase water capacity enough so that the dinosaur dams would be necessary. so broward wrote up this testimony and sat down before a very hostile interior committee and house of representatives. one of the congressman claimed into his microphone and said, mr. brower, are you an engineer? and he said no, sir, i am an editor. and that jimmy encapsulates quite a lot about dave.

he went onto 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 i think in the states anyway, he explained you are trained to be skeptical and to look for soft spot in the manuscript and try to find a weakness and ask questions and point out the contradictions in the one, all while trying to make it better. i mean come and they are not trained to fight with the authors, but he returned to the authors and tighten up their story. and he did that about everything. he wouldn't take steps at face value. he wanted to investigate and understand and analyze and see if what was being sold with old story. this tried and it started off as you know, sierra club not

nearing, anti-dams and stuff and moved to supersonic transport. when we got kicked out of the sierra club and started friends of the earth, the activities broadened rapidly concerted push horizons of the environmental movement wider and nuclear power came to be examined and found one team and you could go on and on about all the new things. but he was teased endless curiosity and interest and as ken said, you would sort things. he got a lot of stuff for himself, but he picked that many, many, many ideas from other people and repeated them in sold them in refined event. >> family version of that story, as the evaporation stories my

father comes to my mother insists my god, i discovered some bad figures in the evaporation numbers. i'm a mother says to them, and david, he's got to go back and testify to this effect. david, don't make a fool of yourself. their slide rules. [laughter] so my father goes back anyway, doesn't listen to his wife. he leans into the mic and says you are a laymen and you are questioning the figures and my father says i finished ninth grade and i know my mouth. and he did. he beat them in every black poor duel over several days that are of reclamation and the fact that the paper award the reclamation and the rubber slide rule for screwing around.

[applause] >> as you're talking about this guy chris and all of the mistakes that he's made, it was ernest hallenbeck who died recently, once is talking about a study in which people just like that successful individuals and wondered what made them successful. i don't believe much in these studies, but it's something interesting that he said was when people looked at what their lives were like, whether they were the first foreigners second born or had wealthy father or a domineering mother for a good first grade teacher, nothing pans out. the one thing can do with successful people need or mistakes than unsuccessful people. there's something about a fear of making mistakes. he didn't seem to be afraid making mistakes. the more mistakes he made, the more you get done, which is why you get a tremendous amount done. jerry, do it to say something?

this is gerrymandered. [applause] i guess everybody knows jerry. he wrote for arguments in favor of the elimination of television. he wrote the synopsis of the sacred treaties got a new book out, capitalist papers. he runs the international global forum for international globalization. >> international forum on globalization. >> say that again. >> international forum on globalization. >> i like my mistake. >> gary has been an ad man. he worked on those wonderful ads about the sistine chapel, which you flood the sistine chapel to get closer to the ceiling. capitalism has given advertising elysée name. it is connecting what you have to say that people's interest, people's souls and jerry has just used it so well for the good of us all.

take it away, jerry. >> thanks, malcolm. i did know you're going to try to save capitalism to me. or advertising. i want to congratulate you, ken, on this boat. it's a marvelous book. i have read it already. it's extremely interesting and a great work and i'm really looking forward to tom spoke, too because one of the things as i was driving over here tonight. as in a terrible traffic jam by the way, which is why i was late. it's wonderful and now people are talking about dave brower, that you guys are opening up the subject again and there's this new film, fierce green fire, a new documentary which includes the early part of the movement, 1950s come in 1860s and developed the environmental movement in this area and in the country and is very good and

spent a lot of time on days brower. when i think of dave brower, i think he is a hero of spectacular proportions. he is the martin luther king of the environmental movement if you can make an analogy like that. she's the -- he propelled -- he changed the environmental movement. it is the conservation movement before that, which is perfectly good term, but he propelled back to becoming -- he changed it and even talked about that from the change from companions on a trial to fighting activists, people who laid down in front of things and do things and really 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. and i was thinking, you know, she -- you know, in the early 60s read rachel carson, but we also had dave brower. i felt like david brower could change the world in many ways and he also changed people, including myself. that's one of the things i'm grateful about because i was in the advertising business when i met dave. i met him because he came to talk to us about doing advertising. i never met him before that. i just joined with howard gossage, this famous advertising guy. he called and said there's a guy named dave brower let's once talk about saving grand canyon and so we met with dave. dave didn't really take us for our talent it turned out. he only picked us because the

light the face we used in our ads. we had a very old-fashioned style of advertising and we believe people are breeding and you could change people more by getting them to think and be logical about their approach is and he really loved that because he is so much to say, we owe it to much to say. he said we didn't have to bother to read the empty chair because he would rate the ads. [laughter] is that i don't know about that. so we had the skies. right away. one of the great things was how much time was spent fighting over them because i spent a lot of time fighting with him. and i think ken said this earlier. he would at some point say, ok, let's do it that way. he's always willing to sort of try it out. if you can't win the argument,

try a theater chains and see if it works. on his very first day, he came in with all the text and says sadness and run it in "the new york times" to pay for the ad. and we said no, we don't like your copy. it's not good. and in those days, he had a saying that "the new york times" and a lot of national newspapers in those days would give you a deal where if you had two competing versions of an added wanted to know which is better, you could run one ad on one hit of the paper and the next on the other fate each got the other eye. so is a complete equal display. so we have this competition and we won by two to one in terms of our tax than his tax than he was just joyful about that because it meant 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. but he got me so into this subject. working with him on the grand canyon and the redwood park and north cascades and they are on the sst campaign and the antiwar ad in things like that, which nobody else in the environmental 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 as well as economics and he helped me understand what was happening in the world, just by hanging out. usually it was over six martinis was a very minor.

he would start drinking at 6:00 and go until midnight. it would only make him smarter and more awake. you try to stay with him all the way in order to get the benefit of that. one night at the biltmore in new york, i remember particularly learning. it was an epiphany for me because he started talking about -- this must've been the seventh martini. i only had to. he started talking about the loss of the sense of wildness, the last of the sense of our relationship to nature. the loss of the sense that that is really the roof 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 talking about the experience -- he said

there was a fire in those days, 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 for 5000 years ago -- augustine's 10,000 years ago. he says, we are experiencing exactly what they experienced except they are suspending other kind of context in our society context, so it's hard for a to understand that. that to me that was like a wake up. it's like a way of looking at the world of the relationships and nature as a visceral, you know, that we are partners to integrate a quality of our relationship to nature. and i think that really changed my life. i think that evening, that

evening of drinking probably changed my life more than any single thing. he probably changed my life more than any single person is certainly one of the top two or three of my life that made me change and walk through the next 40 years -- 50 years, you know, with a different work. i am and eternally grateful. and to me coming he also changed the world. i'm trying to make this point that he changes individuals and then he goes and impacts the world in a very important way. while i 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 six days, he was talking about gross, possibility of growth. we just come out of the second world war and everyone was excited because the gnp was increasing so rapidly. he said this is crazy. this is not going to continue. this is a limited planet. this is not 1960. 1962 was when i met them. he said this is impossible. so he was talking very loudly about gross enough day for no one else is talking about that. it was like he was late morning of the problems of too much interference in nature, but dave brower is arguing we had to fight the battle against growth and. i take it he was doing that in this piece, too before i knew him, he was talking about that.

the famous club of rome report that limits the growth didn't come out 10 years later and i was credited with being this flashy big change now and 2012, people are seriously trying to organize around questions of growth. he was talking in the 60s and got to shut down even at the sierra club. let's not talk about gross. let's talk about saving this please do not place. he was talking about whiteness. i gave you a personal story about that. but while this is another thing that is not being really -- it was being lost. people like john had been talking about it, but it was last out of the mix of discussion. it was all about economics. he wanted to do a nod on first national park, the idea if you are starting to do space travel.

he said this is absurd. we have one home and this is our home and we have to relate to this home. so let's do an ad called earth national park, the concept being this is the one place in the universe that we are connected to and related to advance to realize that. and we did that. and of course he got fired from the sierra club because he never told us he didn't have permission from the board to do that ad. so we did the ad and he got fired an away win on the friends of the earth. and he also had accounts at that nature comes first. nature has fallen so far back in the list of priorities. am i talking too long? >> now, god no. that nature comes first, that

nature is the primary value and you have to get that straight and you have to really clean to nature in an integrated way for the rest of the dvd is unrated and less likely to succeed. and as i mentioned earlier, he wanted to take on -- todd mentioned also that he wanted to brighten the discussion his idea of an environmental movements included opposing the war. we wrote a marvelous act together and he tried to run a camp pain on the whole idea of war and how obstructive it is and how it changes the character of things in the world and how terrible it is and so on. and he was the first major environmentalists are money who wanted us to say that social

justice cannot be under discussion either and you got to relate to issues like war, even issues like poverty and issues like social justice has got to be part of the discussion or you're battling for the environment is not going to succeed because you need to relate to the realities of the full picture. there were many unfair comments tom said, he could go on all night. the book has a million stories like that from the various people that can interviewed. i just think my one real nice edge as we need to celebrate. we have a hero and the environmental movement right now is lacking, i would say, certainly charismatic here

there's plenty of fantastic people, but certainly lacking charismatic. dave single-handedly carried the movement out of -- the self-interested doldrums for lack of a better term and exploded on the scene, needed a powerful force. now is a good time because were about to all die from the excesses on the planet. but we need days brower back. ibid. useful to celebrate his way but may be learning how to get back to this kind of aggressive campaigning. so congratulations so much. thank you. [applause] >> that was so moving. i was just so beautiful.

we can celebrate dave's second favorite interest were actually filming tonight, so if you'd please speak into the microphone. >> you're being filmed by c-span if you can just raise your hand. thank you. >> well, we can celebrate on tuesday night. and helping them decide to go to close down this route nuclear plants in california. they'll go down not in tuesday night at 7:00 at their meeting

2134 of martin luther king. i think that it's really in the interest of dave's legacy and i feel like a continuation of days. my name is louise dunlap. i'm not the one who works for news of the earth, the i was strongly influenced him as a teenager and my 20th and now i'm carrying forward. >> anyone else? >> yes, thank you both very much. i don't know all that much about david brower's work, so i'm accustomed to seeing him identified with wide-open spaces and preserving them.

a certain amount of the environmental movement these days is focused on cities, on walkable cities, green cities, urban farming and all that. did mr. brower ever take an interest as an environmental lapel? thank you. >> i think the locomotive that drove him was wilderness and that was how he started and i think that gave him -- that's what he cared about he was very quick to give them is that feathers issues, but he quickly regarded environmental. it is nuclear proliferation. he was very quick -- he brought a lot of different themes into

this movement. he mentored and smart farming and so i think he was. he was interested in all these things, all these aspects. >> this is your exercise >> this is your exercise program. >> the young people, i would wonder if you had a 20-year-old, the new millennial. are they embracing the same view for a different view, or do you have a read on the really people? there seems to be something new

and exciting they are doing. i wonder if you might have an eye as to how attracts with you are viewing of the movement from its beginning. how is that changed at all? >> there's a lot of people and train young doing great stuff. one of the things i thought of right now is sort of the resurgence of love of tech knowledge e. we are getting remembered of it. there was a period in the 60s when we were rightly suspicious of technology and because recognizing how much harm that is going to be in the world. i think a lot of the younger generation i see has been pressed away. there's a lot of talk about how some how cell phones will bring us all together and all the environmental problems. a whole steward brand school of

thought that technology will be disillusioned. a lot of people by. people talk about you engineering as a way of stopping global warming. ludicrous schemes that get treated seriously. the atlantic who believes that somehow technology somehow would find their way out was always a problem, this idea that technology is going to rescue us. but now it seems like it is that sort of -- this apprehension is growing again. we're not going to solve it by technology. technology ever really does is get us in deeper and we're just going to have to completely change our way of looking at growth, looking about what success means, with the ornaments of success are and how

we consume in all technologies are going to do it but at the moment we have to face everything. >> when they get on that one. one of the forces behind this brower, behind this book are the brower youth awards. if you want to see young people who will knock you for a loop that are doing spectacular, break your heart come and make you cry, go to the brower youth awards. [inaudible] >> october 23rd. [inaudible] >> and people here this? speak in the microphone, kevin. >> banks. it is one of the aspects of dave's power and influence and

legacy that we at highland institute honored. i was fortunate as a young man and early 20s to meet dave when i worked at sierra club and u.s. here. he always had, as can read, he drew young people towards him. he spent time and listen to young people. i feel really touched by that legacy and honored to carry that on hearing my work and all the work here. so are new leaders initiative is a core program of our work, carrying on the tradition of valuing and listening to young people. he said one of his great things he always did was bask in the glow of their accomplishments. he lets them do their work. we honor john people who carry on that vision, all the topics that can mention dave himself brought to those movement. there is a real diversity

approach and again there is sort of the technology aspect of it, but we've honored john people who are out there in the trenches or out in the wilderness on the whole range of topics and i invite y'all to join us on october 23rd in san francisco for the 13th annual brower youth awards. they were started the year of dave's passing in 2000. so over 70 young winners, alumni of the program, over 31 years of age or younger who are making change happen in their own organizations, and affiliated project or with other organizations. so definitely young people in the legacy that gave inspired. we continue in that regard. so check it out. >> and if we don't support these young people, will ruin it. just make sure you go there. >> how about one more question.

>> may be in splendor and worms. >> well, i am someone that knew david brower really well. as a young child, my family when i see a club trips in the mountains for years and i enjoyed them tremendously. the book that has been written about him by his son is wonderful. i learned a lot about him, a great deal about him but i didn't know and may focus as i started in high school, when i heard talks against the danger

of nuclear weapons and power and that was my focus for ages and i didn't understand the need to support nature as much as i did this other. we have the vigil going at the front of the campus has been going for years were trying to get the university to put a top on nuclear weapons and power and is well represented as they possibly can and have it televised that people will think things out there and what they think should be done.

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. anyways the speaker and two different years. we've been going for i think about 60 years or 40 or anyhow. but we're hoping to have this debate on campus by september september 21st, whether we succeed or not, i don't know. but i do also tell you one thing that's kind of interesting that

i have a great-grandfather who believed in the damning of hsg and he was instrumental in having that happen. this was something that nobody thinks it's a good idea, including his son. my grandfather did so either. my great-grandfather did because he felt that if there was not as 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 battalion to try and win that

debate. so what i've come to realize is how complex these issues are and how complex people i. and i appreciate now more than i did when i started out as the world federalists, someone who believes in world government. and i still believe we should go for that and not wait around, the really going for about. >> we should add because the time constraints. it's been a longer evening than i thought. one thing i would love if you told me once a story, the most beautiful story i've ever heard

come of the story of that slot canyon in glen canyon. would you remind me of that story? >> tom turner and my son, david and i and several had a reunion which was the greatest cost of his life. he had the most beautiful canyons in the world. we never wanted to go back. we never wanted to go on the reservoir. lake foul because it. we wouldn't even call it a lake and we would go back. so what was the year? 2004? the level that far down enough you could go back into the canyon, so we finally had a little reunion. it had been 40 years since the

little group had left. just ahead of the rising water. so we went into the canyon and came to the most beautiful place of all, this wonderful chamber that was absolutely the inside of the cathedral except fastly larger than a beautiful way of light comes through in his the floor. we got to the canyon and it was everything that was beautiful about it. the results on the walls. the beautiful sculpture was found monday. my sister cried. my son david, in the back of the room and his cousins came around to me and said, dad, it's beautiful.

it was stunning and i tried to look at it to his sides and yes, it is still beautiful, but it is so diminished from what it was and it struck me almost like a metaphor for how we view things a little bit at a time, how it's like a frog into boiling water. it is a beautiful canyon, david. she should've seen it when we were there. that's one of the things my father discovered they do in his life about how easy it is to wash away so it will recover. but not for a while. how the world gets taken from us in these little pieces. >> calicut takes from us and how every generation finds beauty.

[applause] >> and a recent interview, c-span asked mitt romney about the book he just finished reading. i know you're reading george freeman spoke about the next century. what about america's role in the world over the next hundred years? >> well, hope some of the things come through. there's some things i don't think well, but i do believe that america, as a place where the concept of freedom with individual freedom, political freedom, economic freedom, whether that was born and nurtured from the very