David Brower | |
|---|---|
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| Born | David Ross Brower  1 July 1912 Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Died | 5 November 2000 (aged 88) Berkeley, California |
| Occupation | Conservationist,mountaineer |
| Known for | Presidency of theSierra Club Foundation, FoundingFriends of the Earth,Earth Island Institute |
| Spouse(s) | Anne Hus Brower |
| Children | Kenneth Brower, Robert Brower, Barbara Brower, John Brower |
| Awards |
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| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service |  United States Army |
| Rank |
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| Unit | |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
| Awards | Bronze Star Medal |
| Other work | Conservationist |
David Ross Brower (/ˈbraʊ.ər/BROW-ər; July 1, 1912 – November 5, 2000) was a prominentenvironmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including theJohn Muir Institute for Environmental Studies (1997),Friends of the Earth (1969),Earth Island Institute (1982), North Cascades Conservation Council, and Fate of the Earth Conferences. From 1952 to 1969, he served as the firstExecutive Director of theSierra Club, and served on its board three times: from 1941–1953; 1983–1988; and 1995–2000 as a petition candidate enlisted by reform-activists known as the John Muir Sierrans. As a younger man, he was a prominentmountaineer.
Brower was born inBerkeley, California. He was married toAnne Hus Brower (1913–2001) whom he met when they were both editors at theUniversity of California Press in Berkeley.[1] Anne was the daughter of Francis L M. Hus and Frances Hus (1876–1952), while Frances was the daughter ofJohn P. Irish.
Kenneth Brower, David Brower's son, has authored a number of books, most notablyThe Starship and the Canoe aboutFreeman Dyson and his sonGeorge Dyson.
Beginning his career as a world-class mountaineer with more than 70 first ascents to his credit, Brower came to the environmental movement through his interest inmountaineering. In 1933, Brower spent seven weeks in theHigh Sierra with George Rockwood. After a close call with a loose rock while climbing in the Palisades, he metNorman Clyde in the wilderness, who gave him some valuable climbing lessons. On that trip he also met Hervey Voge, who persuaded him to join theSierra Club. On May 18, 1934, along with Voge, he began a ten-week climbing trip through the High Sierra, to survey climbing routes and maintain mountaineering records for the club. Previously, they had established several food caches along their planned route, which began at Onion Valley and ended atTuolumne Meadows. In all, the pair climbed 63 peaks on this trip, including 32first ascents. On the first day, they climbedMount Tyndall,Mount Williamson, andMount Barnard. From June 23 to 26, the pair made eight first ascents in theDevils Crags along with Norman Clyde, and also climbedMount Agassiz. Clyde called the Devils Crag climbs "one of the most remarkable mountaineering feats ever accomplished in the United States". In the Palisades range, the pair climbedThunderbolt Peak, traversed toNorth Palisade by way of Starlight Peak, and descended the U-Notch Couloir. In the Sawtooth Range, they climbed The Doodad, the West Tooth, andMatterhorn Peak.[2][3]
Following a failed attempt in 1935 to make the first ascent of the remote, icyMount Waddington inBritish Columbia, with a Sierra Club group, Brower added winter climbing to his expertise and made multiple first winter ascents of peaks in theSierra Nevada.[4]
From October 9 to 12, 1939, a Sierra Club climbing team including Brower, along withBestor Robinson, Raffi Bedayn, and John Dyer, completed the first ascent ofShiprock, the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano with nearly vertical walls on theNavajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico. This climb, ratedYDS III, 5.7 A2, was the first in the United States to use expansion bolts for protection.[5]
Twelve previous attempts on Shiprock had failed, and it was known as "the last great American climbing problem". The Brower party's success was described as an "outstanding effort" by "probably the only group on the continent capable of making the climb".[6]
Brower made the first ascent of seventy routes inYosemite and elsewhere in the westernUnited States.
In 1942, Brower edited and contributed to theManual of Ski Mountaineering, published by theUniversity of California Press andCambridge University Press for use in training Allied mountain combat troops duringWorld War II. Techniques described in this book were used by U.S. forces in the battles in theNorth Apeninnes and the Lake Garda Alps. The book was published in three later revised editions.[7]
During World War II, he served as a lieutenant in the10th Mountain Division, training its soldiers in mountaineering andcross-country skiing in Vermont and the state of Washington and earning aBronze Star in action inItaly.[4] Brower's role in the 10th Mountain Division is featured in the documentary filmFire on the Mountain. He served as a major in the Army Reserve for many years after the war ended.[8]
After the war, Brower returned to his job at the University of California Press, and began editing theSierra Club Bulletin in 1946. He managed the Sierra Club annualHigh Trips from 1947 to 1954.[9] Brower was named the first executive director of the Sierra Club in 1952, and joined the fight against theEcho Park Dam in Utah'sDinosaur National Monument. Taking advantage of his background in publishing, Brower rushedThis is Dinosaur – edited byWallace Stegner with photographs byMartin Litton andPhilip Hyde – into press with publisher Alfred Knopf. Conservationists successfully lobbied Congress to delete Echo Park Dam from theColorado River Storage Project in 1955, and the Sierra Club received much of the credit.
Brower beganSierra Club Books' Exhibit Format book series withThis is the American Earth in 1960, followed by the highly successfulIn Wildness Is the Preservation of the World, with color photographs byEliot Porter in 1962. These coffee-table books sold well and introduced the Sierra Club to new members interested in wilderness preservation. Brower published two new titles a year in the series, but they began to lose money for the organization after 1964, though many claim they were the primary cause of the Club's extraordinary growth and rise to national prominence. Financial management began to be a bone of contention between Brower and the Club's board of directors.[10]
Under Brower's leadership from 1952 to 1969, the club's membership expanded tenfold, from 7,000 to 70,000 members, becoming the nation’s leading environmental membership organization. Building on the biennial Wilderness Conferences which the Club launched in 1949 together withThe Wilderness Society, Brower helped the Club win passage of theWilderness Act in 1964. Brower and the Sierra Club also led a major battle to stop theBureau of Reclamation from building two dams that would flood portions of theGrand Canyon. In 1964, Brower organized a dory river expedition led byMartin Litton withPhilip Hyde and author Francois Leydet. The trip led to the bookTime and The River Flowing which galvanized public opposition to the dams. In June 1966, the Club placed full-page ads in theNew York Times and theWashington Post asking: "Should we also flood theSistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?" The campaign brought in many new members. TheInternal Revenue Service announced it was suspending the Club's non-profit501(c)(3) charitable organization status. The board had set up theSierra Club Foundation as an alternative for tax-deductible contributions, but revenues to the Club dropped, despite victories in blocking the Grand Canyon dams and a considerable increase in membership.[11]
As annual deficits increased, tension grew between Brower and the Sierra Club board of directors. Another conflict grew over the Club's position on theDiablo Canyon Power Plant planned for construction byPacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) nearSan Luis Obispo, California. The Club had played a major role in blocking PG&E's plan for a nuclear power plant atBodega Bay in the early 1960s, but that campaign had centered on the earthquake danger from the nearbySan Andreas Fault, not out of opposition to nuclear power itself. The Club's board of directors had voted to support the Diablo Canyon site for the power plant in exchange for PG&E's moving its initial site from the environmentally sensitiveNipomo Dunes. In 1967, a membership referendum upheld the board's policy. Brower had come to believe that nuclear power was a dangerous mistake at any location, and he publicly voiced his opposition to Diablo Canyon, in defiance of the Club's official policy.
Sierra Club board elections in the late 1960s produced sharply defined pro- and anti-Brower factions. In 1968, Brower's supporters won a majority, but in 1969, anti-Brower candidates won all five open positions. Brower was charged with financial recklessness and insubordination by two of his former close friends, photographerAnsel Adams and board president Richard Leonard. Brower's resignation was accepted by a board vote of ten to five.[12]
Eventually reconciled with the Sierra Club, Brower was elected to the board of directors for a term from 1983 to 1988, and again from 1995 to 2000. Brower was deeply concerned about issues ofoverpopulation andimmigration – one of many issues that led to his resignation in protest from the board of directors in 2000.[13] "Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us," he said, "and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed."[13] His favorite example of how immigration should be addressed was the work of his cousinBoone Hallberg, a botanist who immigrated to Oaxaca to build a more sustainable agricultural economy in the area that so many of the workers on his family's California farm had been forced to leave.[citation needed]
Brower foundedFriends of the Earth (FOE) in 1969, soon after resigning as executive director of the Sierra Club. The move came during a burst of public environmental concern generated by the firstEarth Day in April 1970.[clarification needed] FOE also benefited from the publicity generated by a series of articles inThe New Yorker byJohn McPhee, later published asEncounters with the Archdruid, which recounted Brower's confrontations with a geologist and mining engineer, a resort developer, andFloyd Dominy, the director of theBureau of Reclamation. Brower so enjoyed being called the Archdruid that he later used the term in hise-mail address.
FOE set up its headquarters in San Francisco, and opened an office in Washington, D.C. Brower soon spun off two new organizations from the FOE Washington staff: theLeague of Conservation Voters in 1970, founded byMarion Edey,[14] and theEnvironmental Policy Center in 1971. Brower's international contacts led to the founding of FOE International in 1971, a loose federation of sister organizations in some forty-four countries. Brower also started a publications program at FOE, which had initial success withThe Environmental Handbook in the wake of Earth Day, but then began to lose money.
Although Brower's background was in the wilderness preservation wing of the conservation movement, he quickly led FOE to take on many of the issues raised by the new environmentalists. FOE campaigned against theAlaska pipeline, thesupersonic transport airplane (SST), nuclear power, and the use of the defoliantAgent Orange in the Vietnam War. After Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, FOE led the opposition to Interior secretaryJames G. Watt's efforts to sell and lease public lands in the West and develop land adjacent to the National Parks.
Brower retired as executive director of FOE on its tenth anniversary in 1979, but continued as chairman of its board of directors. FOE's growing debt and tension between Washington lobbying and grassroots action led to a crisis between Brower and a majority of the board that recalled his conflict with the Sierra Club board. Facing staff cuts in 1984, Brower appealed over the board directly to the membership for emergency contributions. He was removed from the board for insubordination, but was reinstated when he threatened a lawsuit. In 1985 the board voted to close the San Francisco office and move to Washington, D.C.. A referendum of the membership supported the board majority, and Brower resigned in 1986 to work through hisEarth Island Institute.[15]
Brower incorporatedEarth Island Institute in 1982. After FOE moved its headquarters toWashington, D.C., in 1986, Brower developed Earth Island as a loosely structured incubator for innovative projects in ecology and social justice. Although he chaired the board of directors, Brower stayed in the background as co-directors David Philips and John Knox ran the organization. Projects were required to bring in their own funding, and often went their own way once well-established. Groups formed under Earth Island's umbrella include theRainforest Action Network, the Environmental Project on Central America (EPOCA), and many others. Freed from administrative worries and budget controversies, Brower was able to continue to travel, speak and work on many of his long-standing concerns. In addition to his returning to the Sierra Club board for two separate terms, he also served on the Board of Directors forNative Forest Council from 1988 until his death in 2000. A supporter ofRalph Nader, Brower flew to Denver in June 2000 for the Green Party convention. The day before he died, Brower cast his absentee ballot for Nader.[16] He died at his home in Berkeley, California, on November 5, 2000.[17]
A monument,Spaceship Earth, was erected in his honor atKennesaw State University. The monument is meant to serve as a reminder to future generations about the precious nature of the planet.[18]