Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run
Let the Mountains Talk, Let the
Rivers Run: A Call to Those Who Would Save the Earth by David Brower (1995).
(Book 10 for 2017)
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: New Society Publishers; 2nd edition (April 1, 2000)
ISBN-10: 0865714118
Amazon:
This is the testament of one of the few authentic sages of our time. Brower's voice is passionate, perfectly cadenced, humorous, and very wise. And original: while most writers point to where we are, this one draws the map.?Edward O. Wilson, author, The Diversity of Life and Naturalist
Credited with galvanizing an entire generation of environmentalists in the 60's, David Brower, the highly respected "archdruid" of the modern environmental movement, recalls with wit and wisdom his 50 years of controversial activism and offers an inspired strategy for the next generation of "those who would save the Earth."
In this intelligent and engaging chronicle of his years as an agitator for the planet, Brower points out the irony that since the first Earth Day 25 years ago, we've lost one-seventh of the world's productive land to pollution, clear cutting, and pavement-and our population has doubled! From the politics of preserving the environment and how to use New York-style PR to save tigers and dolphins, to reengineering cities, the future of hypercars, and his vision for the Earth Corps, Brower takes us on a sweeping journey of what has been and what could be if we apply CPR (Conservation, Preservation, Restoration) to our wounded world. Printed on entirely tree-free kenaf paper, Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run follows its own prescription for saving the world's forests.
This book is about saving our environment. Animals, Land, Air, and Water... if you have no interest in the Earth we live on then a book such as this will never go on your TBR list.
I found parts I want to share.. just in case it matters..
(pg. 16) What happened? Sometimes we have been greedy and unthinking, but at other times the road to environmental disaster has been paved with good intentions. Too often in what we do, we fail to consider the two most important things: the cost to the future, and the cost to the Earth. We can be very clever, we humans, but sometimes not so smart.
(pg. 24)
Consider what my friend Justice William O. Douglas once told President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Andy government bureau more than ten years old should be abolished, because after that it becomes more concerned with its image than with its mission.
(pg 59)
What we need in these perilous times is consummate negotiator between the Earth and its human predators.
(pg 94)
You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
You don't know how to bring back and animal now extinct.
And you can't bring back the forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don't know how to fix it, Please stop breaking it!
(pg 126)
We need to tire of trashing wildness. It's not making us happy. It's not making us healthy. It is making us miserable and despairing. Killing trees, habitat, and animals and separating ourselves from nature is making us all a bit crazy. We nee to save the wild in order to save ourselves.
(pg 131)
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
(pg133)
Nevertheless, I concluded that our own major wilderness areas in North America are wilder than anything in the Galapagos, although our wildlife will never be as untroubled by people. Our wilderness will remain wilder so long as we stop chopping away at it. That said, let's remember that only about 4 percent of the United States is designated wilderness, and half of this is in Alaska. Loopholes abound in the legal language protecting these remnants, and each generation must review the gems left it by the generation before, and be ready to guard the house against burglars. The well-traveled Sierra and the lonely Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana, according to an army study for World War II, are the only two places in the Lower Forty-eight where you can get more than ten miles away from a road.
(pg 178)
In the not so distant past, I saw Murray's remark on commitment serve almost as religion for the people, including me, who helped keep dams our of Dinosaur National Monument, the Yukon, and the Grand Canyon, who helped keep loggers with itchy axes out of Olympic National Park, who helped ban DDT, who helped establish the National Wilderness Preservation System and additions to the National Park System in the North Cascades, Kings Canyon, the Redwoods, Great Basin , at Point Reyes, and the Golden Gate, Cape Cod, Fire Island.
We helped do all this with a Sierra Club membership less than one-tenth of its present size. Even our success in gaining passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 was accomplished with a far smaller club than now exists.
There are now millions of dues-paying environmentalists in the United States alone. Some count the number at 10 million. There are more; they just haven't signed up yet. But whatever the number, they don't seem to have near the power they should.
This is the type of book that is totally up to the person who realizes they have an interest in the destruction of our World, and into Americas portion of it all.
(Book 10 for 2017)
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: New Society Publishers; 2nd edition (April 1, 2000)
ISBN-10: 0865714118
Amazon:
This is the testament of one of the few authentic sages of our time. Brower's voice is passionate, perfectly cadenced, humorous, and very wise. And original: while most writers point to where we are, this one draws the map.?Edward O. Wilson, author, The Diversity of Life and Naturalist
Credited with galvanizing an entire generation of environmentalists in the 60's, David Brower, the highly respected "archdruid" of the modern environmental movement, recalls with wit and wisdom his 50 years of controversial activism and offers an inspired strategy for the next generation of "those who would save the Earth."
In this intelligent and engaging chronicle of his years as an agitator for the planet, Brower points out the irony that since the first Earth Day 25 years ago, we've lost one-seventh of the world's productive land to pollution, clear cutting, and pavement-and our population has doubled! From the politics of preserving the environment and how to use New York-style PR to save tigers and dolphins, to reengineering cities, the future of hypercars, and his vision for the Earth Corps, Brower takes us on a sweeping journey of what has been and what could be if we apply CPR (Conservation, Preservation, Restoration) to our wounded world. Printed on entirely tree-free kenaf paper, Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run follows its own prescription for saving the world's forests.
This book is about saving our environment. Animals, Land, Air, and Water... if you have no interest in the Earth we live on then a book such as this will never go on your TBR list.
I found parts I want to share.. just in case it matters..
(pg. 16) What happened? Sometimes we have been greedy and unthinking, but at other times the road to environmental disaster has been paved with good intentions. Too often in what we do, we fail to consider the two most important things: the cost to the future, and the cost to the Earth. We can be very clever, we humans, but sometimes not so smart.
(pg. 24)
Consider what my friend Justice William O. Douglas once told President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Andy government bureau more than ten years old should be abolished, because after that it becomes more concerned with its image than with its mission.
(pg 59)
What we need in these perilous times is consummate negotiator between the Earth and its human predators.
(pg 94)
You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
You don't know how to bring back and animal now extinct.
And you can't bring back the forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don't know how to fix it, Please stop breaking it!
(pg 126)
We need to tire of trashing wildness. It's not making us happy. It's not making us healthy. It is making us miserable and despairing. Killing trees, habitat, and animals and separating ourselves from nature is making us all a bit crazy. We nee to save the wild in order to save ourselves.
(pg 131)
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
(pg133)
Nevertheless, I concluded that our own major wilderness areas in North America are wilder than anything in the Galapagos, although our wildlife will never be as untroubled by people. Our wilderness will remain wilder so long as we stop chopping away at it. That said, let's remember that only about 4 percent of the United States is designated wilderness, and half of this is in Alaska. Loopholes abound in the legal language protecting these remnants, and each generation must review the gems left it by the generation before, and be ready to guard the house against burglars. The well-traveled Sierra and the lonely Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana, according to an army study for World War II, are the only two places in the Lower Forty-eight where you can get more than ten miles away from a road.
(pg 178)
In the not so distant past, I saw Murray's remark on commitment serve almost as religion for the people, including me, who helped keep dams our of Dinosaur National Monument, the Yukon, and the Grand Canyon, who helped keep loggers with itchy axes out of Olympic National Park, who helped ban DDT, who helped establish the National Wilderness Preservation System and additions to the National Park System in the North Cascades, Kings Canyon, the Redwoods, Great Basin , at Point Reyes, and the Golden Gate, Cape Cod, Fire Island.
We helped do all this with a Sierra Club membership less than one-tenth of its present size. Even our success in gaining passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 was accomplished with a far smaller club than now exists.
There are now millions of dues-paying environmentalists in the United States alone. Some count the number at 10 million. There are more; they just haven't signed up yet. But whatever the number, they don't seem to have near the power they should.
This is the type of book that is totally up to the person who realizes they have an interest in the destruction of our World, and into Americas portion of it all.
posted by DesLily | 5:00 PM
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