much. i remind everyone that if you know someone, you know environmentalists. they do not have to be a hike or somebody that goes out on the sea or a hunter. anyone that cares about clean our clean water in the world around us is a person which will call environmentalists and many of them by themselves politically put themselves in the center or on the right. >> campaign 24 coverage is front, seat to the federal election watch icon ridge of the candidates on the campaign trail, with a meeting great, features, and to make up your own mind. campaign 2024, on c-span network. c-span now, on a free mobile app. or anytime online. at c-span dot org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics.

>> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories. and on sunday book tv brings u the latest of nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span two comes from these television companies and more. including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? or no, it's way more than that. comcast is partnering with 1000 community senators tocreate wi-fi enabled -- comcast, along with these television companies support c-span 2 as a public service. >> good morning. thank you for getting up everybody, and coming to hear me. i really appreciate it. i'm just making sure my sound is good. i am here on a new book i wrote, called silent spring

revolution. and, the origins of that book began really when i was a boy. because my mother and father were teachers, and we had some, the one park of being a teacher to get some extra summertime. we use our extra summertime as a family, we would go all over the united states visiting our national parks, sea shores, and the olympics, in the everglades. so we have a pontiac, a station wagon, a group in ohio in the midwest and we would literally just go see the country. and i had asthma as a boy, and, it was horrible. and wherever i went i was so reinforced by picking up brochures like we used to do in those days. and on it i would say the place was saved by theodore roosevelt theodore who had asthma as a boy, and would suffer mildly

so. i identified with them and 234 million acres, 234 million acres of wild america. created the u.s. barr service, he took all these western national forest with theater roosevelt. they took 51 birds reservations with the executive, they showed up that birds were being slaughtered in florida because the feathers war. anybody coming to hear me speak between 19, let's just say, circa 1900. we'll come this morning if you are a woman here, you would've come to a public lecture wearing up on it. with a feather in. it's because there was a feather mafia in florida, and they gunned all the birds down at the recoveries. and they plucked the feathers, and then they would also steal the eggs. and all these species are dying.

>> and nothing screams federal intervention more than certain environmental things. what good does it do for the society of massachusetts, to say we're saving bird species because of a progressive politics, and a -- massachusetts, just for those migratory birds being shot willy-nilly and slaughtered in florida. and the same for their. it doesn't do well with air quality to say that where ohio, and we have bad air quality. if i grew up in toledo, the factories and detroit are blowing in dirt on the ohio broder. there has to be federal air quality. and water quality. and a lot of things that go through. and so it's treatments. a lot of this stuff, you know, it came into the book i wrote. that the point is that it was called the wilderness theater. and the crusade for america, all about that generation.

what i call the first wave of environmentalism. conservation, there are differences. but for our brief purposes today, the sorted of byron meant. first, reform wave. 1901, 1909. it's the progressive era theater, roosevelt who said conservation. number one concern of our country. even above his great white fleet being built in the navy. i wrote that book, and when i did it i said, there is one of the thing. and they did it to. i know you've all had talks about theodore roosevelt or fdr, i want to tell you one thing to know about. theodore roosevelt went to harvard, fdr went to harvard. theodore was the state legislature in new york. fdr was state legislature in new york. theodore roosevelt was governor of new york, fdr was governor of new york. theodore roosevelt loved big

navy. that was his obsession. fdr had a big obsession with it. theodore roosevelt said that conservation is the most important paying, are said conservation is the most important thing. and his first new deal out with the civilian conservation corps for unemployed americans got paid $1 a day. and planted three billion trades across america because we had drained all of our wetlands. we had diluted all of our forests. we had taken and created a dust ball, ecological disaster all through the great plains west but i should also add, theodore roosevelt had a niche. named eleanor roosevelt, and fdr mary tires. they are tight. and when you deal with environmental conservation, those two presidents where giants. and i wrote two books on them. so the book here, silent spring revolution, is about the third wave. incidentally, fdr created 800

state parks. 800. i can go into him saving big bend national park on the day, which he did, he had all of the d-day maps of big ben were visitor stations where they were going to be. and the soldiers in normandy, did not engage with roosevelt environmental conservation, the third wave didn't have a figure like that. it did have a figure like fdr where whoever figured out the application of what is his job he was like tree farmer he's old christmas trees out of his home, he was born along the hudson river, had his life along the hudson and is buried on the hudson. and really was the leader of what's that we called the scenic, hudson river movements, to protect that beautiful and probable waterway. my third wave, i had a problem of where to begin, who to focus on in this book, and i would ideally began in 1960. john f. kennedy is running for

president. new frontier. if you look at the democratic plank, that's your environments tucked in there pretty heavily. very firmly. because there was a feeling that a, correct feeling that truman and eisenhower did not do enough on the national resources or parks environment. it was all boom, boom, boom postwar industrialization. car culture, build it, build, it build it. and now candidate was kind to going to be a timeout. so adams, the great california photographer, brought it his book at 50. saying this is the american cars. rachel carson, who i'm going to mention in a minute. was writing with the member of the new frontier of john f. kennedy, writing environmental planks for the democratic party. being hosted by ethel canaday, bobby kennedy's wife, by jackie kennedy, you know so i thought i knew where i was and in the

book, because the third wave ended in 1973, not even the question, it ended in 1973 with the triumph of the endangered species act passing the senate 92 to nothing. so when you hear about this being liberal, it was american. and that same moments almost to the week, where endangered species was a big closing legislation of 73, we have the arab oil embargo, opec, fear of gasoline prices, need for energy going high, energy independence and a counter revolution that developed, immediately to stop rachael carson-ism. ralph nader-ism, environmentalism, that got too far it went so far the wife said that nixon had become a new dealer. and i will mention why they felt that, but out of that,

counter spring, to what i'm about to tell you. the american enterprise institute heritage foundation, koch brothers industries, safety brothers, you know, it, all federalist society, they all are coming to save money, they do not like the federal government regulating them. it is an anti-federal regulation movement that emerges after they environmental movement starts petering out in 1973, now, i had to instead with canaday began my book in 1945, i did not want to but i had people complain to me. they see how bad my book is, i know i could be done in 60, and got away with, it i would've been disingenuous i would've been doing that to do a market share of books, but the real history began in the days after world war ii. once hiroshima gets dropped, we talk about it as a victory over japan, and the wars and it.

and we celebrated, and i would've been on the street celebrating, it and never criticize truman for his decision to drop the atomic bomb personally. but, i never also criticized a lot of people i read in my book that said, whoa, what does this mean to the planet? the great doctor albert won a nobel prize and the man had just written his do. this nuclear genie starts going around the world, oh my god, and then john hershey of the new yorker, and other journalist started showing what radiation did to people in japan. skin melting. hard shows of, what happens with an atomic bomb and it became an anti nuclear movement. but the anti nuclear movement got fine-tuned to being an anti nuclear testing. so on one level policy people,

american atomic engineer talking about how do we stop other country from getting nuclear bombs. well great. but grassroots american citizens that became the first wave of the environmental movement that said stop blowing nuclear weapons up in the beta. from 1945 to 1992, the united states detonated 1054 nuclear tests. okay? nevada, boom, boom, boom. you think people in nevada cared? i'm getting radiation? no, they were like catcher atomic shaker in las vegas where you can see it snowing radio fallout. people were doing the atomic cocktails. do the nuclear bogey wilkie, because we were proud that we were enough monopoly from 1945, to 1959, where they only country in the world what nuclear opens. we are, usa. then russia gets the bomb. and then it's back and forth with the arms race. meanwhile, we are testing, russia is testing,

and the planet suffers from it. out of that anti nuclear group, comes a very funny coalition. the biggest leader is william o douglas, who i read about in this book, who became the fdr supreme court justice. 1937. douglas has had rushed to say, no nagasaki, after he saw what it did in hiroshima, supreme court justice said don't drop one and nagasaki. justice would go and climb the himalayas and become a buddhist. justice, collecting buddhism, his all seasons hero, henry david thoreau. you know who was else against the bomb, after the first one was dropped on catholic moral reasons? joseph kennedy, who gets a lot of bad press for being a business guy. he wanted to get the pope involved, and bishops involved. henry luce involved. to make sure there wasn't a second bomb dropped, for moral implication reasons. but another one, john f. kennedy read -- by the waters over, but

he immediately took to a writer named norman cousins, head of the separate saturday review. and norman cousins where the first big, major, essay called's ban absolute due to nuclear weapons. a critical, read today, it is pretty mild. but nevertheless he was saying, this is not something that we should be celebrating it is a big problem. canaday loved it. jack kennedy, when you study like i have close, leave his career in the navy years beyond being -- was much more like joseph heller of catch 22, curt vonnegut slaughterhouse kind of guy. he saw the absurdity of war, he saw how the absurdity of chain of command things could go. and he was skeptical of the whole nuclear age. yet he was another cold war. another person opposed to the atomic bomb was rachel carson. for about nuclear tests. rachel

carson was from pennsylvania, a girl growing up on the banks of the allegheny river. and the allegheny river is a glue factory all around there. dirty air, dirty river, it's a beautiful river in western pennsylvania. she would go and collect pine cones and talk about nature in her book. she butter first as a to get published in st. nicholas magazine. and magazine for kids. she talks about the natural world, about the atmosphere, and her teachers started recognizing in her. you have a gift for science, and nature. and literature. and so she goes to a school called chatham, a school for women in pittsburgh area. and decides that she wants to be an ocean-ologist. or an ocean science person and had never seen an ocean. even though she graduated from college. setts which is in walking distance from john f kennedy home in hyannis port and

woods hole. if you haven't heard about it, was the place if you wanted to study marine life today here in la hoya, you have university of california at san diego with scripps or i live in texas. we have university of texas has, a marine center at port aransas on the gulf of mexico, where the university of miami is booming. and marine science. but the woods hole was where intellectuals win. it was like the advanced institute in princeton, where brainy yaks go to study. you would go there the woods hole and you'd find a study the natural sea world. she started studying migratory patterns of eels cause lot of people do birds but not a there was no woman in the field of eels and they do have remarkable journeys, eels from africa all the to the interior rivers of pencil danger. and she started writing columns. the baltimore sun. she did an advanced degree in zoology at johns hopkins. she gets hired in world war two

to write marine scripts for radio about our shad populations are cod fish stocks and then fun pieces about sea urchins or ocean ocean observations, radio and pr kind thing? before npr was born and she working for fdr adores the new deal. by 1946, she's writing a called conservation and action where world's 51 first federal bird reservations that theodore roosevelt created are today's us fish and wildlife refuge. just you guys, you all here own 550 national wildlife refuges. they're all around you here love them. this is government at its best. it's protecting species, protecting oasis's and we sometimes don't realize that this a great gift. we got this wildlife refuge, but she was just writing little booklets for them to, you know,

tell if you went to go visit sonny bono. that's all i wrote. she tell you what bird she'd see there going on in that ecosystem? great stuff? but got two clues about world war. two being in government that worried her. one was the nuclear issue. and second, ddt because the other big advancement wasn't just the manhattan project and world war two. another thing that won the war, surely, is the bomb ddt, pesticides if you were young, john f kennedy or richard nixon or lyndon johnson, anybody on the pacific and europe but it made a big difference in the pacific you would have been doused with ddt sprayed host and i would have to and you would have to it killed lice. it kills mosquitoes, it kills ticks. it's a miracle it helped us. we would take planes future environmentalist named barry commoner, who was a genius for world war two, for our country, invented the device that would spray ddt proper, greatly

administered over vast islands in the pacific. so our troops be attacked with malaria problem as rachel carson being in government working that us fish and wildlife beat particularly paul in maryland where we have a national you guys own a national wildlife research center where we test our chemicals on waterways and airs to see what how it affects meaning, how it might affect soon and she knew ddt was toxic to fish and birds she had read reams of data document piled and so she decided was going to kind of be a whistle blower, wanted to go public with our reader's digest. and they rejected they said, no way, why ddt was big business. it was bought by the us department of, agriculture, every farm the united states was being sprayed with pesticides. it was considered a it was as big a powerful the chemical industry as oil gas lobby today it was huge and so she got

flummoxed and rachel carson instead wrote three c books. if none of you have read her c trilogy books about the sea. my favorite being called the sea around us. but i love all three. you can get them in a convenient library of america book one volume. i highly it nobody writes about ocean conservation the world of the ocean with the grace notes rachel carson as a literary person. so in my mind there's henry david thoreau and rachel carson and when you really getting into how to write about a natural area the it extent her writing is much more or more it's like two levels advanced on a national geographic writing or something. it's really special. and one of her big fans for the kennedy families, they loved her book strictly rose kennedy. do you know john f kennedy? his mother grew in concord, massachusetts, swimming picnicking and walden pond every day. the kennedy kids not learn to

swim in the ocean. they learn to swim. walden pond did you realize that john kennedy's mother made a mission to russia to investigate whether thoreau's collected works in the libraries in russia? do you realize that her favorite book, beyond water, an essay by thro and walden was a book called cape cod. all about the outer cape. the outer cape. her son, john f kennedy, would sign as the cape cod national seashore in 1961 and in and when i say national seashore skies, kennedy became president. we had one cape hatteras. it's hard are on coastal areas i if i were president in or jimmy carter was president he save a lot people say he saved this many acres alaska it's mountain rock that you know here's a big you know what so i'm not criticizing i'm simply saying for the politics it bob great

reporters here knows these politics kennedy actually got through seas shore real estate for public parks like cape cod, like padre island, texas, like point raised cattle of fauna. moran we if you go there now, those are all john f kennedy seashores because kennedy had red rachel carson is a fanatic the book they loved was a book under the sun book by henry david thoreau called, cape cod. that book was helped create cape cod national seashore that many decades after. his death and and in the mid-fifties the government came up with a report called our vanishing shorelines. and in that report set public beaches disappearing everybody's building condos or that wasn't the word but apartments hotels. oh jersey is asia dredging and we're going to have no open public seashore lands for the public to enjoy and in that

movement seized on is is one big conservation thing so you've got this sea shore conservation action going in the fifties early sixties you've got the anti bomb stop testing in nevada people are getting sick and ddt and out of the ddt group a big thing happened say woman marjorie spock. how of you here have ever heard of dr. benjamin spock. the baby doctor turn an anti-war protester. the baby dr. benjamin sister marjorie spock was an organic farmer. she had advice part of suffolk county, new york, an organic farm head of her time. today, there's whole foods. every corner of any place you go. but she was mark wanted to market her only organic because she thought all these chemicals we putting in our foodstuffs wasn't good fair problem was they were blanket spraying ddt

over her property are and so she claimed my right as organic farmers just been taken away from me constitution all right leave me alone. it's my land i want to grow organic produce. if any of you went to wall school or have a grandkid in law school, her think it's a great idea. i had never i thought like, what is what do i own up above me? how many feet do i have to go when i am not in control? i mean it's interesting just and so i don't i don't think it's frivolous and it made it which way to the supreme court like it should have. and in the supreme court they voted marjorie spock down. she lost. but william douglas grabbed on to it. and a dissent published in reader's digest and everywhere. that's the birth of environmental law he triggers the environmental movement with his dissent in and out by not only when gone to hike the himalayas and write a book it,

but bill douglas was writing books called my wilderness. he wrote two books called my wilderness, where he tramped all around the country and maybe in washington, d.c. bob, you're up there and others. you go the sea canal. you might meet the bus to bill douglas, but william douglas hiked 186 miles down the whole scene because they were going to build a road their highway. he said it's a scenic, cultural and history resource, but put it march 286 miles, because the washington post said the highway and he wrote the post said, come with me if you hike with me and you still want to build the highway, great. but if you let, me show you what you will destroy. and to the post editors credit, they went with them. they didn't do the whole 186 miles, but they least went with the justice to see ways. and they said, yeah, we got to come up with different here. we don't want to destroy this

you know canal he won douglas mist he won his fight the post back and today it's part of the national park no road it got saved oh, man that's all douglas needed he became an environmental. i chuckle when i turn the tv and hear about supreme by clarence or conflicts of interest well bill douglas was a walking in conflict of interest. his office in the supreme was the clearing house. anything environmental in the country before there was an epa. the epa is not created in 1970. there was nowhere go. if you had an environmental problem here in the in rancho mirage your palm springs and you're getting flummoxed not getting action in sacramento, you might send a postcard to douglas and he'd respond and he'd say, give me everything, every information. you can't people, these green grassroots groups, countries start sending douglas reams of their about what's going on

local places. and douglas would farm it out to david brower at sierra club or howard zinn i saw at the wilderness society. and then douglas kept hiking and, hiking. he hike in in kentucky to stop a dam and he won. he hike bobby and ethel kennedy along the olympic peninsula of washington state and no road he to the buffalo river in arkansas river where the protest so big people were putting barbed wire the river so canoes or kayakers would get entangled there were shootings on and there's bill douglas canoeing down the buffalo. now i didn't see he's a great supreme court justice. okay. okay, you got it. it's telling you this is what what his life about that he didn't like lawyers or law. he was very mean to court. so these complicated, but not on the environmental issue. he was a believer in a deep way and he won. he showed the greens, get guts,

get out there, protest and we can win. and we won the buffalo richard nixon saved the buffalo river from being dammed. i can go on with douglas's stance that all work he doesn't have a failure on these things he brings so much media to and he backs rachel who now after spock spock sends rachel carson. here's all of the legal information douglas sends her every dirty document he could find on ddt, chemical industry. douglas writes a friend in writing, i am going to bend the law against the corporation in favor of the environment. i'm going to bend the law, the corporations. well how do you feel about that's all that's got is i he's in that zone. you know do you think dr. king's the only one protester in and

dr. king, incidentally on ddt in particular on the nuclear test martin luther king jr said over and over again what good does it do to integrate the greenville lunch counter? i mean. greenberg greensboro counter in north carolina, what good does it do to integrate a lunch counter if the milk you're drinking? scott stadium, 90th because the fallout was across america the hard rain barry commoner name i casually mention at washington was collecting baby teeth samples showing kids exposed to radiation and who weren't but. rachel carson grabs all of the legal and then she's got all of her whistle blowers at us and wildlife research labs giving your all their anti ddt info. and she sits down and writes in the late fifties, silent spring, a book that comes out in 1962. and it's a it's a one book revolution with douglas spurring it on because in that. right. well, first up, rachel carson

had cancer breast cancer. she was writing it. she lost all of hair going through radiation treatments. she was going to be dead soon and was working against the clock to get her writing done when it gets done. january 60. bill douglas says, i'll get the kennedys on board. you. bill douglas was really close. the kennedy family, i can't tell you how close he took. bobby kennedy, the attorney, as a boy, hiking all in siberia to see siberia. they want hiked all over siberia. bobby kennedy, robert kennedy. and i think one up today and the original robert f kennedy and douglas when i was siberian bobby kennedy ethel kennedy told me bobby got high fever, really high like 104 in a middle of the bank of siberia, sweating sick. they were looking for so they couldn't find a penicillin or any kind of medicine or what can help them. and douglas, being a man of darwin, put on his backpack and said, you're sick, bobby. this is where we part company

and continued on his like and left bobby to his own fate his own darwinian fate ethel told me she wouldn't talk to bill douglas for about five years. she was so -- that he left her husband in that state. bobby kennedy loved it like he came back. all bill me, you know, kind of macho thing. but but he never it against him. but she did. the point is, douglas told rachel, we're going to do this, man. you're going to be under attack. we got your back. her articles get published in the new yorker in june of 62. cause this holy hell. because the chemical industry is not just about getting rid of ddt, they're seeing this as a trick to do federal regulation on any chemical. and what are you dumping? rivers where is your chemical waste going? this is the big take down. so they got to take carson down. they call her every name in the book, particularly sexual smears, because she had never married a spinster or bob i

won't even say under so ugly. it was intense and. kennedy to his credit as a podium when asked by press, he said, oh, yeah i read miss carson and we're going to get we're going to get to the results of, her miss ms.. carson's book and all. and we're going find out i'm going to put a panel together. he puts a top group of panel mittee types, you know, boom, what is carson right? or is the chemical right? carson right. and that and the ddt wars com it goes on for ten years with big chemical. no we're we can't lose this battle rachel carson dies in 64 kennedy's dead in 63. the ddt battle doesn't end on 1972. and you know who's the one who finally abolished us using ddt in the us? richard nixon he didn't want, but his first epa head, william ruckelshaus stood up really

strong and told nixon, you me had ap. i looked at all this stuff and we can't use it anymore. and nixon said that he was really livid about it. nixon to be honest, to be fair, he did it. he was angry because i'm going to lose the ranchers, you know, i'm going to lose the you. his worry politically with the cost one his side but he did it. nixon and after that revolution kicks in and the big key for kennedy had picked command stuart udall as secretary of interior, our finest during these years we get things like canyonlands national park created in utah big battle, the north cascades in washington state national park, california, ground zero. in my book on a lot of this stuff for example the battle of bodega bay i don't know how you care or think about nuclear power because it depends on my mood sometimes but in i understand that the complications of all of that with anything nuclear but i will

tell you what shot it down really it was that the pacific your electric pacific you're the california electric company wanted to build the world's biggest atom campus on on bodega bay california on the san andreas. bonehead. they could have found so many other sites and they decided to build it right on the ocean along where they would hit the fault line and and they and the public went nuts. the sierra club nuts. but but suddenly udall and everybody says no, they again, it's the victories of this third wave. they are winning. they're winning battles they might have a setback like in a supreme court, but then they win and they're tenacious and. it's coming from all walks of life before do away with kennedy. let me tell you that, kennedy did one of the great ecological

events in world history, the nuclear ban treaty. you know how we stopped weapons in nevada? it's because kennedy he sent norman. first off, kennedy sent norman cousins on this fringe writer who wrote when was in the military uniform that weapons with nuclear weapons are a problem he sends secret behind cia state defenses back norman cousins to the pope as a fig leaf of where he's headed and then go meet khrushchev. it's a third party. diplomas of extraordinary kinds cousins starts brokering a deal for a nuclear test ban after the cuban missile crisis. and kennedy, starting with a great speech at american university. but in the summer of 63 said no signed a deal with russia and britain no more atmospheric or underwater testing russia today cannot blow up nuclear weapons and test them okay there because

of kennedy's treaty now it did allow underground it's another story but the point is kennedy something in the foreign policy cold realm that's meaningful. and ted, a speechwriter, said it's the greatest. kennedy saw it as his greatest achievement, not the moon going the moon. and that's his thought. he thought kennedy that stopping the testing nuclear weapons was his greatest achievement. now lyndon johnson comes in the if you want to call them the old new dealers or the bill douglas radicals or whatever you want to call them a proto environmentalist often used today. but they were worried about is lyndon johnson because lyndon had fought the big sea short battle in texas over padre island. lyndon johnson wanted to it with condos and hotels and so they were of lyndon. on the other hand, he loved fdr and he loved theodore roosevelt. he's married to lady bird.

and from 63 to the end of proxy, lyndon johnson was a first rate concern. ovation president problem with johnson is he thought conservation as america saving america the beautiful lyndon johnson for example signs the wild and scenic river act stopping beautiful rivers from being dammed. today we all own these increase wild and scenic rivers that weren't room castle lyndon he did the if you go the appalachian trail system or the pacific crest trail out here lyndon johnson he did the wilderness act but that's the wilderness act. you look at a map, you'll see big parts of wilderness a million acres where no roads allowed to be built. the wilderness act was born in 1935 in our first wilderness. this unit is, kings canyon, parts of kings canyon national park here in california, and that's harold ickes doing and ansel adams, they got to fdr, the thing eleanor used to say to

environmental eleanor said spring pictures if you show franklin a beautiful landscape, he'll say, save it. she was so right these guys brought all these beautiful pictures and they wanted over a million acres with no roads, nothing, a primitive wilderness in that sierra. and well, the great lines ever fdr looked at. the picture said, oh, my god, because loved it. this was early as on since fdr got his gene. you saw what a young genius this guy was to the camera. and he said, you know, the thing is, guys, i'll never be able to see it. meaning i'm in a wheelchair if i block it off. no roads, visitor centers, how will i ever see all these beautiful sites you're showing me. what do you say to that? and he said. oh, well. and then he signed it. and that started the wilderness movement. and by 64, lyndon johnson signs. the wilderness act puts 9.1 million acres of america aside for no roads. roads bring logging, road, spring, electricity roads bring

in crews encourage from civilization and you can never get man out of nature. there's something in the water that did. there's something flying overhead. it's kind of frontier wilderness. but we do. and we've got big parcels of johnson, lady bird, you all must know, wildflowers, beautiful nation. she came out here, the road, a big sir and a ceremony have scenic roads without billboards along pacific coast highway. you know, she went with stuart udall down the rio grande river at big bend. she went rafting whitewater. rafting in the snake river and all in idaho on and on. she is our conservation beautification. she wanted to call it environmentalism. and she said lyndon boys wouldn't let me. they they wanted the word beautification. and she said, i hate it. it sounds like a mortician or something. putting lipstick on a corpse or something. she didn't like it, but she got stuck with the term

beautification. a river mental was starting to be seen as a campus left buzz. word and replacing ecology. but they did good. they good work and it's unfortunate. vietnam has clouded we have celebrated linda and on civil rights and headstart and mpr or apb. he was a very good conservation president and she the amazing first lady, nixon you might say. how is nixon fit in? nixon ran in 1968. president, you all that california you got to know about the environment a little bit no matter what you think out here, it's everywhere. your people are doing it. but do you realize that nixon asking, getting asked questions he can't answer. do you realize that nixon hires john erlichman, who goes to prison for watergate? most known who was a land water lawyer from seattle. and nixon went up there and went boating with him once and came back and said, you know, erlichman is really he's making

money on nimby, not on my backyard rich people not wanting an aluminum factory next to them. they'd hire higher erlichman firm and win. and so he, the de facto environmentalist for nixon, the sierra club, calls him a cover art green. however, he thought on other issues he in with the environmental crowd erlichman and he goes to the white house in to be fair to nixon he's president days just day. i think it's eight days and the santa barbara oil spill happens now. television color, the nightly news and seven you know cronkite and all went color 67 this is january 69 and nixon's not even his office practically and the whole a tv's showing birds go back to the organization in santa barbara get the oil out do the birds trapped in oil the paradise santa barbara despoiled

wealthy republican donors. nixon, who lived along the coast to california. nixon letters do something and nixon blew. he had an interior secretary hickel hickel who told him the exact right thing. hickel he said don't minimize it. don't tell people how bad it is, do minimize because it's bad and just say it's bad and we'll blame johnson whoever and so nixon did and he came on and did it. but he wasn't sure how to play environmentalism. then the summer of 69, when he's ready to celebrate, neil on the moon, nixon talking to the astronauts time magazine's putting cuyahoga river on fire in ohio and the rouge river on fire. that means, guys, you take a match and put it in. it goes down and this starts talking about how sick our rivers are. remember, there's no epa, okay?

you got no clean water act yet. and and and so that's going on and gaylord nelson, senator from the father of apostle islands national park the five that the conceptual your birthday 1970 our first earth day he goes and and nelson comes up with the idea of a teach in for earth day the environment now. i've read all these books and i after read earth day books first one the whole country done it but i saw they had offices everywhere. how does somebody in november have no offices and in april has offices everywhere for an earth day? follow the money. right. where did that money come from? and he believe where all comes from. not some. a bit. a hunk, a grant. it's not bill douglas. he was always pretty poor. it comes from ruther of the united automobile workers. ruther funds earth day because

big labor, big environment were intended because ruther, who dies days after earth in a weird plane crash with his wife mae ruther set blue collar workers. we can't go your ceremony. i want the local detroit, michigan, ohio, indiana, where our workers are. we want clean lakes, fishing, hunting beaches, local we want we want to clean. so he was a real environmentalist ruther. you're starting to see my time's what time do i have to end? i'm a college lecturer. guys, you got to forgive me. we go on 2 minutes. the the the key here then becomes with that earth day. now nixon is starting to say, holy god, this earth day is really growing. ruth, there's paying for everything this thing's got. i'm kidding. i don't want to be the. but nixon was just paranoid to not being the the the polluter. and he does something smart. he makes a deal. erlichman he says to john

erlichman, you're you're a greenie and you're in with these guys. i will sign with you guys produce with democrats if it's got scoop jackson's office does it i will not muskie muskie ed muskie. maine has anything to do with it. i'm i'm off. so erlichman, this is the triumph of the seattle people erlichman and scoop jackson's teams get together and they they cobble nepa, national, environmental policy act. if you don't about nepa, you're living it. this lie wouldn't have been built without nepa. nepa signed by nixon first 1970, and sam clemente, california, at the western house before the football games. come on. shocking press gaggle following him. he nepa which makes environmental statements for construction mandatory real estate commercial development blah blah blah blah blah blah. what does that do, guys? when sign nepa it guarantees law to

be a boom industry. i asked my students at rice university if they're not majoring in environment to go work for the sierra club or audubon. so a lot of times they're getting hired by exxonmobil to be an environmentalist making environmental impact statements, but it creates environmental, which is going to lead us to where the fourth wave's coming with climate change. and i dwindling time. i will tell you earth day. nixon decides split the difference. he gives interior staff the day off to teach people about earth. he plants tree on the white house with pat nixon good photo op so he did something tree planting legit and hires the fbi do deep surveillance on the earth day headquarters in the and protesters. nixon says they're pinko commies. i'm worried that this a ruthless socialist plot and it's aim to make me look bad and so erlichman and ruckelshaus people

go and the one of the funnier memos we historians read other people's mail for a living one of the funniest letters is with erlichman and ruckelshaus. erlichman and pete mccloskey out here in california, a former republican moderate environmental congressman. he's they're good friends, erlichman and pete. and he says pete, you won't believe what the fbi has come up with. there was nothing nefarious. it was some girls not wearing bras. there was a little of smooching going on under trees. were some dogs running their. he said it's the most benign surveillance report they've ever seen. there die. but he tells mccluskey. but now i know you may find this funny, but i've got to go tell the boss this, you know, and and nixon's like after he survives earth day in the summer of 1970, he sees environment's a winning issue. he had made it a of his 1970 state of the union i think it's a third of the speech is on the environment by nixon 70 summer

of 70. he creates the environmental protection out of the white house with help of scoop jackson and john dingell on the democratic side. but they get together, they get the language, they streamline it all and opens the doors. december 70, william ruckelshaus becomes the first head of the epa, and he's a bad -- cop, i'm telling you. ruckelshaus knew. and if we should name, the epa, the ruckelshaus building was the most honest public servants ever encountered. and i got to know them well. i did his oral histories for university of washington, washington state. ruckelshaus had the hard job. you guys end this. you guys know how brown versus topeka. it wasn't just about the legislation and separate but equal no good. now got to integrate the schools. what is? the whole civil rights movement. it's about making the people to brown you go to little rock in 57. are you complying going to the brown decision? you go to france elementary school and orleans with ruby bridges.

are you complying king ruckelshaus is the burn telling polluting companies extraction, industries, chemical industries? we're busting you. the feds are busting you. you're not applying you're following epa standards or nepa or the clean act, which nixon signed in 1970 and soon to be clean water act of 1972. and so by the time nixon leaves, that was the end of a revolution was bipartisan in spirit. it had republicans nixon, ruckelshaus, russell, a guy named russell train who helped the world wildlife fund, a republican side. john salley, republican congressman mccloskey. it had frank church in in gaylord nelson in real environment. well, senators have supreme court justice it had anti nuke people like coretta scott dr. king, bobby kennedy was a poster boy for and scenic rivers going around to rafting with the

kennedy family to save our rivers and dams which once were popular became unpopular. the big showdown was grand canyon and the sierra club thanks to david brower would take out full page ads in the new york times that said, would you flood the 16th chapel and that once that was another environmental victory. we're waiting for the fourth wave right now, which has to be global. it's going to start by generation z and. the baby boomers do not need to feel bad by infusing our with terms like earth science, earth day, studying and endangered species. we feel like we're losing, but we've educated the planet that we need planetary. conservation action. i thought when al gore did inconvenient truth that might be going on, he's had about seven republican senators. alas, we're not there yet. but there will be a new one in california, very may be the leader of the fourth wave because of their rules on getting fossil fuels with no

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