This summer, millions of Americans are packing up their cars and heading out on road trips to visit national parks and monuments. Michael Brune is one of them. Brune is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, one of the world's first large-scale environmental preservation groups. He told Arizona Public Radio's Gillian Ferris that while the trip is - first and foremost - about showing his children the beauty of the land he works to protect, Brune is also meeting with Veterans along the way to talk about the healing power of nature.
GF: As a steward of the land, what is important to you to pass on to your children?
MB: It starts with a sense of excitement. When my daughter saw the Grand Canyon for the first time I literally saw her jaw drop, and we got up before sunrise the next day to check it out. So, any kind of stewardship of the land starts with love for the land, and everything flows from that. Clearly, we teach respect for the people who live there or who have lived there for a long period of time. We teach respect for wildlife that inhabits the area. We talk about the challenges of managing so many people coming onto the land, or how do we have an economy that doesn't destroy the environment. But really for us, it starts with a sense of joy and excitement.
GF: What are some of the biggest issues, as you see it, that the Sierra Club wants to work toward in this area, on the Colorado Plateau?
MB: Sure. Well, the Sierra Club did some of its more groundbreaking work 50 or so years ago in stopping the construction of dams in the Grand Canyon. It's when we used national advertising for the first time, talking about whether we should flood the Sistine Chapel so we can see the frescos on the roof a little bit better. But really the work the Sierra Club has done in our Grand Canyon Chapter here in Arizona has been profound through the decades, helping to secure national monuments in the northern part of the state - the Vermillion Cliffs, Grand Canyon Parashant - but also working more recently to help protect the Grand Canyon Watershed. We have a world class resource that is not yet permanently protected, and so that's a missing piece I think in lands conservation for the state. And then the second thing - which is somewhat related - is a much stronger push towards clean energy. We need to be building an economy, not just in Arizona, but throughout the Southwest and across the country that is based on clean energy. Arizona has an enormous resource of energy delivered from the sun and yet takes advantage of that to a much lesser degree than most of its neighbors. The state of Nevada is going huge with solar energy and advanced energy batteries. Arizona is not. California will soon be at 50% of its electricity coming from clean energy. Arizona is not. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota; deeply Red conservative states all invest much more in clean energy than the state of Arizona does.
GF: Part of this is like what any family might want to do is to take a road trip and visit some national parks and monuments, but there's a bigger issue that you're working on involving Veterans with the Sierra Club.
MB: Yeah, well first in any road trip, what you remember is the people that you meet as well as the places that you go to see. Yesterday, we spent some time with Kim Crumbo who's a Vietnam Veteran who works for the Wildlands Council who toured the North Rim with us. And then I'll be moderating a panel of Veteran leaders who are going to talk about how nature and wild, protected places have helped them and many of the people they care about recover from the stress and wounds of war. The Sierra Club has had a long history with the military, and military leaders are a big part of who the Sierra Club is. The connection that they have to nature is very similar to what other people experience from different walks of life, whether it's the pressure of little things like emails, or meetings, or conference calls, or the pressures of coming back from war, nature provides a valuable service to all of us. It gives us perspective.