Into the columnists briefings. President biden, please. Yeah. If youre listening, give her an interview. Yeah, and i guess thats it now. Thank yo good morning. Thank you for getting up, everybody. And coming to hear me. I really appreciate it. Im just making sure my sounds good. Im here on a new book i wrote called Spring Revolution and the origins of that began really when i was a boy because mother and father were teachers and we had some one perk of being a teacher is gets some extra summer time and we used our extra time as a family. We went all over the United States visiting our National Parks and seashores. You know, i got to go to yellowstone and the olympics in the everglades. Wed have a pontiac and Station Wagon and a trail or i grew up in northwest ohio, the midwest, and we would then just go see the country and had asthma as a boy. And and it was horrible. And wherever went, i was so reinforced by picking up brochures like we used to do in those days and on it i would sit at the place would saved by Theodore Roosevelt who also had asthma as a boy and was would suffer mightily. So identified with tr and i realized that he ended up as i did more more looking save 234 million acres, 234 million acres of wild america. He created todays us forest service. You know he all these western National Forests or Theodore Roosevelt he took and created 51 federal bird reservations with executive fiat. They showed him that birds were being slaughtered in florida because. He was a feathers war. Anybody coming . Hear me speak. Between 1910. Lets just say circa 1900 would have come this morning if you were a woman here. Whether you think you would have or not, you would have come to hear a Public Lecture wearing a bonnet with an ornamental feather in it, because it was a feather. Must be in florida and theyd gun all the birds down at the rookeries and theyd the feathers. And then they would also steal the eggs. And all of these species were dying and nothing. Federal intervention more than certain environmental things. What does it do for the Audubon Society . A massachusetts, to say were saving, you know, birds, species because of our progressive polyp and a vigorous audubon, massachusetts, just for those migratory birds to be shot, willing and slaughtered in florida. And the same with air. It doesnt do any good with air quality to say are ohio and we have a stringent air quality if where i grew up in toledo the factories of detroit are blowing in dirt over the ohio border. What do you know . There has to be federal air quality and Water Quality on a river that goes through places and treatment. None. This stuff you came until the book i wrote. But the point is, i wrote a book called the wilderness warrior, Theodore Roosevelt and the crusade for america all about that generation. What i the first wave of environmentalists was conservation. There are differences, but for our brief today, lets use word environment first reform wave oh one 1909 its the progressive era Theodore Roosevelt who said conservation environmentalism is the number one concern of our country. Even above his great white fleet being built in the navy. I wrote that book, and then i when i did it, i said, theres one other thing, Franklin Roosevelt did it to i know you guys have all heard talks about Theodore Roosevelt or fdr but i to tell you one thing to know about them, Theodore Roosevelt was the state went to harvard, fdr to harvard. Theodore roosevelt was a state legislature in new york fdr was state legislature taught in new york. Theodore roosevelt was governor new york, fdr was governor of new york. Theodore roosevelt, big navy. That was his obsession. Fdr had a big obsession with it. Theodore roosevelt said that conservation is the most important thing. Fdr said, conservationist the most important thing in his first new deal act was the civilian conservation corps were unemployed, got paid a dollar a day and planted 3 billion trees across america because we had drained all of our wetlands we have denuded all of our forests. We had taken the it created a dustbowl ecology, cold disaster all through the great plains west. But i should also add, Theodore Roosevelt had a niece named eleanor roosevelt, and fdr married, their type. And when you deal with the environmental conservation, those president s are giants. And i wrote two books on them. So the book im is silent spring. Remember, evolution is about the third wave. And incidentally, fdr, 800 state parks, 800 that i can go to him him saving Big Ben National Park on dday which did he had all the dday maps of big ben where visitor stations are to be fdr. Right while our were invading normandy did not a game for the roosevelts Environment Conservation but the third wave i had to write didnt have a figure like that. It didnt have a figure like fdr or whoever. He filled out an application. What is his job hed write tree farmer. He saw Christmas Trees out of his home. He was born along the hudson river. Spent his life along the hudson is on the hudson and really was the leader of what today we call the scenic cuts River Movement to protect that beautiful, incredible waterway. So my third wave that i had a problem where to begin, who to focus in this book and ideally wanted to begin in 1960. John kennedys running for president new frontier day. If look at the democratic plank that year environments tucked in there pretty heavily, very firmly, because was a feeling that a correct feeling that truman and eisenhower didnt do enough on the National Resources or parks environment it was all boom boom postwar industrialized you should car culture build it, build it, build it. And now kennedy was going to kind of be time out and still adams, the great california, brought out his book in 60 called this is the american. I could have milked that Rachel Carson, who to mention in a minute was writing was member of the new frontier John F Kennedy writing planks for the Democratic Party being hosted by Ethel Kennedy. Bobby kennedys by jackie kennedy. Her you know so thought ive been in 60 i knew the where i was ending the book the third wave ended 1973 not even a. It ended in 1973 with the triumph of the endangered species act passing the senate 92 to nothing. So when you hear about being liberal, it was american, and that same moment to the week, the endangered species was the big closing legislation of 73. We had the the Arab Oil Embargo oh pack of fear of gasoline prices need for energy going Energy Independence and a counterrevolution that developed immediately to Rachel Carson is some ralph nader ism environmentalism that had gone too far. It went so the right said that nixon become a new dealer and ill mention why they thought that. But you know, in and out of that counter swing to im about to tell you about was born the American InstituteHeritage Foundation and Koch Brothers industry say the brothers you know all any Federalist Society they all are coming to save money they dont like the federal government regulate them its an anti federal Regulation Movement emerges after the Environmental Movement starts petering out in 73. Now, i had, instead of kennedy begin my book in 1945. I didnt want to. When i have people complain me, they see how fat my book is i know i could have begun it in 60 and gotten away with it. I would have been disingenuous. I would have been doing that to be a marketing of books. But their customers real history began in the days after World War Two, once hiroshima gets dropped, we talk about it as victory over japan. The wars ended and we celebrated. I would have been in the streets celebrating. Ive never criticized truman. His decision to drop the atomic bomb personally, but i never also criticized a lot of people. I write in my book that said, whoa, what does this mean to the planet . The great doctor, Albert Schweitzer won a nobel prize in man has has just written his doom. If this Nuclear Genie starts going around the world, oh my god. And then the then john of the new yorker and other started showing what radiation to the people in japan, skin melting horror shows of what are what happens with an atomic bomb. And there became an movement but the antinuke moog Nuclear Movement got fine tuned to being anti Nuclear Testing that there were where on one level policy people were American Atomic Energy commissioner deciding how do we stop other countries from getting Nuclear Bombs all great but there was a group of grassroots american citizens that became the first wave of the environmental that said stop blowing Nuclear Weapons up in nevada. From 1945 to 1992, the united detonated 1054 nuclear test. Oak, nevada boom, boom, boom, boom. Do you think people in nevada cared like im getting radiation now . They were doing like, get your atomic shaker in las vegas where you could see it snowing radio fall out. People were doing the atomic cocktails you know do the Nuclear Boogie woogie because. We were proud that we were monopoly from 1945 to 1959 where the only country in the world with Nuclear Weapons were at usa and russia gets the bomb and then its back and forth with the arms race. And meanwhile were testing testing and the planet suffers from it out of that antinuclear group comes a very funny coalition. The biggest leader is William Douglas, who i write about in the book, who became us. It was fdr, Supreme Court justice 37, douglas had rushed to say no nagasaki after he saw what it did. Hiroshima the Supreme Court justice said, dont drop one in nagasaki just as would go and climb the himalayan sand, become a buddhist Supreme Court justice, collecting buddhism his all season hero is Henry David Thoreau. You know who else was against the mom after first one was dropped on catholic moral reasons joseph kennedy, who gets a lot of bad for being a business guy. He wanted to get the pope involved and bishops involved, henry luce involved to make sure there wasnt a second bomb drop for moral reasons, but another one. So john f read part one and i glad the wars over, but immediately took to a named Norman Cousins head of the saturday review and Norman Cousins wrote the first book, big major called is obsolete due to Nuclear Weapons, a critical if you read it today its a pretty mild but nevertheless he was saying this is not something we should be its a big problem. Kennedy loved it. Jack kennedy, when you study like i have closely his career in the navy years beyond being the legitimate hero p. T. 109 was much more like joseph. Catch 22 Kurt Vonnegut kind of guy. He saw absurdity of war. He saw the absurdity of how a chain command things could go. And he was skeptical of the whole nuclear age. Yet he was an ardent cold warrior, another person opposed to atomic bomb was Rachel Carson. Or about Nuclear Testing. Rachel carson was from pennsylvania, a girl growing up on the banks of the Allegheny River in the allegheny guys was a glue. Factories around there, dirty air, dirty. Its a beautiful river in western pennsylvania. And she would go and collect pine cone cones and write about nature and her books. She put her first essay to get published in nicholas magazine and a magazine thing for kids, and she talks about the natural world, about the atmosphere. And her teachers started recognizing in her, you have a gift for science and nature and literature here and so she goes to a School Called chatham for Winter School women in pittsburgh area and decides she wants to be an ocean biologist or an ocean person and had never seen ocean even though she graduate from college she got a fellowship to woods hole massachusetts which is in walking distance from John F Kennedy home in hyannis port and woods hole. If you havent heard about it, was the place if you wanted to study marine life today here in la hoya, you have university of california at san diego with scripps or i live in texas. We have university of texas has, a Marine Center at port aransas on the gulf of mexico, where the university of miami is booming. And marine science. But the woods hole was where intellectuals win. It was like the advanced institute in princeton, where brainy yaks go to study. You would go there the woods hole and youd find a study the natural sea world. She started studying migratory patterns of eels cause lot of people do birds but not a there was no woman in the field of eels and they do have remarkable journeys, eels from africa all the to the interior rivers of pencil danger. And she started writing columns. The baltimore sun. She did an advanced degree in zoology at johns hopkins. She gets hired in World War Two to write marine scripts for radio about our shad populations are cod fish stocks and then fun pieces about sea urchins or ocean ocean observations, radio and pr kind thing . Before npr was born and she working for fdr adores the new deal. By 1946, shes writing a called conservation and action where worlds 51 First Federal bird reservations that Theodore Roosevelt created are todays us fish and wildlife refuge. Just you guys, you all here own 550 National Wildlife refuges. Theyre all around you here love them. This is government at its best. Its protecting species, protecting oasiss and we sometimes dont realize that this a great gift. We got this wildlife refuge, but she was just writing little booklets for them to, you know, tell if you went to go visit sonny bono. Thats all i wrote. She tell you what bird shed see there going on in that ecosystem . Great stuff . But got two clues about world war. Two being in government that worried her. One was the nuclear issue. And second, ddt because the other big advancement wasnt just the Manhattan Project and World War Two. Another thing that won the war, surely, is the bomb ddt, pesticides if you were young, John F Kennedy or Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson, anybody on the pacific and europe but it made a big difference in the pacific you would have been doused with ddt sprayed host and i would have to and you would have to it killed lice. It kills mosquitoes, it kills ticks. Its a miracle it helped us. We would take planes future environmentalist named Barry Commoner, who was a genius for World War Two, for our country, invented the device that would spray ddt proper, greatly administered over vast islands in the pacific. So our troops be attacked with malaria problem as Rachel Carson being in government working that us fish and wildlife beat particularly paul in maryland where we have a national you guys own a National WildlifeResearch Center where we test our chemicals on waterways and airs to see what how it affects meaning, how it might affect soon and she knew ddt was toxic to fish and birds she had read reams of data document piled and so she decided was going to kind of be a whistle blower, wanted to go public with our Readers Digest. And they rejected they said, no way, why ddt was big business. It was bought by the Us Department of, agriculture, every farm the United States was being sprayed with pesticides. It was considered a it was as big a powerful the Chemical Industry as oil gas lobby today it was huge and so she got flummoxed and Rachel Carson instead wrote three c books. If none of you have read her c trilogy books about the sea. My favorite being c