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The Wilderness World by John Muir, Edited by Edwin W. Teale


Summary (Amazon):
As a conservationist, John Muir traveled through most of the American wilderness alone and on foot, without a gun or a sleeping bag. In 1903, while on a three-day camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt, he convinced the president of the importance of a national conservation program, and he is widely recognized for saving the Grand Canyon and Arizona's Petrified Forest. Muir's writing, based on journals he kept throughout his life, gives our generation a picture of an America still wild and unsettled only one hundred years ago. In The Wildernesss World of John Muir edited by Edwin Way Teale has selected the best of Muir's writing from all of his major works; including My First Summer in the Sierra and Travels in Alaska to provide a singular collection that provides to be "magnificent, thrilling, exciting, breathtaking, and awe-inspiring" (Kirkus Reviews).

Reviews:
Sierra Club: 
https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/bibliographic_resources/book_reviews/wilderness_world_rv_wood.aspx

Articles:
Smithsonian: Yosemite: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-muirs-yosemite-10737/

The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/the-american-forests/305017/


Dunbar, Scotland (his birthplace): https://www.jmbt.org.uk/


Biography and Exhibit by Sierra Club:
https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx

Videos: 
PBS: National Parks: John Muir:
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/
PBS: John Muir in the New World:
https://www.pbs.org/video/american-masters-john-muir-in-the-new-world-1/

Quotes: 
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. "

"In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks."

Discussion Questions (Written by John Shiver, who will also lead the discussion)
  1. How did John’s childhood and upbringing help prepare him for his life and career as a naturalist and explorer?
  2. Muir encountered many people in his travels. how did they contribute to the success of his wanderings and how were they different from what his father had taught him to expect from strangers?
  3. Of all his adventures, which would you choose to have experienced or shared with him and why?
  4. How did Thoreau’s and Emerson’s writings influence Muir? How were these men and their experiences similar and different?
  5. How would you explain Muir’s accurate premonition that his friend, Professor Butler, had arrived in CA from WI? Was this a coincidence or representative of some greater insight that he was capable of?
  6. How did Muir’s writings establish and popularize the conservation movement in the US? Discuss his style and why it still holds so much appeal today? What were some of your favorite passages?
  7. What were some of his scientific contributions that related to the formation and geology of California Sierras and Yosemite?




The Green Amendment by Maya K. van Rossum


 

Summary (Amazon): For decades, activists have relied on federal and state legislation to fight for a cleaner environment. And for decades, they’ve been fighting a losing battle. The sad truth is, our laws are designed to accommodate pollution rather than prevent it. It’s no wonder people feel powerless when it comes to preserving the quality of their water, air, public parks, and special natural spaces.

But there is a solution, argues veteran environmentalist Maya K. van Rossum: bypass the laws and turn to the ultimate authority—our state and federal constitutions.

In 2013, van Rossum and her team won a watershed legal victory that not only protected Pennsylvania communities from ruthless frackers but affirmed the constitutional right of people in the state to a clean and healthy environment. Following this victory, van Rossum inaugurated the Green Amendment movement, dedicated to empowering every American community to mobilize for constitutional change.

Now, with The Green Amendment, van Rossum lays out an inspiring new agenda for environmental advocacy, one that will finally empower people, level the playing field, and provide real hope for communities everywhere. Readers will discover:

• how legislative environmentalism has failed communities across America,
• the transformational difference environmental constitutionalism can make,
• the economic imperative of environmental constitutionalism, and
• how to take action in their communities.

We all have the right to pure water, clean air, and a healthy environment. It’s time to claim that right—for our own sake and that of future generations.




Reviews:

Maryland considering adopting a Green Amendment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99jXgqNCJis

Quotes: 
"Water is more important than gas."

"Over a ten year period, when comparing an equal weight of the two gases (carbon dioxide and methane), methane is 100 times more powerful in trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere."

"In 2011, the prestigious journal Climatic Change published their paper (R.W. Howarth, R. Santoro and A. Ingraffea, "Methane and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations.") and its startling conclusion: natural gas, harvested from shale, was worse for the climate than coal."

"You have a right to pure water, clean air and a healthy environment. This right is inherent and indefeasible. It belongs to you."

PA State's Constitution Environmental Rights Amendment: 
"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."  https://conservationadvocate.org/pennsylvanias-environmental-rights-amendment/
Interviews: 

Delaware Riverkeepers: http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/

For the Generations website: http://forthegenerations.org/

DISCUSSION MEETING PLACE LOCATION FOR THIS MONTH: Bucks County Audubon Society Visitor Center at Honey Hollow Environmental Center at 2877 Creamery Road, New Hope 18938, starting at 6:15 p.m.

Discussion Questions: 
1. Despite states having environmental right amendments, such as here in PA, why do we continue to have to battle oil, gas and chemical companies for clean water, etc.? (p. 15, 82-)
2. Discuss some of the critical environmental issues, highlighted by the author and many of which are local to PA and the area, including stories about fracking, pipeline construction and infrastructure, water contamination and excessive real estate development (PennEast pipeline, p. 122, DuPont, p. 134, Bishop’s Tube in Chester, p. 174, PFOS water contamination in Warrington, Warminster, p. 154, etc.).
3. What are some of the statistics that surprised you, such as perhaps, methane’s impact on the climate(p. 88), mineral rights, water use for fracking (p. 73, 79), % of Americans wanting the environment protected (p. 217), etc.
4. Discuss a state versus a federal constitutional environmental amendment, their role and significances. (p. 12)
5. Discuss the different players, who make powerful decisions about our resources each day: DRBC, FERC, EPA, NEUP(108). There are many acronyms and what do they all mean?
6. Laws don’t ban pollution or development, but because of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, a permit is now needed to do so. (p. 42) Discuss the different chemicals that are dumped into our environment legally or illegally: PFOA, PFOS (153), PCB (141), TCE (175).
7. In the final chapter, the author discusses how states can create or strengthen environmental provisions for their state constitutions. Pennsylvania already possesses environmental provisions, but is of varying strength and rigor. What are some actions needed to strengthen our provision here in PA? (See page 9-10, 62, Chapter 2) This is what it states as of 1971, Article 1, Section 27–the Environmental Rights Amendment:
“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”
8. What are some actions, that each of us can take, to help secure our rights to a clean environment?

Please feel free to bring your own questions to our discussion on April 26 at 6:15 p.m. at the Bucks County Audubon Society’s Honey Hollow Environmental Center and/or also to ask Maya after her presentation and book signing on May 5, 1:00 p.m. at the Doylestown Bookshop.


(http://news.kgnu.org)

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