"When they win, it’s forever: when we win, it’s merely a stay of execution. We’ve got to remain eternally vigilant" – David Brower 1912-2000

Eulogy for a Giant

Rascals seem to pop up with increasing frequency these days. It is extremely rare to uncover a human being with the perspicacity and depth of character of David Brower. He died on November 5 at his home in Berkeley, CA.

Jeffrey St Clair writes in the December 25 issue of "In These Times" –

"...Brower’s vision was vast and encompassing...he was one of the first to get beyond the notion of wilderness as merely an esthetic landscape ... He connected the concept to ecosystems .. And fought relentlessly and fearlessly to save those big blank spaces on the maps.

"Brower humanized environmentalism. He knew that the war to preserve wilderness couldn’t be waged by an elite cadre of mountain climber and rich white neo-transcendentalists. It would have to be a people’s movement... Brower more than anyone else shaped the modern environmental movement into a political force that reached across lines of class, race and gender.

"He looked to the future and a vibrant new movement that had staked its claim of resistance in the very belly of the beast. "Never let them beat you down as being doomsters or naysayers, because if you are against a dam, you are for a river.’"

Now he has joined with the great Rachel Carson as one of the twin towers of environmental conscience and inspiration for our time

David Brower was a member of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. Sadly we now remove his name from our mailing list, but not from our hearts.