D A V I D B R O W E R: MONUMENTAL
1912 - 2000
By: ANDREW CHRISTIE
Like most people who live in the public eye, David Brower was required to compose a "bio" -- an
official summary of self, suitable for excerpting by editors or for reproduction on the backs of book
jackets. His went, in part, like this:
"Joined the Sierra Club in 1933, was a world-class climber when it took little class (first ascent of
Shiprock, New Mexico, his best) and helped add ten units to the National Park System, keep dams out
of Dinosaur National Monument, the Grand Canyon, and the Yukon, lobbied to establish the National
Wilderness Preservation System, invented the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review, published or
edited a hundred environmental books, started the Sierra Club Foundation, Friends of the Earth
International (now in 58 countries), the League of Conservation Voters, Earth Island Limited (UK),
Earth Island Institute (U.S.), Earth Island Action Group, the North Cascades Conservation Council, the
Fate of the Earth Conference (in four countries), starting the Global CPR Service (Conservation,
Preservation, Restoration), and the Ecological Council of the Americas -- once a sophomore dropout
from U.C. Berkeley, twice a visiting professor at Stanford, once at Case Western (where he wrote a page
in the NYT Sunday Magazine about how to manage the Earth, and Reader's Digest liked it), ten
honorary degrees, on Advisory Board of the Yosemite Concession Service, on the "Dream Team"
Interface Corporation, three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize -- shiftless procrastinator and
master of creative sloth, enjoying the delights of retirement by getting nothing done, talks endlessly,
writes the same way."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I first heard David Brower speak at a Patagonia environmental seminar series about ten years ago, but
didn't really meet him until August 1999. The Maxxam Corporation had taken over Kaiser Aluminum
and the Pacific Lumber Company, much to the regret of both. Over two days that August, at the
Oakland Marriott,, Brower chaired a meeting of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment,
which had come together earlier that year when two groups -- Kaiser's striking steel workers and
environmentalists fighting to save the Headwaters Forest from Maxxam's ruthless clear cutting --
realized they should make common cause. Three months later in the streets of Seattle, that realization
became, "Teamsters & Turtles," allied against the destructive policies of the World Trade Organization
and making history in images that were beamed around the world. On those thronged streets, in rain,
pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets, I saw David Brower for the last time. The 87-year-old
environmentalist had come there with 50,000 purple-Mohawked 18 year-olds, midwestern sheet-metal
workers, people of faith, and Asian, European, African and North & South American farmers and labor
leaders, all standing together in the conviction that a better world is possible.
When he died less than a year later, I wrote a brief remembrance of him. It went like this:
David Brower, the greatest American environmental champion since John Muir, died on November 5,
2000. In the outpouring of eulogies and encomiums occasioned by his passing, one note of irony was
always certain to be sounded (and equally certain to have vastly amused Mr. Brower): Namely the fact
that those in the environmental movement whom he irritated and enraged the most, and who devoted a
great deal of their time to vigorously opposing him, are those who are now praising him the loudest.
The undertone of relief is unmistakable : Now that he's gone, it's safe.
Throughout his life, Mr. Brower struggled against two breeds of Homo sapiens: Those who do the
actual environmental raping and pillaging, and those "boardroom environmentalists" who aid and abet
them by tailoring the tone of their voices, and the magnitude of their actions in defense of the natural
world, to fit the prevailing political winds.
Those who profess environmental concern but render the protection of the Earth's wildlife and
vanishing habitat subordinate to organizational harmony, or "progress", were Mr. Brower's natural
enemies. He never had the time or patience for their favored activities -- the building of bureaucracies,
the cutting of deals, the choosing of lesser evils. Mr. Brower was an agitator and a stinging gadfly. His
drive was relentless. He insisted on the urgency of the peril and the need for action as the first, last,
and only concern. At the board meetings of the organizations he founded or led -- organizations from
which he invariably was ousted, sometimes more than once -- it was clear that he was, well into his
eighties, truly the youngest person in the room.
He saw his battles through. He pressed the issue. He kept at the destroyers until the destroyers
relented. He was unafraid to cause strife and dissent, and grasped the fact that it is usually the ability
and willingness to do so which brings about the temporary victories in our battles to gain real
protections for the wild earth, and an unwillingness to do so or a longing for compromise at any cost
that brings about the permanent defeats.
David Brower was the embodiment of the concept of the Power of One to make a difference.
* * * * * * * * *
Published, February, 2005. in the Santa Lucian, the official newsletter of the Santa Lucia Chapter of
the Sierra Club, San Luis Obispo County, California. Writer Andrew Christie is Editor and Chapter
Coordinator. (santa.lucia.chapter@sierraclub.org)
Return to top of page
THE ENVIRONMENTAL RELIEF CENTER
Post Office Box 1084
Studio City, CA 91604
envirorelief@prodigy.net
Wildflowers of the Pribilof Islands
