During the Environmental Heydays of the Sixties and Seventies, media—including both print ads and television—began to be used as a primary tool in the promotion of the US Environmental Movement. Who can ever forget the poignant public service television spot showing a Native American brave canoeing down a river until he arrives at a trash-laden, pollution-spouting urban waterfront where—after he drags his canoe out of the water—a tossed bag of garbage explodes at his feet. The close-up zoom showing a single tear drop rolling down his cheek is heart-breaking and the piece became instantly famous nationwide. Never mind that—as it turned out—America’s favorite native son was purported to actually be 100% second-generation Italian. The point is that a thoughtful, tasteful media production gained both the wholesale attention and concerned responsiveness of our entire country.
Of course, throughout the Sixties, David Brower was still around harassing the Bureau of Reclamation and leading the opposition to federal dams as Executive Director of the Sierra Club. He once produced a print ad that became the high point of the Sierra Club’s existence and a rallying cry for an angry nation. The ad showed a dam being built in the Grand Canyon headed by the caption, “Would you flood the Sistine Chapel in order to get a better look at its ceiling?”
The Sistine Chapel—Photo Copyright: Conde Nast Traveler
Public reaction to this ad was enormous and instantaneous, fomenting total support against building dams anywhere in the Grand Canyon. The politicos in Washington were so incensed that they dispatched an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent to the local Sierra Club office with a letter stating that their non-profit status had been withdrawn. Of course, this played right into the Sierra Club’s hands. Brower told the tax collector to shove his notice up where the sun doesn’t shine and when the media got wind of what had happened, they had a field day.
As Tom Turner, Editor for Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice, put it, “People in the public may not have known what they thought about the Sierra Club; but they sure knew what they thought about the IRS. Sympathy for the Sierra Club just boiled over and people joined in droves.”
The resulting public reaction was so intense that the pressure changed the course of the government’s plans. Congress soon moved to expand Grand Canyon National Park and prohibit dams anywhere within its boundaries. In the final analysis, the Sierra Club had used a simple print ad to thrust itself into being both a media darling and the fresh face of the US Environmental Movement.
These types of strategic media use are certainly something to consider in determining how to gain across-the-board support for our Climate Change agenda. Everything depends on producing pieces that touch the right buttons—without turning people off— while getting the message across that a national reaction is needed.
As a narrator states in the film, A Fierce Green Fire, “Every now and then some issue arises that is elevated into the stratospheric focus of public attention, then becomes the symbolic rallying cry for a whole generation of activists.” In the 1960’s that issue was the proposed damming of the Grand Canyon; today the issue is solving the Climate Change crisis. The whole idea here is to make the best use of the media to create a symbolic, iconic national rallying cry. In many situations, a talented staff of exceptionally creative, yet thoughtful public relations personnel is worth its weight in gold.
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
The next significant book to hit the streets in the late Sixties was Paul R. Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller and applecart up-setter, The Population Bomb.While his dire forecasts for Climate Change hopefully will not come to pass, Ehrlich’s theories provided a wake-up call for much of the civilized world. His warnings about a human population that is too large to be sustainably supported by the Earth’s resources are now being viewed with renewed vigor—especially in the face of Climate Change. While Ehrlich was not the first scientist to raise the alarm about overpopulation issues, his charismatic and media-savvy approach brought the issue to a new level of prominence during the primary US Environmental Movement years of the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Several prominent books came along in the last half of the Sixties. First in 1967, two Princeton biologists—Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson—developed a general theory to explain the richness of isolated natural communities in their book, The Theory of Island Biogeography.
For biogeographical purposes, an insular environment or island is any area of habitat suitable for a specific ecosystem, surrounded by an expanse of unsuitable habitat. While this could be a traditional island—a mass of land surrounded by water—the term may also be applied to many nontraditional islands, such as the peaks of mountains, isolated springs, lakes surrounded by desert, and non-contiguous woodlands.The Theory of Island Biogeography is now a standard work of ecology, and guides conservation policy and the planning of nature reserves throughout the world.
If Mother Nature designed the perfect naturalist, he would look and act exactly like Edward O. (“EO”) Wilson. Tall with a long, ambling gate, casually swept across hair, and “aw shucks” good looks, Wilson still appears to be a boy reveling in the natural wonders of his native Alabama than the prolific writer and Harvard University professor emeritus that he is.
September 18, 2002: World-renowned Harvard biologist and conservationist Edward O. Wilson has written 20 books, won two Pulitzer prizes, and discovered hundreds of new species. Considered to be one of the world’s greatest scientists, E.O. Wilson is often called “the father of biodiversity.” (Rick Friedman/Corbis)
Wilson is considered to be both the “Father of Biodiversity” and the “Father of Sociobiology”. Plus, he is a Past Environmental Hero to us in more ways than one. In 2001, he presented our family with the Sudbury Valley Trustees “Conservationist of the Year Award” at a ceremony in Concord, Massachusetts. Then he served as my (Mariah) inspiration while I was studying for and attaining my Master’s Degree in Environmental Management at Harvard University.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1929, Wilson spent almost every waking moment—at least, when he could escape going to school—patrolling the swamps, marshes, and coastlines of south Alabama and the western Florida panhandle. He attended the University of Alabama—where he received his BS and MS degrees—then matriculated to Harvard University where he attained both his PhD and his home for the rest of his career.
Well-known in scientific circles as the world’s foremost authority on ants, Wilson’s description of how he came to specialize in insects is typical of his forthright personality and downhome humor. The way he tells it, he was blinded in one eye when he whipped a fish he had caught up out of the water and the spines on the fins caught him in the eye. Also he was congenitally unable to hear sounds in the upper register. So since he was blind in one eye and couldn’t use binoculars—plus couldn’t hear high-pitched bird songs —his first love of being an ornithologist went out the window. Wilson also couldn’t hear the croaks and calls of amphibians, so studying frogs also went by the boards. But since he was bound and determined to be a naturalist—he says he never considered doing anything else—he had to find something to study and insects were about all that was left. At least, he could catch the little guys and hold them between his thumb and forefinger to get a really good look at them.
In hindsight, Wilson’s decision to study insects was propitious for all of us involved with the science of biology. No one—before or since—has done more with regard to insights into the study of and analysis of the biodiversity of lifeon earth. His findings have opened all of our eyes and minds to things we really don’t know about a planet that we thought we knew very well. Wilson’s work has also enlightened the scientific and environmental communities about the critical need for stopping the mass extinctions that are proceeding more rapidly now than at any other time in human history. He emphasizes the point that every time we lose a species to extinction, we are sacrificing something that may have provided human society with untold medical or sociological benefits.
Through his research and writing, Wilson has developed a cadre of concepts and theories that have placed him on an academic sphere attained by very few other scientists in history. Being named a Junior Fellow of Harvard’s Society of Fellows opened up the world for Wilson’s research. His scientific travels have taken him from Cuba and Mexico to Australia, New Guinea, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Sri Lanka.
By the late 1970s, Wilson was actively involved in global conservation, adding to and promoting biodiversityresearch. His 1984 book, Biophilia, explored humanity’s attraction to the natural environment and played a major role in shaping the modern conservation ethic. In 1988 he edited the volume, BioDiversity,which first introduced the now heavily used term biodiversity into the scientific lexicon.
Wilson’s work has not been without controversy. In his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), he proposed that the essential biological principles on which animal societies are based also apply to humans. In summary, he maintained that as little as ten percent of human behavior is genetically induced, with the rest being attributable to environment. This thesis provoked condemnation from prominent researchers and scholars in a broad range of disciplines, who regarded it as an attempt to justify harmful or destructive behavior and unjust social relations in human societies.Wilson vehemently denied such intent with this work, but it didn’t stop demonstrators from picketing his talks and– in one case—dousing him with water as he stood at a podium.
Through all this commotion, Wilson staunchly defended his viewpoints and in 1978 published another highly acclaimed work, On Human Nature, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. In this book, Wilson thoroughly examined the scientific arguments surrounding the role of biology on the evolution of human culture. By the end of the decade, the furor over sociobiology had subsided and researchers in many fields accepted Wilson’s ideas about human behavioral evolution as fundamentally true.
While holding onto his professorship at Harvard, Wilson continued to expand the multi-faceted horizons of his writing. With Bert Holldobler as his co-author, Wilson returned to his first scholarly love when he produced his monumental work, The Ants (1990),which earned him a second Pulitzer Prize.
Since he retired as an emeritus professor at Harvard, Wilson has continued his activism and publishing—both at phenomenal rates. His conservation efforts have benefitted the Columbia University’s Earth Institute, American Museum of Natural History, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund.
All of Wilson’s books are great works and excellent reads, but two in particular are worthy of special merit. His novel, Anthill (2010), seems to describe gargantuan battles between two rival trampling hordes from ancient worlds—perhaps the Visigoths versus the Huns! In reality the warring factions are marauding “tribes” of ants. The details of how competing anthills go about attempting to establish themselves as the dominant colonies on a piece of property rival anything ever written about war—complete with physical intimidation, violence and gore galore, and titanic battles to the death. On a much lighter note, his memoir, Letters to a Young Scientist (2013), should be a must read for any school child who is considering pursuing biology as a profession.
In a question and answer session conducted on April 30, 2012 by Lisa Hymas, Senior Editor at Grist, EO Wilson asked, “Why aren’t you young people out protesting the mess that’s being made of the planet?” As (the students) squirmed in their seats, Wilson continued: “Why are you not repeating what was done in the ‘60s? Why aren’t you in the streets? And what in the world has happened to the green movement that used to be on our minds and accompanied by outrage and high hopes? What went wrong?”
“Destroying a rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
– EO Wilson
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”
– EO Wilson
In his subtle, down home way, Wilson is hitting the nail right on the head when it comes to doing something that will actually make a difference in counteracting Climate Change. If we can’t get enough people out in the streets, demanding change, then all of our individual efforts collectively just aren’t going to get the job done. Our social political history in the US has proven, time and again, that grassroots organizations and mass demonstrations supported by millions—not hundreds, not thousands, but millions—are what it takes to get the attention of and action from the decision-makers in Washington, DC and in other power broking countries around the world.
Author’s bio: For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Sometimes it takes a person with a tenacious spirit coupled with an unyielding march toward a personal goal that makes the world a better place for us all. Just such a person and event came together in 1964 when President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) signed the Wilderness Act—that created the National Wilderness Preservation System—into law.
Ironically the incredibly dedicated person that made this come to fruition—after writing 66 drafts of the legislation over an eight-year period and leading 18 Congressional hearings—was not around to see the landmark act put into force. Howard Clinton Zahniser, the “Father of the Wilderness Act” and another Past Environmental Hero, died from a heart attack just four months before LBJ’s pen hit paper. But anyone who knew this ebullient man realized that he was there—floating invisibly high above the scene and grinning with glee—when the President handed the now famous signing pen over to his widow, Alice.
Howard Clinton Zahniser, the “Father of the Wilderness Act” died from a heart attack just four months before LBJ’s pen hit paper.
Zahniser—called simply “Zahnie” by all who knew, loved, and respected him—was born in 1906. His father was a Free Methodist minister who moved his family around a lot before settling in the tiny, but scenic village of Tionesta hard by the banks of the Allegheny River. Zahnie graduated from Greenville College, a small Christian institution in Illinois, with a degree in writing. Afterwards he worked as a newspaperman for several papers, including the Pittsburgh Press. Throughout his career, Zahnie displayed a humility that was couched in his childhood—growing up as a devout Free Methodist.
After working for twelve years as a writer and editor with the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Biological Survey, and its successor agency—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—Zahniser took a pay cut to serve as Executive Secretary of The Wilderness Society and editor of The Living Wilderness Magazine. During his almost 20 years (1945 to 1964) in this position, hetenaciously lobbied and worked with other conservationists across the Nation for a piece of draft federal legislation called the Wilderness Act.
Often communicating his passion for wild places and arguments for their preservation, Zahniser was both a gifted writer and an eloquent speaker. He used a variety of media—including magazine articles, radio addresses, professional speeches, and congressional testimony—to get his message about the value of wilderness across to the general public and the legislators on Capitol Hill.
Zahniser pushed himself to the breaking point—including often going more than 24 hours without sleep—to finally get the Wilderness Act passed. In the final tally, the Wilderness Act passed the US House of Representatives by the amazing vote count of 373–1.
When it first passed, the Wilderness Act protected 9.1 million total acres in fifty-four areas in thirteen states. By 2015, the number of areas in the world’s only Wilderness Preservation System had grown to 757—protecting more than 100 million acres in forty-four states and Puerto Rico. Regrettably, in all of these wilderness areas, there is not a single feature named in honor of Howard Zahniser. Although, we strongly suspect Zahnie wouldn’t mind this slight—since his life’s labor was finally in place to benefit the public good.
Never assuming the limelight as did some of his more widely acclaimed contemporaries —including David Brower, Rachel Carson, and Aldo Leopold—Howard Zahniser was always content with staying in the background and subtly pushing his basic message that “without untrammeled wilderness, mankind would be materially and spiritually impoverished.”He simply believed that wilderness protection legislation was a necessity, so that its preservation would not be subject to whim, political expediency, or greed. Zahniser’s son, Ed, is quoted as saying, “It was not just an environmental ethic my father had. He viewed conservation as part of a broad humanism. Thoreau said that in wildness is the preservation of the world, and my father believed that.”
“I believe that at least in the present phase of our civilization we have a profound, a fundamental need for areas of wilderness – a need that is not only recreational and spiritual but also educational and scientific, and withal essential to a true understanding of ourselves, our culture, our own natures, and our place in nature.”
– Howard “Zahnie” Zahniser
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Now we are going to examine the primary role played by US Presidents in defining the burgeoning US Environmental Movement of the 1960’s. Many conservationists feared that John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s (JFK) assassination would mark another sharp decline in environmental leadership at the federal level. But much to the relief of everyone invested in keeping the renewed vigor flowing, JFK’s successor—Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)—kept most of the balls rolling in the right directions.
President Lyndon Johnson (R) sitting on proch swing w. wife Claudia (Ladybird) on morning following his landslide election win.
The environmental highlight of LBJ’s administration came in May 1965 when the White House opened its doors to the first “Conference on Natural Beauty”. Through this meeting, Johnson kept the environmental movement in the forefront of public opinion by articulating that, “We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not but with nature alone, but with the total relation with man and the world around him.”
Not to be outdone was the “other LBJ” that was occupying the White House at this time. Lady Bird Johnson is still considered one of the most important women in history of the US Environmental Movement. The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was the result of Lady Bird’s national campaign for beautification of the newly constructed interstate highway system. In 1969, Mrs. Johnson became a member of the National Park Service’s Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments and served on the council for many years. She also founded the Texas Highway Beautification Awards and was a trustee of the American Conservation Association.
Lady Bird Johnson’s beliefs regarding the importance of national beautification can be summarized in her statement that “where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
On her 70th birthday in 1982, Mrs. Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center (NWRC)—a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants in natural and planned landscapes—located in Austin, Texas. In December 1997, the NWRC was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in honor of her 85th birthday. In 1999, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt presented Mrs. Johnson with the Native Plant Conservation Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award. At that time he said, “Mrs. Johnson has been a shadow Secretary of the Interior for much of her life.”
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Fortunately for the ever-burgeoning masses of environmentalists and conservationists in the United States, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) nominated Stewart L. Udall—another Past Environmental Hero—as Secretary of the Interior. With this ambitious Arizonan leading the way, it was suddenly “off to the races” for a host of conservation causes and the U.S. Environmental Movement. Early in his eight-year tenure as Interior Secretary, Udall initiated the first White House “Conference on Conservation” since the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Born January 31, 1920 in the small community of St. Johns, Arizona, Stewart Udall was raised in a family with strong ties to the Mormon Church. In fact, he served as a Mormon missionary in Pennsylvania and New York before receiving his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Arizona where he was also one of the school’s first sports stars—a point guard on the basketball team.
As Secretary of the Interior in both the Kennedy and Lydon Baines Johnson (LBJ) Administrations, Udall crafted federal land acquisitions like a master landscape painter working with broad-brush strokes. His brilliant artistry resulted in the acquisition of 3.85 million acres of new holdings, including four new national parks—Canyonlands in Utah, Redwoods in California, North Cascades in Washington State, and Guadalupe Mountains in Texas.
Stewart Udall’s brilliant artistry resulted in the acquisition of 3.85 million acres of new holdings, including four new national parks—Canyonlands in Utah, Redwoods in California, North Cascades in Washington State, and Guadalupe Mountains in Texas.
Udall’s delicately etched canvases also included six new national monuments, nine new national recreation areas, twenty new historic sites, and fifty-six new national wildlife refuges.
Of all the federal lands that Udall dealt with, establishing the Nation’s first national seashores proved to be the most difficult. Because of the typically high cost of and demand for coastal property, Udall faced vehement opposition based on the assumption that taking coastal property out of private hands would prove disastrous for the local economies.
Still he held fast to his goals, eventually establishing a host of national seashores—including Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina; Assateague Island, with its hundreds of wild horses, in Maryland and Virginia; Point Reyes in northern California; and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. And—lo and behold—instead of being financial money pits, each of these coastal recreational treasures became beacons for tourists and economic bonanzas for both state and municipal governments.
Udall also extended his political artisanship to the legislative side of the aisle. He helped secure passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, as well as the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (1965), the Water Quality Act (1965), the Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965), the Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), the National Historic Preservation Act (1966), and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968).
Throughout his career, Udall left a monumental legacy as a guardian of America’s natural beauty. In his best-selling 1963 book, The Quiet Crisis, he warned of the dangers of pollution and threats to America’s natural resources, calling for a nationwide “land conscience” to conserve our nation’s wild places. Udall’s stated goal in The Quiet Crisis was “to outline the land and people story of our continent.”Elaborating further, he wrote:“We cannot afford an America where expedience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye only on the present.”
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had this to say about Stewart Udall after his passing in 2010, “Mr. Udall was one of the greatest champions in our nation’s history for conservation. As Interior secretary he championed the burgeoning environmental movement, protected the treasures that are our parks, seashores and wildlife refuges, worked for energy independence, and ensured the arts remain a central part of civic life.”
Also in tribute, President Barack Obama said this about Udall’s federal service: “(As) Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall left an indelible mark on this nation and inspired countless Americans who will continue his fight for clean air, clean water, and to maintain our many natural treasures”.
“Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.”
– Stewart Udall
The Climate Change movement certainly craves public sector leaders like Stewart Udall. We need people in the seats of power who can see the “big picture” and understand how all the pieces—from key land purchases, to implementation of pollution controls, to development and allocation of new energy resources, and equitable distribution of wealth and power—must fit together to provide a roadmap for the future that is both realistic and achievable.
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books. Photo credits: Copyright Shutterstock(3)
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Nowhere was the new thrust of environmental thinking taking place in the 1960’s more prominent than with one person who—figuratively speaking—stood head and shoulders above all. Eschewing the limelight, Rachel Carson preferred instead to nestle down—always immaculately-coiffed—behind her microscope in her government lab while relying on her writings to tell the public about her keen insights into the natural world.
Rachel Carson’s multiple passions for researching and then documenting Earth’s natural resources were on display throughout her long career as a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
If asked to select the most heroic environmental feat of the 20th Century, it would be difficult not to vote for publication of Carson’s book, Silent Spring. Not only did this landmark publication initiate the eventual eradication of DDT—arguably the deadliest chemical ever used on the face of the Earth—it also saved many of our iconic birds of prey from extinction. Thanks to Silent Spring, bald and golden eagles, peregrine falcons, brown pelicans, and ospreys still fill our skies with their dramatic flights of wonder and derring-do.
Born in 1929 in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania, Rachel Carson inherited her lifelong love of nature from her mother. Her education included stints at Massachusetts’ famed Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (then Marine Biological Laboratory) and Baltimore, Maryland’s prestigious Johns Hopkins University where she earned her Master’s Degree in Zoology in 1932.
Most people don’t realize that Carson was actually quite famous as an author before Silent Spring came along. While employed as a scientist and editor with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, she wrote three books in her “spare time” that lauded the environmental treasures of our oceans, including her prize-winning and best-selling title, The Sea Around Us.
In Silent Spring, Carson’s revelations about the myriad horrors of synthetic pesticides—laced with DDT—literally scared money out of people’s pocketbooks and forced letters to Congress out of their pens. Prophetically summarizing what may very well be said about our contemporary society after 2050, Carson wrote that, “We have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concerns for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.”
As you might expect, the publication of Silent Spring was also met with a bitterly negative reaction from the corporate world. The resistance started with the small-time farmers and moved all the way up to the mega-giants—the Monsantos—of the agricultural world. This antagonistic pushback also went sideways to the corporate chemical conglomerates—the DuPonts and the Union Carbides—who were used to getting whatever they wanted wherever and whenever they wanted it.
In particular, the chemical companies threatened to sue Carson over her “inflammatory statements” in Silent Spring. They argued that her “outlandish opinions” were crippling American agriculture while also threatening human health. As a chemical-industry spokesman bluntly stated at the time, “If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the Earth.”
Carson’s most vehement critics even tried to push her to the far left of the political spectrum, arguing that she was consorting with unsavory parties who were trying to undermine American agriculture and free enterprise. While the word “Communist”—the most potent of insults in the decade following the scourge of McCarthyism—wasn’t used directly, it was certainly implied. Monsanto even published and distributed 5,000 copies of a brochure, entitled The Desolate Year, which parodied Silent Spring by describing a bleak world wracked by famine, disease, and uncontrolled hordes of insects which existed because chemical pesticides had been banned.
But nothing deterred Carson from the four years of her life she unerringly dedicated to writing her now world-famous book. She endured all of the witheringly negative personal attacks with dignity and professionalism, ensuring the American public that what she was saying deserved to be heard and heeded. In fact, she completed Silent Spring while she knew she was dying from then untreatable breast cancer. Now that’s the penultimate description of a hero—giving your life for a cause!
Eight years after her untimely death in 1964, Ms. Carson ultimately succeeded in her quest when—in 1972—the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally banned DDT nationwide while completely vindicating her writing in Silent Spring[i] of any negative impacts. Today, Silent Spring is credited with generating a groundswell of grassroots activism that eventually opened the door for the massive environmental movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Critical reaction to Silent Spring in 1962 also set the stage for the pitted battles between industry and environmentalism that have persisted over the next 50-plus years. No matter the subject (air pollution, water pollution, endangered species protection, etc.) industry always follows the same basic strategies: question the science, attack the scientists’ credibility, and warn of unbearable economic loss. In fact, from this battle over deadly pesticides to the carcinogenic effects of tobacco in the 1970’s to today’s feuding with the fossil fuel companies over Climate Change, the same “experts” have been brought forth to perpetuate their bloated rhetoric and denigrate the scientific findings.
While the battle plans aren’t always successful, there’s no denying that the US has become cleaner and healthier since the publication of Silent Spring. But as we all now know, the fight is far from over—as the current polarized debate over Climate Change solutions certainly demonstrates.
Our new Climate Change heroes would do well to use Rachel Carson as their role model for advancing their causes. She so believed in her goal of ridding the Earth of deadly pesticides that she persisted in her mission in the face of withering opposition and outright personal humiliation from a chemical/agricultural conglomerate that bullied everyone just to get what they wanted.
Indeed, the fervor and passion of Rachel Carson are certainly prerequisites for pushing through the significant political, cultural, and lifestyle changes that will be required for counteracting the ongoing Climate Change crisis. Using a persuasive piece of literature to turn the tide of public opinion is also an effective strategy for our Current Heroes to emulate.
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books. Photo credit: Copyright Shutterstock (3)
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
Gilbert Plass—Father of Modern Greenhouse Gas Theory
Several events significant to the history of Climate Change occurred in the 1950’s. First in 1955, climate researcher Gilbert Plass performed detailed computer analyses showing that doubling CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere would increase global temperatures by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
Hans Suess and Roger Revelle Support Plass
Next, a pair of scientists, chemist Hans Suess and oceanographer Roger Revelle, proved that seawater would not—as previously believed—absorb all the CO2 that enters our atmosphere. In fact—portending the peril we face today—Revelle wrote that, “Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.”
The Keeling Curves
Finally in 1958, Dr. Charles David Keeling began a project that continues to this day—The Keeling Curves. Using systematic measurements taken at Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica, Keeling provided the first unequivocal proof that CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere are rising. Keeling used the most modern technologies available to produce concentration curves for atmospheric CO2.
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books. Photo credit: Copyright Shutterstock (3)
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
What happens when you combine the athleticism of a world-class mountaineer, the charisma and good looks of a movie star, and the passionate leadership of a dedicated head of state? You get David Brower, another one of our Past Environmental Heroes, and a man who single-handedly founded more environmental conservation/activism groups—including Friends of the Earth, The League of Women Voters, and The Earth Island Institute—than any other person in US history. In addition to his prominence in the successful fight against the Echo Park Project and other U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BuRec) dams in the 1950’s, Brower became one of the most prominent figures in creating the US Environmental Movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Born in Berkeley, California on July 1, 1912, David Ross Brower first visited the High Sierras and Yosemite National Park when he was only six years old. Attracted to the US Environmental Movement through his passion for mountaineering, Brower made first ascents of more than 70 peaks in the western US. During World War II, he also served in the legendary 10th Mountain Division in which he led daring assaults involving hazardous rock climbing to overcome enemy positions. Not surprisingly, his amazing array of outdoor skills eventually led him to the Sierra Club where he proudly served as the first Executive Director (ED) from 1952 to 1969.
It was in this position that Brower achieved national fame—leading the opposition to several Bureau of Reclamation Dam proposals in Dinosaur National Monument (now Park) and the Grand Canyon. His advocacy also led to the establishment of nine national parks and seashores—including Kings Canyon National Park, Redwoods National Park, and Point Reyes National Seashore. Under his direction, the Sierra Club began publishing their now famous large-format “coffee table books” that combined mind-blowing outdoor photography with poignant and powerful conservation messages.
Brower was also one of the first environmental activists to feature full-page advertisements in prominent newspapers as a way of shifting public opinion and building grassroots support for his causes. Owing to his tireless drive and passion, the Sierra Club’s membership boomed—from 2,000 members (mostly in California) to 77,000 across the United States—during his 17 years as Executive Director.
Writing in Publishers Weekly, environmentalist and author Paul Hawken commented about Brower, “No single person created more ways and means for people to become active and effective with respect to the environment than David Brower.”Russell Train, Head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford continued with the plaudits, “Thank God for Dave Brower; he makes it so easy for the rest of us to look reasonable.”
Brower’s passion for the Earth and its inhabitants earned him international respect. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1978 and 1979, and then in 1998—jointly with professor Paul Ehrlich). In 1998, Brower received the Blue Planet Prize for his lifetime achievements. His successful advocacy for many environmental causes led acclaimed author, John McPhee, to publish a series of articles and then a best-selling book entitled Encounters with the Archdruid. Brower liked the term “archdruid” so much that he used it in his e-mail address until his death in 2000.
“I believe that the average guy in the street will give up a great deal, if he really understands the cost of not giving it up. In fact, we may find that, while we’re drastically cutting our energy consumption, we’re actually raising our standard of living.”
David Brower, The Archdruid
“Polite conservationists leave no mark save the scars upon the Earth that could have been prevented had they stood their ground.”
– David Brower, The Archdruid
If he were still alive today, David Brower would certainly be in the forefront of the Climate Change battles. He never gave up on finding innovative ways of getting his environmental messages across to non-believers and naysayers. He was the most forceful —and also most controversial—conservation activist in the history of the US Environmental Movement. His brazen willingness to take and then defend positions that he believed in—even when they meant getting fired as Executive Director of the Sierra Club—represent exactly the type of person we need to assume the leadership role in solving the Climate Change crisis. Brower’s skills for organizing activist groups and then devising methods for rallying public support need to be carefully studied and then applied to our cause.
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books. Photo credit: Copyright Shutterstock (2)
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
The late 1940’s were also significant in the life of another of our Past Environmental Heroes—this time a feisty little woman with the heart of a lion and the tenacity of a wolverine. She always looked more like a wealthy socialite—in her characteristic Panama hat and horn-rimmed glasses—than an outdoor lover. But—as the old saying goes—“looks can be deceiving” and such was certainly the case for Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Always looking more like a wealthy socialite—in her characteristic Panama hat and horn-rimmed glasses—than an outdoor lover, Marjory Stoneman Douglas had the heart of a lion and the tenacity of a wolverine.
Douglas worked diligently to gradually turn a lifelong passion for doing the right thing into her own personal environmental justice movement that culminated in preserving one of the most unique ecological areas on the face of the earth. In 1947, ending more than 30 years of pugnacious battling with politicians, land developers, and—perhaps most notably—the US Army Corps of Engineers (US ACOE)—she published her book, Everglades – The River of Grass.
In her landmark work—which has been favorably compared to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac—Douglas lovingly described the unfathomable beauty and untold treasures encompassed by Florida’s Everglades. And she did so at a time when most Americans—especially those who had recently moved to South Florida—considered wetlands to be just worthless square miles of mosquito and snake-infested wastelands. Not only did The River of Grass spark a movement to protect the Everglades from uncontrolled filling, land development, and wanton destruction but it also opened the eyes of the rest of the country to see and appreciate the many critical functions—including flood control, water quality protection, aquifer recharge, and wildlife habitat—provided by wetlands.
Ironically, Douglas was born in 1890 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts, two places and environments that were about as far removed as possible from the South Florida landscape she grew to love and cherish. During her undergraduate years at Massachusetts’ Wellesley College, Douglas earned Straight A’s and was voted “Class Orator”—a prophetic title—as wealthy landowners and their corrupt politicians throughout South Florida were about to learn.
In 1915, Douglas moved to South Florida and began working as a columnist for her father’s newspaper—the precursor to the Miami Herald. Combining skillful writing with a firebrand personality, she quickly gained local notoriety by getting hotly embroiled in the battles over racial inequality, feminism, and resource conservation—long before these issues became the focus of the national spotlight.
The State of Florida’s wacky land development provided the perfect grist for Douglas during her early years as a columnist/poet for the Miami Herald. As an Assistant Editor, she regularly wrote editorials urging protection of Florida’s unique regional character in the face of rapid commercial development. After leaving the Herald, Douglas continued to write short stories, 40 of which were published in the Saturday Evening Post, with many winning O. Henry and other awards.
As an aside here, if you’re interested in learning about the worst possible way to conduct land development, research the settlement history of south Florida, starting around 1900. The monumental comedy of errors—including “improving” (i.e., straightening) hundreds of miles of cool meandering streams and diking the sheet flow out of massive Lake Okeechobee costing thousands of lives—is simply beyond belief.
The litany of egregious environmental impacts continued through Walt Disney’s filling of hundreds of acres of pristine wetlands in the 1960’s. Many people will tell you that Disneyworld is the worst thing that ever happened to Central Florida. Even today, environmental atrocities are still rampant in South Florida. As Carl Hiaasen, best-selling novelist and columnist for the Miami Herald says, “The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It’s hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.”
Now back to the head-turning exploits of Ms. Douglas. Her diminutive size belied her zeal for standing up to the power interests in South Florida. In his introduction to her autobiography Voice of the River (1987), freelance writer John Rothchild describes Douglas’ appearance in 1973 at a public meeting in Everglades City: “Mrs. Douglas was half the size of her fellow speakers and she wore huge dark glasses, which along with the huge floppy hat made her look like Scarlet O’Hara as played by Igor Stravinsky. When she spoke, everybody stopped slapping [mosquitoes] and more or less came to order. … Her voice had the sobering effect of a one-room schoolmarm’s. The tone itself seemed to tame the rowdiest of the local stone crabbers, plus the developers, and the lawyers on both sides. I wonder if it didn’t also intimidate the mosquitoes. . . . The request for a Corps of Engineers permit was eventually turned down. This was no surprise to those of us who’d heard her speak.”
When it came to the Everglades, Douglas took on all comers, including greedy land developers who wanted to drain and fill the “worthless swamp” to political hacks and power brokers who would bend over backwards to “make things work out” for a little extra money under the table. For her tireless efforts to block land development in the Everglades and maintain its vital sheet flow water source emanating from Lake Okeechobee, Douglas endured pervasive hostility from both the powerful agricultural and business communities in South Florida. But, in the process, she also earned a great deal of respect as verified by her well-deserved nickname of “The Grande Dame of the Everglades”.
Douglas’ relentless campaigning for South Florida finally paid off big time both in 1947 with the establishment of Everglades National Park and again 22 years later, in 1969, with the founding of the conservation organization Friends of the Everglades. Her tireless efforts as a conservationist earned her numerous awards. In 1986, the National Parks and Conservation Association established the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award “to honor individuals who often must go to great lengths to advocate and fight for the protection of the National Park System.” Then, in 1993, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—America’s highest civilian honor.
Living to the remarkable age of 108, Douglas passed away in 1998 in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. Even near the end of her life, she was still advocating for the ongoing federal and state efforts to restore the cookie panhydrologic sheet flow out of Lake Okeechobee that was historically the lifeblood of the Everglades. Upon her death, an obituary in The Independent—a British national morning newspaper stated, “In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas.” Per her request, Douglas was cremated and her ashes were scattered across Everglades National Park—her beloved “river of grass”.
“There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth—remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them.”
– Marjory Stoneman Douglas
No one in the history of the US Environmental Movement has ever been more dedicated to a singular conservation issue than Marjory Stoneman Douglas. She took on all the major power brokers that South Florida could throw at her during a time when support for natural resource conservation was minimal. Remarkably she won her war when the Everglades National Park was established just one month after her landmark book, The River of Grass, was published. Douglas’ emboldened fight to stand up for what she believed—even in the face of withering resistance and intimidating opposition—is the exactly the type of feistiness and resilience that is required to successfully take on Big Oil and win the Climate Change battle.
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books. Photo credit: Copyright Shutterstock.
Author’s bio: For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
CONSERVING NATURE WITH WORDS & PHOTOS 