Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author 20240703

Commission is an ardent champion of the arts. Coowner of cap pilot coffeehouse in gulfport. Thank you very much. Welcome to our session this morning on nature and the environment. For most of my life my entry to American History was to the biographies of our founding fathers. Washington, jefferson, franklin, then through to lincoln, frederick douglass, theodore roosevelt, Martin Luther king, shirley chisholm, henry enerplex, james baldwin, Dwight Eisenhower among many others. Objectives is the bald eagle. In a whole new world open to me. I miss upon which our country was founded and without which they would be no United States of america. Our naturales resources, land, water, flora and fauna. How we obtain a profit from it. The stories in the lives of jack davis, patrick dean, Ryan Fitzgerald bring us understanding of our society or culture and our future. And that natural resourcesand ts recounted by the four authors a heartbeat in a context to our American History. In depth a dramatic and deeply emerged in the delicate splendor of the Natural World these books will discuss over the next hour explore humanitys connection to nature. The history of conservation and heroes to pave the way. Please enjoy our panel discussion. Ill introduce our four authors first and will hold up the books. Jack davis is a pulitzer prizewinning author of the gulf the making of an american see an everglades providence Marjory Stoneman douglas and the American Environmental century. Professor of environmental history at the university of florida he lives in florida and New Hampshire inc. He is here to discuss his book the bald eagle. Patrick dean writes on the outdoors and the environment has book make is both a teacher political media director presently the executive director of a rail trail nonprofits. As an avid mountain biker he lives with his wife and dogs of the Cumberland Plateau in tennessee he is thees author wet up to heaven he is also here today to discuss his latest book natures of messenger and his adventures in a new world. Hotel is a writer teacher who lives in newhe orleans hes the author of three previous books. Driveby truckers southern block opera the one true barbecued fire, smoke, the pit masters who cooked the whole hog and imagining the clean old city arise in literary culture at 19th century new orleans is here today to talk about his book on the Brown Pelican. Our fourth authors awardwinning author of 10 Nonfiction Books including skeletons of the sahara, unbound Patrick Obrien a life revealed in the future. I was writing has appeared in garden and guns National Geographic adventure, outside new York Magazine and the new york times. Hes a chief storyteller into History Channel documentaries and the producer of a series hatfield and mccoys white lightning. Internationally known speaker appeared on npr top of the nation. Abc world news tonights, pbs American Experiences and also x. Here today speak about his book guardians of the valley. Please welcome our four authors. [applause] i would like to start mike will have a discussion among the authors and as we approach the end of this hour we will take questions. And for those questions there is a microphone and a podium in the center of the room. So pleasee, as we get closer or around the 40 minute mark step up there and wait patiently and we will take your questions. First though idea like to start enough each of our guests to give a three or four minute overview of thehe book. The premise of the book and talk in general a little bit about it. Ryan i would like to start with you. Tell us a bit about Brown Pelican. How you found it, how you got into it pretty quick sure. I think what will become evident over our virtual time together thats not already evident his compelling stories about nature and the environment require compelling characters and by characters i mean people we are all telling stories about people and how they have operated print how they have lived within what they think of as nature and the environments. That is not to say the Brown Pelican the subject of my new book is not a compelling character l in and of itself upr if you live along the gulf coast. If you live along the southerly end of the atlantic or pacific you likely love the Brown Pelican like iit do. You love watching it divebomb from 60 plus feet from on high to catch fish. It is so graceful it is also so awkward that pouch they call it is kind of not only dangles but it wobbles as it walks. It is an awesome bird. But the story i tell is the story of peoples relationship with this bird the Human History of the Brown Pelican. The character that leads off the book is one whos probably known to a lotot of us i imagine in ts audience today that Walter Anderson a Famous Artist who was a resilient board in new orleans which i live now. Of course looked up the majority of his labor up on the coast of the mississippi. If we know him we know him as the painter, the artist whose works are highly valued on the market. Like to see him and i see him in this book is a documentarian. He lived many years, many decadents on several Barrier Islands to camp out on along the coast of louisiana than mississippi. Painting a wildlife, sketching a wild epic documenting in a series of journals what he was seeing. His favorite saying i would say his favorite bird was the Brown Pelican but he loved to describe Brown Pelican and all of theirir glory. He talks about living like the Brown Pelicans and sleeping among the Brown Pelicans and building a nest like the Brown Pelicans fishing and bathing like the Brown Pelicans. He loved this bird. He was also toward the end of his life you witnessed the extinction of the Brown Pelican in the gulf of mexico by the Brown Pelican was extinct along the coast of louisiana and the Greater Gulf Coast the upper gulf coast by 1968. And he was documenting it. He was writing aboutnd a p did t quite understand it he hady guesses we very soon knew it was due to pesticides like ddt. Its Walter Anderson that launches this book i talk aboutd about why we have Brown Pelicans in louisiana and along the gulf coast is largely due to a crazy plan that was developed to assure that it was almost hollywood asked. It was a plan so crazy it had to work pretty came down to a pair of alligator scientists who did not know a thing about birds they were tasked with rescuing and bringing back the Brown Pelican to louisiana. This also involves a series many years of bird happenings across state lines. Learning the pinpointing of that day to bird naps a baby pelican, the exact day but to feed that baby turning into a teenage pelican over months. It works. I grew up in the 1980s talking to my parents and other people from older generations now. They did not see Brown Pelicans. But as soon as i started to understand what they could identify what that bird was i am lucky to have Brown Pelicans in my life. Now we have around 10,000 breeding pairs estimate of Brown Pelicans in the upper gulf of mexico. Very healthy population. Is due to two things. The strange plan that works. Also addressing an up the bp oil spill and left the state of louisiana many nonprofits the state federal government with a lot of money to restore the Barrier Islands of louisiana. Ad under the seas, the gulf and through many, many millions of dollars. We have over the past decade plus, we have been restoring these islands which are major bird habitats and i was able to visit many of these islands are off limits to tourists. I was able to go some pelicans, scientists and take in documenting to take part in documenting the revival. That is my book indifferent by the stories with many compelling characters within. Thank you. Patrick, tell us about mark. As ryan said characters an interesting time to drive the deer did like the ones that were going to talk about today, the 18th century artist explorer certainly qualifies and is definitely a fascinating time. We are going from the present with extinctions and some resuscitations recoveries and landed in charleston almost no one in Great Britain had any idea of what they look like for a magnolia tree and largely responsible for the fact that many of them solve his images for the very first time, mastereded piece published betwn 1731 and 1746 and the story of how we got to america what he did while hes here going back and crating aty masterpiece prey much the story of my book he is a landmark and will have time to talk about today. He was exceptional for many reasons and had many first to his name is definitely worth talking about and he finds himself in the shadow, looking forward to talking about that. You have a wonderful book tell us about it. I think its essential story by john and when i started looking into writing about who immigrated to the United States from scotland in 1838 i was born in 1830 immigrated in 1849 to wisconsin he had an interesting life and a a lot of the details have been forgotten in manufacturing and shovel handles out of wood and he forgot he had a real practical side and i wanted to figure out where there wasnt much we remember them why is important in Yosemite National park with inspiration that is so magnificent i just realized i wanted to be there and talk about it in the editor Robert Underwood johnson when youre getting into the mere story these two guys came together in the most dynamic editor dual in the u. S. English literature and johnson is the sentry magazine and two articles of Yosemite Valley and the National Park and im going to publish a midcentury magazine and take it down to washington, d. C. And put them on the desk ol every congressman and a little skeptical politics at the time but he trusted it andon he did t and sure enough he put those stories on the desks in the National Park was created in the beginning of the problem what they had done that created a National Park around the state park that abraham liggett had said with the valley during the civil war. It was the beginning of a rich partnership where they would also bringe it back the nationl storage system and create the sierra club and influence theodore roosevelt. This is against the backdrop of industrialization in the civil war up until the beginning of world war i and the voice of the Sierra Nevada to protect the mountain and the giant sequoias literally getting mowed down the United States had just swept across the country and the 3000yearold trees were gettinn cut down like no realization that they wouldnt just pop back up again and that was a valuable thing to remember today when you have them telling us we need to Pay Attention to environmental condition. I also tried to cover the history, he left a great description on the road magnificent stories he had hundreds and hundreds ofer letts and im able to look into that relationship and try toin bring that alive as well and that is the just amount trying to make john come back alive and understanding him in hisfa nuane life not just the National Club but a real living breathing explorer venture scientist and inspirational character. Tell us about their bald eag. Is a great pleasure tova be here in miccosukee as well i live in miccosukee in the early 90s and my first two books are ony miccosukee and i dont have verye good friends that le here in jackson and it feels like coming home i live in Gainesville Florida now but it feels like coming home its always such a delight in my literary career began in miccosukee and as you know exist powerful sense of place in the physical environment and the cultural environment there is so much as a writer there is so much you could take away from miccosukee and its people and its national surrounding. In the bald eagle the book is a history of american relationships with the bald eagle, the species and the symbol as we know very powerful symbol and in 1782 and as rhinomac colleagues suggested that they see nature as an animating force in the course of Human Affairs and an agent in the course of Human History. In our work the nonhuman denizens of nature become characters. And it might tell stories about those nonhuman of nature in the relationship. And a great story there is conflict and while a lot of americans the bald eagle is similar to other countries but around time they hated the species and posted to the brink of extinction twice but this is the story that also includes an wonderful story of restoration and redemption in you know ten or 15 years ago we did not see bald eagles we saw them in alaska or northern minnesota all eagles were a rare sight now we see them all the time and we could not imagine harming that bird now. Anytime you see that bird we have seen a Success Story we deserve a pat on her backs for doing something right by nature the bald eagle story is a big conservation Success Story and part of the genre and intends to focus on the doom and gloom and i want to write a positive story to some degree in the 21st century. And the bald eagles as many people have and refused to admire it was the right symbol for the United States. If you could talk a bit about the establishment and the republicanta murders, talk about conflict this is interesting not only around pelican but the larger conservation in america, Pelican Island is a very small island off the Atlantic Coast of florida near Cape Canaveral and it had been a long time pelican colony as well as other coastal bird species in the Brown Pelican throughout florida was being hunted around the turnofthecentury in the early 1900s. Out were brightly colored and the beautiful stark white the feathers of the pelican were abundant and easy to accumulate. Pelican island and many other spots in florida and president roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt was presented with an idea by Early Institute higherups and to create the First National wildlife and that is what Pelican Island became it a sense grown from the small island that it originally was which is surrounded by citrus growth which is a larger Pelican Island complex if you could see most of it in the day and telling the story of some of the original game wardens who work there in the early 20th century and the men who were tasked with living among birds and this is included in the everglades and often these men would be hunted themselves in and out think people stopped collecting. You can read stories in a bit of a place to take a spot in the road trip to. What are the unique things that mark did in his work unlike audubon who often killed his subject before he h painted the, mark actually kept it in and around the floor in the sauna you not only saw the wildlife and what they were eating on can you explain that and see how groundbreaking. I was. And wanting. I will say ascot pointed out and i quoted on social media. Itsit not nice. With that said whenever possible, when you look at his artwork wonderful color insert, when you look at his artwork you will be amazed he could do such detailed specific renderings of animals he saw operating in that way. I caught up in the exterminator and chief. Its been well documented now, he not only killed all the birds and thatll lead to more birds to just toss it aside. That was when the distinctive thing the other one to place the birds that he described and that he painted on the plans for which they had a relationship and that sort of thing. In his book in the National History the book and description on the left side from his travels. He would often take it to describe his relationships in the descriptions on the left as he pretrade them on the right and he is considered by many a precursor of the humbles and the broad wins in the other oncologist who would bring that. What arehe the things that if ts is a lives in the people and i was reading your wonderful book, you became so vivid youve done such a great job in bringing into life, there are several sections in the book where you were actually describing two or 3inchf footballs climbing down to get to the waterfall and hanging on the side of an icy cliff to get to the top. How did you do that how did you bring it to life and you make it rich, tell us about it and i didnt do some of the things that he did but i was captivated and staying there and being there on you somebody falls down into the bottom off the valley. It is amazing the way he worked his way right out to the brink and watched the stream come out and he thought about how its dying at the edge of the cliff but is being reborn in the air in the sunlight through the water beads and with god and spirituality in the rebirth i really wanted to focus on because i think you have a lot of john right there in the instance and you can feel it and relate to it and other times and planet earth the universe that he bet on the sternal and he was climbing at one point he was going good and he doesnt see a way through it but he doesnt see a way back in his hands and his feet take over, i dont do that i donthi have that i loveo hike and be in nature and i dont love hides the way he seems to relish them in trust what he could do and the powers that he had and thats a real part of making them come alive and the meta and Yosemite National park down and they did high trips and they hike down there wonderful accounts and i tried to track all the information that i can from these various accounts and all those details help you see him alive. And pesticides and ddt and walk us through and how he came through that and made realizations of the young bald eagles and let me get on that real quickly on the audubon trash you never sold a bald eagle he didnt want to shoot. And whether he identified. There is an exact quote, audubon wrote and has a lousy lazy just honest and moral and national representative. Ddt. [laughter] what is interesting it was released to general in august 1945 in congress was five yearss old past the bald eagle protection act and worried it would go the same way and the carolina parakeet and it died in the cincinnati zoo and in 1945 experts are saying you have to be careful with this chemical pesticide it can have a major impact on wildlife and also humans but the industry is so powerful the publicity folks are sos good and the public relatis are so active that ddt soon became available in Grocery Stores and different forms it doesnt just use in agriculture but it was all. We blanketed the ddt and during the late 40s into the 1950s and the 1960s. There was one particular man charles who is a retired banker from canada moved down to tampa with his family in the 1930s and charles was 60 years old and he started climbing pine trees to ban inlets. Maybe he was doing at the time and he was doing this for 20 years until age 79 and he climbed 1100 trees and banded overt 1200 and showing signs these were migrating birds and bald eagles migrated. He was also an eyewitness at the time of the population in this retired banker made a connection between the declining bald Eagle Population and he seemed well intelligent. On the gulf coast in tampa and a multiconnection between in ddt and the diminishing bald Eagle Population and Rachel Carson talked about him in the spring as a matter of fact. He does not quite understand how it was happening and he thought ddt was the bilingual and getting into the food chain and bald inglis are fishing raptors and how those were affected by ddt, and the environments and in many places by ddt. Ddt guidance in the food chain a bald eagle one of the food chain and the bald eagles are eating the fish and within their bodies are metabolizing into eee getting into the bloodstream of male and female that have a greater impact on females because the dde was responsible for them laying eggs with a fragile adult eggs that would not hatch with the deformed chicks in the eggs and of course we all know the story about rachel and many scientists by the late 50s and even before were making this connection between the declining wildlifee population in det and also human health and still studies being done that have linked alzheimers to ddt generations earlier and anyway thanks this time charles and Rachel Carson and charles had died of a heart attack and he they were trained to put out a brushfire but in 1972 the first epa Administrator Appointed byk Richard Nixon and they told him not to do this and be on the cell in the United States with the restoration of many bird populations and the bald eagle and falcons and others. In your book about mark you did not have a plethora of original sources or letters that mark left behind you do a splendid job of researching around that period of time and early charleston but talk about the struggle and how you overcame it and bringing your subject to life and the book and walking us through his life until his death at the age of 66. Sure, before i do that i want to say jack does this pretty well but the first play in the National History of carolina was the bald eagle and the relationships he portrays the bald eagle having persuaded in offspring to gift the eagle eye fish that the offspring had caught so you had the offspring looking, im not sure what the expression is. Anyway that is one of the Natural History. I love that image. As scott said the sources were then we have no image of himself and no letters before he reaches South Carolina at the age of 39. I basically took it as anrt opportunity on history and Great Britain and the intellectual with dazzling work in the interestn that so many british men and women had a Natural History and the science it was a scientific revolution. I thinkhe newton was the presidt of the Royal Society when they landed in charleston so you had coffeehouses yet coffee and read the newspapers that you wanted to. And also they were pirates and in the mediterranean and america. We talked about that and by blackbeard black here contribute had blockaded him a couple of years ago before he arrived there and one of the fascinating things that i got to understand to think about how many obstacles in the plans and animal collections in jihad storms pirates were an issue and they mentioned certain shipments were relayed by pilots on the way back to london, there was a classic problem the animals pessimism forced to kill and he would put them in room which didnt always make it across the ocean thanks to thirsty sailors. It was quite an opportunity to learn more about the entire world and so many things at the beginning and Great Britain it under britain was just beginning the rise to imperial power at this point and he was really becoming the force that we would know as the following century 50 years later the sun never sets on the British Empire you have all of those that went into making up the times of where she lived im never unhappy when i get to do research about stuff like that so i use that. Thank you. In a moment we will begin taking questions if you have any please approach the podium in the microphone and we will come to you in a moment. Dean i wanted to ask you with the early Environmental Movement been so successful as it was if john was not such a beautiful writer himself tell us about that in the persuasion and effectively of what he met of what he was writing. It was a voice to nature and a new way through his relationship with sentry magazine that was an influential magazine by the way of the Civil War History with the relation and really one of the intellectual but anything that they can produce he was knocking toin producing ondemand and whn they asked for something he would often not get it done at times when he was motivated to look at the sequoia with the Sierra Nevada in various places with beautiful and seem to find himself a magnificent situations appoint and Yosemite Valley and its flooding from all of the edges of the mountain and that person might be climbing up but is waiting there trying to get to the craziest point in the trees and boulders are filling up the streets and there come crashing down when the pressure builds up and he describes famously he went up during the storm and he made experience in nature very accessible to a lot of people and ultimately i think its one of the misconceptions that we have to be. In its to bring people to nature to experience it because thats where he felt that you had spiritual redemption to meaning in lifewa his writing was lean that way trying to make nature and what ultimately there is a big battle in San Francisco to create a reservoir he was able to marshal groups across the nation to defend it and try to defend it and lost the battle but in the end when the were two years after his death. I think he had a big influence in bringing a lot of people to be concerned for our Natural World. That is beautiful. Y yes. I do believe we have a question if you give us your name and tell us how far you travel to be here. Virginia and we came here to watch baseball. Were very pleased to learn of the book. You will have great progress. Jack, i have a question for you as you have lived with the bald eagle for so long and i was unaware of the with the bald eagle, certainly many of us of Benjamin Franklin was veryy much opposed to the bald eagle and the scavengers were of the National Burden, it was a wild turkey and w tell us how its bn different and we succeeded and we had the wild turkey. We just set it. It was the wild turkey. A representative of the United States, he did compare the morality of the wild turkey with the bald eagle and he was offended by the bald eagles behavior from the offspring and he believed it was craving feet and that he did state. But he never advocated the wild turkey to represent the United States. Audubon stated there was a wild turkey and he wanted it to be the countrys national representative, now in the second workfare, National Burden we have no National Bird. We have a National Mammal and a tree and ana National Flower whh is a road but Neither Congress nor the president ial proclamation is designated to the natural interNational Bird. Tomorrow congress could indeed appoint to oppose a sidewalk vision. But the National Bird initiative that is being launched by the National Eagle center in minnesota, anybody hear from minnesota . To try to get congress to designate the bald eagle once and for all, the official National Bird. Thank you, good question. Next gentlemen tell us who you are and how far you travel to be here today. I live in madison miccosukee. 7 miles. [crowd boos] not that long of a drive. The gentleman from virginia. I have a question for all of you. And i thought for everyone in the room. What do you guys think about the people in my generation that are fighting against Climate Change and fighting against the people that wish to ignore it . A millennial or a gen z . I teach at the university of florida and i taught for 30 years now and Charles Reagan in the back probably attested it with the generation and how different they are. I have hope for jen the and people ask me, im a historian and they want to know about the future and i say im really depended on gen z to turn thinge around and that they recognize that i am a baby boomer and my generation did not leave you in such good shape and in more ways than one and you recognize obviously there is acceptance among the new generation but i reallyan helpful and i see a change from the millennials to gen z and the attitude, not knocking millennials but many of them feel the same way about thero natural environmenthavingd our life, Walter Anderson fell in love with the Brown Pelican and certainly i did to. Once you fall in love with the one and learn everything that you can it leads to so many other things. I have become gay writing of this book in the early covid years, now i travel all over latin american burden, its my new hobby ite just got back from guatemala. It kindt of started with this bird which is the symbol of my home state of louisiana but i never recognize as anything important than just being a flying creature and history. Thats what i encourage. I have been taking about this a lot and i became a father three weeks ago, exactly, three weeks and a day and i could not wait for him to find first creature or thing that he loves or plans, what is that thing or algae whatever it is and a snail and wherever that leads him. I think thats what it is and that is any generation. Patrick your wisdom. I may be the worlds oldest jen x, thats where i put myself. I guess i ami, a realistic optimist. I think i know pretty well how things are, let me tell you this i believe that there are woodpeckers in thesi swamps. You could not tell me theres remote enough places in the south for woodpeckers, that is optimism. I believe in the resilience and i believe in the ability of humans of the final analysis to figure out what has to be done and make broad sacrifices and changes in our life that were going to have to do to solve this problem going forward. I think one reason or another and one cause will do that. Imho cautiously realistic optimistic. I dont see sacrifices i think thats one thing about the gen z and millennials they recognize that too. That our quality of life depends upon a good clean environment, that is where we live. A huge difference if i walk in a field by my neighborhood and i started walking in the covid years so i took a lot of time walking and ive seen aif huge difference in the decline of the area, not even from particularly outside factors, it is really dry and it doesnt look the same as itt was 50 yeas ago it is really sad. I think we pride ourselves as a country and an inventive genius, it was a really exciting time for the millennial and jen to be creative and turn things around and accomplish things. So i dont see that as sacrifice at all, i see that as opportunity. Again, we can rise to the occasion and i think we started doing it and i think gen z will have a Bright Future and youre a green economy. It is bright and exciting, that is just me. My daughter is the gen z so i gottad be i think im rooting back to the history with john at the end they said that he died of a broken heart, he was a legend when he lost the battle. But he maintained his optimism, he did not die, you cannot break his heart he thought people would ultimately do thewh right thing. What i see, too many people in the older generation are entrenched in the ways of life and not flexible and not able to change or go to the cycle or the basic things that we need to do. I think its a combination of sacrifice and opportunity and it is an exciting time but it will be gen z that comes in with the mentality and understand we need to make big shifts and the way thatro we live in and probably r the better, i think we need to value the quality of life issues over material issues in a lot of ways and hopefully that shift will take place in your generation. Thank you forat that questio. It is important. We have time for one final question. Can you give us your name and where you are from. I am from arlington virginia. I assume you knew one another . Maybe 40 years. A question, im glad you referenced johns story about climbing up to the top of the pine tree in the storm and yosemite and the story was one of the first ones i read when i was getting involved in conservation advocacy. It spoke so much to me of the connection that we can all have with the world aroundd us. But here we are in, miccosukee, can you talk a little bit of the walk to the golf. Im also from virginia but the thousand mile walk to the golf was one of the persons i read when i wasin taking about doing this, is that this is incredible. Right after the civil war walking through experience in nature through florida and facing alligators and mosquitoes and getting malaria and all kinds of stuff. In the end he had all these amazing experiences and i touched on those and recreated those. I left that out, its a paragraph in the book and i thought it was going to be a big thing because its so moving to me and trying to cut the narrative and clean up what we know from what his vital history was, that got left out of his book largely, it is wonderful to read his book ingoals in cedar key is what it was known and i agree watching this as an eastern or were a westerner sitting in recovering from malaria on the bank and on the shore in cedar key looking at the golf, he started to formulate the concepts that he took west with him and it became the basis of the environmental sensibility. I think that is the east coast and i would say the gulf of mexico is a great contributiondd brian, thank you. This year booktv marks 25 years of shining a spotlight on reading nonfiction authors in their books. With talks from within 22000 authors nearly 900 cities and festivals visited and 16000 events. 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