David Brower, one of the most influential figures in
American environmentalism, died in his longtime Berkeley home Sunday of
complications from cancer. He was 88.
Contentious, controversial, bold and
stubborn, Brower transformed the Sierra Club from a band of mountaineering
enthusiasts in the 1950s into a political force.
Along the way he led a campaign to
keep out of the Grand Canyon, asking in newspaper advertisements, "Should we
also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourist can get nearer the ceiling?"
He helped popularize the photography
of Ansel Adams, which he knew would build support for saving beautiful
places, and was instrumental in the formation of nine national parks and
seashores. Brower helped lobby for the Wilderness Act of 1964 and created or
helped create several national environmental organizations.
He was once fired by the Sierra Club
and acrimoniously resigned twice from its board of directors. In his final
split with the club in May, Brower complained, "The world is burning and all
I hear from them is the music of violins."
Three times, he was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
"It's definitely the end of an era,"
said Seth Adams, land conservation director for Save Mount Diablo.
"He created the professional
environmental movement," said Adams, who moved to the East Bay in his early
20s in large part to intern at on of Brower's organizations. "He planted the
seedlings and inspired do many people in so many different directions."
Even in his final weeks, Brower
continued to push for new environmental causes and was busy following up on
old ones. This summer, he blasted management at Yosemite National Park and
in recent weeks he criticized plans for a new Bay Bridge span.
"He had the most dynamic and creative
ideas of anybody that I know. He could sell an idea faster than anybody,"
said Jean Sirl, a board member of the East Bay Regional Park District whose
husband was president of the Sierra Club when the group fired Brower in
1969.
"He saved the Grand Canyon. He saved
the Cascades. He saved the Redwoods," she said. "He saved everything."
Born the son of a University of
California professor in 1912, Brower was awkward and shy as a youth and
sought solace in the mountains. He grew intimately familiar with the Sierra
Nevada and later in life impressed others with his ability to find his way
around the vast mountain chain.
He grew into an accomplished mountain
climber who was the first to scale several impressive peaks, including the
daunting Shiprock in New Mexico.
That love of the outdoors translated
into enthusiasm for preservation. And it was dams that he hated most.
Learning from John Muir's failure to
save Hetch Hetchy from San Francisco, Brower saw Los Angeles' quest for
water in the 1930s as a threat to the Kings River in mountainous redwood
country.
He filmed the beauty of Kings Canyon
to show to residents in Fresno, where he hoped to drum up support for the
establishment of a national park.
The strategy worked, and Brower became
a champion of using cameras to bring his deep love of nature into people's
homes, through coffee-table books, full-page newspaper advertisements and
other media.
In the late 1950s, he led the fight
against a dam that would have flooded Dinosaur Monument in Northern Utah.
Brower and the Sierra Club won that fight, but in victory he would also
taste a bitter defeat.
To save Dinosaur, Brower agreed to not
oppose Gen Canyon Dam, which today backs up Lake Powell.
He later expressed his regrets with a
Sierra Club book commemorating the drowned canyon called, "The Place No One
Knows."
Brower would later lead the Sierra
Club in the epic 1960s fight over whether dams should be built in the Grand
Canyon. The environmentalists marshaled statistics to make their point that
the dam would not save any water and took their case to the public.
When federal water mangers argued that
the lake would allow boaters to see the canyon's walls better, Brower
responded with the full-page advertisement invoking the image of flooding
the Sistine Chapel.
Plans for Grand Canyon dams were
pulled in 1967. It was a show of new environmental muscle.
As a result of that victory, however,
the Sierra Club lost tax-exempt status for attempting to influence
legislation.
Two years later, Brower, who had
pretty much done what he wanted without sumitting to the club's board of
directors, was fired.
During his tenure, the Sierra Club's
membership grew from 2,000 to 77,000. Today, membership stands at 600,000.
Brower was hardly silenced by being
fired, though.
Within months, he had founded Friends
of the Earth and was on his way to helping with the formation of the League
of Conservation Voters.
He formed the Earth Island Institute
in 1982.
Although his health had been failing
for years, Brower remained at the forefront of environmental issues until he
death.
Transportation, world trade, Yosemite,
population, air pollution and an effort to dismantle the Glen Dam were all
issues he was puching forward when he died.
Brower is survived by his wife Anne;
four children, Kenneth, Robert, Barbara and John; and three grandchildren.
__________
Taugher, Mike. "Brower
Battled to the End For the Environment." The Berkeley
Voice. 2000. pp. 1 & 12.
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