Weekends on cspan two are an intellectual feast. Every saturday American History tv documents americas stories. And on sunday book tv brings u the latest of nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan two comes from these Television Companies and more. Including comcast. You think this is just a Community Center . Or no, its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with 1000 Community Senators tocreate wifi enabled comcast, along with these Television Companies support cspan 2 as a public service. Good morning. Thank you for getting up everybody, and coming to hear me. I really appreciate it. Im just making sure my sound is good. I am here on a new book i wrote, called silent spring revolution. And, the origins of that book began really when i was a boy. Because my mother and father were teachers, and we had some, the one park of being a teacher to get some extra summertime. We use our extra summertime as a family, we would go all over the United States visiting our National Parks, sea shores, and the olympics, in the everglades. So we have a pontiac, a station wagon, a group in ohio in the midwest and we would literally just go see the country. And i had asthma as a boy, and, it was horrible. And wherever i went i was so reinforced by picking up brochures like we used to do in those days. And on it i would say the place was saved by Theodore Roosevelt theodore who had asthma as a boy, and would suffer mildly so. I identified with them and 234 million acres, 234 million acres of wild america. Created the u. S. Barr service, he took all these western National Forest with theater roosevelt. They took 51 birds reservations with the executive, they showed up that birds were being slaughtered in florida because the feathers war. Anybody coming to hear me speak between 19, lets just say, circa 1900. Well come this morning if you are a woman here, you wouldve come to a Public Lecture wearing up on it. With a feather in. Its because there was a feather mafia in florida, and they gunned all the birds down at the recoveries. And they plucked the feathers, and then they would also steal the eggs. And all these species are dying. And nothing screams federal intervention more than certain environmental things. What good does it do for the society of massachusetts, to say were saving bird species because of a progressive politics, and a massachusetts, just for those migratory birds being shot willynilly and slaughtered in florida. And the same for their. It doesnt do well with air quality to say that where ohio, and we have bad air quality. If i grew up in toledo, the factories and detroit are blowing in dirt on the ohio broder. There has to be federal air quality. And water quality. And a lot of things that go through. And so its treatments. A lot of this stuff, you know, it came into the book i wrote. That the point is that it was called the wilderness theater. And the crusade for america, all about that generation. What i call the first wave of environmentalism. Conservation, there are differences. But for our brief purposes today, the sorted of byron meant. First, reform wave. 1901, 1909. Its the progressive era theater, roosevelt who said conservation. Number one concern of our country. Even above his great white fleet being built in the navy. I wrote that book, and when i did it i said, there is one of the thing. And they did it to. I know youve all had talks about Theodore Roosevelt or fdr, i want to tell you one thing to know about. Theodore roosevelt went to harvard, fdr went to harvard. Theodore was the state legislature in new york. Fdr was state legislature in new york. Theodore roosevelt was governor of new york, fdr was governor of new york. Theodore roosevelt loved big navy. That was his obsession. Fdr had a big obsession with it. Theodore roosevelt said that conservation is the most important paying, are said conservation is the most important thing. And his first new deal out with the civilian conservation corps for unemployed americans got paid 1 a day. And planted three billion trades across america because we had drained all of our wetlands. We had diluted all of our forests. We had taken and created a dust ball, ecological disaster all through the great plains west but i should also add, Theodore Roosevelt had a niche. Named eleanor roosevelt, and fdr mary tires. They are tight. And when you deal with environmental conservation, those two president s where giants. And i wrote two books on them. So the book here, silent spring revolution, is about the third wave. Incidentally, fdr created 800 state parks. 800. I can go into him saving Big Bend National park on the day, which he did, he had all of the dday maps of big ben were visitor stations where they were going to be. And the soldiers in normandy, did not engage with roosevelt environmental conservation, the third wave didnt have a figure like that. It did have a figure like fdr where whoever figured out the application of what is his job he was like tree farmer hes old Christmas Trees out of his home, he was born along the hudson river, had his life along the hudson and is buried on the hudson. And really was the leader of whats that we called the scenic, hudson river movements, to protect that beautiful and probable waterway. My third wave, i had a problem of where to begin, who to focus on in this book, and i would ideally began in 1960. John f. Kennedy is running for president. New frontier. If you look at the democratic plank, thats your environments tucked in there pretty heavily. Very firmly. Because there was a feeling that a, correct feeling that truman and eisenhower did not do enough on the National Resources or parks environment. It was all boom, boom, boom postwar industrialization. Car culture, build it, build, it build it. And now candidate was kind to going to be a timeout. So adams, the great california photographer, brought it his book at 50. Saying this is the american cars. Rachel carson, who im going to mention in a minute. Was writing with the member of the new frontier of john f. Kennedy, writing environmental planks for the democratic party. Being hosted by ethel canaday, Bobby Kennedys wife, by jackie kennedy, you know so i thought i knew where i was and in the book, because the third wave ended in 1973, not even the question, it ended in 1973 with the triumph of the endangered species act passing the senate 92 to nothing. So when you hear about this being liberal, it was american. And that same moments almost to the week, where endangered species was a big closing legislation of 73, we have the arab oil embargo, opec, fear of gasoline prices, need for energy going high, Energy Independence and a counter revolution that developed, immediately to stop rachael carsonism. Ralph naderism, environmentalism, that got too far it went so far the wife said that nixon had become a new dealer. And i will mention why they felt that, but out of that, counter spring, to what im about to tell you. The American EnterpriseInstitute Heritage foundation, Koch Brothers industries, safety brothers, you know, it, all federalist society, they all are coming to save money, they do not like the federal government regulating them. It is an antifederal Regulation Movement that emerges after they Environmental Movement starts petering out in 1973, now, i had to instead with canaday began my book in 1945, i did not want to but i had people complain to me. They see how bad my book is, i know i could be done in 60, and got away with, it i wouldve been disingenuous i wouldve been doing that to do a market share of books, but the real history began in the days after world war ii. Once hiroshima gets dropped, we talk about it as a victory over japan, and the wars and it. And we celebrated, and i wouldve been on the street celebrating, it and never criticize truman for his decision to drop the atomic bomb personally. But, i never also criticized a lot of people i read in my book that said, whoa, what does this mean to the planet . The great doctor albert won a nobel prize and the man had just written his do. This Nuclear Genie starts going around the world, oh my god, and then john hershey of the new yorker, and other journalist started showing what radiation did to people in japan. Skin melting. Hard shows of, what happens with an atomic bomb and it became an Anti Nuclear Movement. But the Anti Nuclear Movement got finetuned to being an anti nuclear testing. So on one level policy people, american atomic engineer talking about how do we stop other country from getting nuclear bombs. Well great. But grassroots american citizens that became the first wave of the Environmental Movement that said stop blowing Nuclear Weapons up in the beta. From 1945 to 1992, the United States detonated 1054 nuclear tests. Okay . Nevada, boom, boom, boom. You think people in nevada cared . Im getting radiation . No, they were like catcher atomic shaker in las vegas where you can see it snowing radio fallout. People were doing the atomic cocktails. Do the nuclear bogey wilkie, because we were proud that we were enough monopoly from 1945, to 1959, where they only country in the world what nuclear opens. We are, usa. Then russia gets the bomb. And then its back and forth with the arms race. Meanwhile, we are testing, russia is testing, and the planet suffers from it. Out of that anti nuclear group, comes a very funny coalition. The biggest leader is william o douglas, who i read about in this book, who became the fdr Supreme Court justice. 1937. Douglas has had rushed to say, no nagasaki, after he saw what it did in hiroshima, Supreme Court justice said dont drop one and nagasaki. Justice would go and climb the himalayas and become a buddhist. Justice, collecting buddhism, his all seasons hero, Henry David Thoreau. You know who was else against the bomb, after the first one was dropped on catholic moral reasons . Joseph kennedy, who gets a lot of bad press 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 dropped, for moral implication reasons. But another one, john f. Kennedy read by the waters over, but he immediately took to a writer named Norman Cousins, head of the separate saturday review. And Norman Cousins where the first big, major, essay calleds ban absolute due to Nuclear Weapons. A critical, read today, it is pretty mild. But nevertheless he was saying, this is not something that we should be celebrating it is a big problem. Canaday loved it. Jack kennedy, when you study like i have close, leave his career in the navy years beyond being was much more like Joseph Heller of catch 22, Curt Vonnegut slaughterhouse kind of guy. He saw the absurdity of war, he saw how the absurdity of chain of command things could go. And he was skeptical of the whole nuclear age. Yet he was another cold war. Another person opposed to the atomic bomb was Rachel Carson. For about nuclear tests. Rachel carson was from pennsylvania, a girl growing up on the banks of the Allegheny River. And the Allegheny River is a glue factory all around there. Dirty air, dirty river, its a beautiful river in western pennsylvania. She would go and collect pine cones and talk about nature in her book. She butter first as a to get published in st. Nicholas magazine. And magazine for kids. 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. And so she goes to a School Called chatham, a school for women in pittsburgh area. And decides that she wants to be an oceanologist. Or an Ocean Science person and had never seen an ocean. Even though she graduated from college. Setts 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 called the sea around us. But i love all three. You can get them in a convenient library of america book one volume. I highly it nobody writes about Ocean Conservation the world of the ocean with the grace notes Rachel Carson as a literary person. So in my mind theres Henry David Thoreau and Rachel Carson and when you really getting into how to write about a natural area the it extent her writing is much more or more its like two levels advanced on a National Geographic writing or something. Its really special. And one of her big fans for the kennedy families, they loved her book strictly rose kennedy. Do you know John F Kennedy .