{"id":116542,"date":"2016-09-06T09:55:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T13:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=116542"},"modified":"2023-06-27T12:19:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T16:19:41","slug":"man-built-environmentalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/09\/man-built-environmentalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Built Environmentalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a>David Brower later recalled his pulse pounding as he stood before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation in January 1954. The first Executive Director of the Sierra Club was about to testify against the Bureau of Reclamation\u2019s plan to erect a dam in Colorado\u2019s Dinosaur National Monument.<\/p>\n

The previous summer, Brower had rafted with his sons more than 50 miles of the Yampa River through the park, past its green sloping pastures and ending at its Steamboat Rock monolith. Today, he would do more than praise the reserve\u2019s majestic canyon walls. He wanted to make a bigger impression.<\/p>\n

Using a chalkboard and what he called \u201cninth-grade math,\u201d Brower showed a discrepancy in calculated evaporation rates for proposed dams in Dinosaur and in Utah\u2019s Glen Canyon. The error made a Glen Canyon dam more attractive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy point is to demonstrate to the committee that they would be making a great mistake to rely upon figures presented by the Bureau of Reclamation when they cannot add, subtract, multiply, or divide,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

The Committee took notice, the Bureau was ruffled, and later a Bureau commissioner admitted the error. It was the first major victory against the onslaught of federal dam projects of the \u201950s, and environmentalists were elated.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Brower agreed to a compromise: a larger dam in Glen Canyon, but no dam in Dinosaur. He would later call that concession \u201cthe greatest sin I ever committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Associate<\/a>
Associate professor of journalism Robert Wyss, author of a new biography of David Brower, founder of the Sierra Club. (Bri Diaz\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his book, The Man Who Built the Sierra Club: A Life of David Brower<\/a><\/em> (Columbia University Press 2016),associate professor Bob Wyss of the journalism department offers a new biography of the man who, over 15 years, transformed the Sierra Club beyond its origins in the peaks of California into a national force for the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Brower] was an angry trailblazer, responsible more than any other for turning environmentalism from hiking and bird-watching into a social and political force,\u201d Wyss writes in the book.<\/p>\n

Rise and fall<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wyss paints Brower as a fearless young man, a mountain climber specializing in the Sierra Nevada\u2019s dangerous peaks who served in the U.S. Army\u2019s 10th Mountain Division in World War II. He didn\u2019t attend college, but \u201clucked into\u201d a job as an editor at the University of California Press.<\/p>\n

Smart and quick-witted, Brower had a way with words, and after several years on the Sierra Club\u2019s Executive Board, the organization hired him as their first full-time director in 1953.<\/p>\n

His first major battle, the Dinosaur Monument dam, would go down as a great environmental success story. But the ensuing Glen Canyon dam agreement of 1956 convinced Brower that compromise was folly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s puzzling why Brower didn\u2019t know how spectacular the place was,\u201d says Wyss. \u201cBut he hadn\u2019t been there. He didn\u2019t go there until after the compromise. Then he realized it was a huge mistake.\u201d He fought the dam until 1963, and ultimately lost.<\/p>\n

But Brower had many other successes. With friend and Club Board member Ansel Adams, he cooked up the Exhibit Format Series, a set of glossy, glamorous coffee table books depicting great wonders of nature. They cost an outrageous amount of money to produce: the books sold for around $25 in the 1960s \u2013 the equivalent of about $200 today. The first featured huge, striking Adams photography, and produced so much revenue that the Sierra Club expanded its budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrower\u2019s goal was that people would see the books and be so mesmerized that they would join the Club,\u201d Wyss says. \u201cHe was probably correct.\u201d In 1952, before he took over the club, it had about 7,000 members; in 1969, when he was dismissed, it had about 70,000.<\/p>\n

He also purchased full-page advertisements in prominent newspapers to further the Club\u2019s causes. The most famous, a 1966 ad in the New York Times<\/em> and other major publications, railed against the proposed flooding of part of the Grand Canyon, blaring: \u201cShould we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?\u201d The ads prompted the IRS to suspend the organization\u2019s tax-exempt status, causing a stir that Brower relished.<\/p>\n

By the late 1960s, Brower had successfully lobbied Congress to pass a wilderness protection bill, stopped two dam projects in the Grand Canyon, and made the Sierra Club the most influential environmental organization in the country.<\/p>\n

But his recklessness was catching up with him, and the Sierra Club board grew worried about his financial management. He struggled with book contracts and a desire to open a London office.<\/p>\n

When the Board tried to fire him, he was furious, and assembled a slate to effectively take over the board. He lost in a landslide in April 1969. His most vocal opponent was Adams.<\/p>\n

This timing could hardly have been worse, says Wyss. 1970 saw the first Earth Day celebration and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the ensuing years brought the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Brower could have contained himself a little, he could have been at the head of the most powerful environmental organization at that time, at the height of the movement,\u201d says Wyss. \u201cWho knows what he could have accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the man<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wyss speculates that Brower\u2019s outward hubris was influenced by his secretive personal life. Though no journalists had reported it before, many of Wyss\u2019s sources told him that Brower had repeated extramarital affairs with men, and even was fired from a later job for propositioning a man.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, he also fielded accusations of elitism. Brower wanted to preserve natural treasures for their own sake, not for humans to enjoy. When the National Park Service celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1966, he opposed the public campaign. The parks pandered to tourists, he said \u2013 at the time, park rangers were notorious for feeding the bears for visitors\u2019 amusement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrower said, \u2018This isn\u2019t a carnival,\u2019\u201d says Wyss. \u201c\u2018It\u2019s a preserve, a place where you should be reverent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Many modern parks would have infuriated Brower, says Wyss, because of the detrimental effects of tourists on the landscape. The National Parks\u2019 mission to make nature accessible to the greatest number of people, Brower said, was incompatible with a conservation agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could walk into to these parks, fine, but if you couldn\u2019t, Brower couldn\u2019t care less,\u201d says Wyss.<\/p>\n

This year, as the National Park Service celebrates its 100th anniversary, public versus private use of federal land is still a contentious issue. A standoff between law enforcement and landowners at Oregon\u2019s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge turned deadly in February. But there are more than 100 million acres of wilderness preserve in the U.S. today, which Wyss credits to Brower\u2019s founding efforts.<\/p>\n

After leaving the Sierra Club, Brower went on to found the environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Earth. Fifteen years later, he was fired from that role.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis willingness to make a bold statement or a bold plan was also his greatest weakness,\u201d says Wyss.<\/p>\n

Today, Wyss says the environment is in greater danger than ever because of climate change. And despite his flaws, Wyss says, maybe we could use a zealot like Brower today: \u201cHe foresaw a lot of the consequences of man on the environment as early as the 60s and 70s. He was truly ahead of his time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A journalism professor\u2019s new biography explores the reckless life of the Sierra Club\u2019s most influential leader, a father of the environmental movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":116559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2317,2387,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1860],"class_list":["post-116542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-journalism","category-sustainability","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 23:48:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116542"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116562,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116542\/revisions\/116562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/116559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116542"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=116542"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=116542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}