THE ENVIRONMENTALIST AND THE BOMB UPDATE: DAVE BROWER

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For 44 years David R. Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth and former executive director of the Sierra Club, has been fighting for conservation. He has helped establish several of our national parks, seashores, and monuments (and led the fight to keep dams out of the Grand Canyon and Dinosaur National Monument) . . . created, edited, and designed many of the Sierra Club's famous exhibit format books, including InWildness Is the Preservation of the World . . . and played a major role in the 15-year struggle that led to the passage of our nation's 1964 Wilderness Bill. (What's more, Brower led all these conservation fights while earning a reputation as a highly skilled outdoorsman. He was, for example, the first to climb New Mexico's Shiprock . . . as well as some 30 peaks in Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada!)

In the course of these efforts, Dave has, on occasion, been accused of bending facts in order to win a preservation battle. Indeed, John McPhee — in his book portrait of Brower, Encounters With the Archdruid — went so far as to say, "In the war strategy of the conservation movement, exaggeration is a standard weapon." However, Brower staunchly — and point by point — denies such charges. He does allow that, when absolutely necessary, he's willing to accent the emotional appeal of an endangered landscape: "After all, " Dave says, "people who don't believe in emotion can be thankful their parents didn't share that problem. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. "

Nine years back, Brower was the subject of MOTHER NO. 21's Plowboy Interview. (At that time he'd just helped defeat the move to develop the proposed SST aircraft.) Well, Dave's hardly been treading water since then. Indeed, his current battle may ultimately turn out to be his most important effort yet . . . because the unflagging conservationist has taken the field against the greatest global threat of all: nuclear war. As a result of his long experience with environmental causes and thought, Dave goes beyond simply proclaiming that we should "ban the bomb"; and points out the ecological root problems we need to address in order to make life safe after disarmament . . . and hence make the permanent abolition of nuclear weapons a real possibility.

During a recent visit to Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, Dave spoke on the interrelationship of the current strain on human and natural resources and the tensions that are leading us toward nuclear war. The following remarks are condensed from his evening talk and from an hour and a half of conversation held — the next day — between Brower and a member of MOTHER's staff.