Coastal Restoration

This seems to clearly be an deliberate attempt to provoke debate and drive people to their conference/news stories...because we all know the UCLA Geography is the hub of cutting edge sustainability science.

All snark aside, this seems to be a strange and yet common refrain: that out leaders and heroes from the past were not all they were cracked up to be, imperfect human beings who flaws often outnumbered their singular achievements.  But does that mean it is time to eject these individuals for our cultural pantheon?  To be sure I have have a much more nuanced view of Martin Luther King in the wake the revelations about his affairs, of Thomas Jefferson in the wake of the revelations of his slave ownership and yellow journalism, etc.

But the reject of these figures as they were not perfect seems very simplistic and childish in my book.  Something that a senior in High School or freshman in college sprawled on her dorm floor eating pizza suddenly makes them see the world is less black and white tones.  To be sure, wearing rose-tinted glasses is not the recommended course.  But similarly inadvisable is to toss the baby out with the bathwater per se.

To argue that the environmental movement has morphed into the more inclusionary sustainability movement is to state the obvious.  Part of this evolution is the understanding that this movement needs to be much broader-based, acknowledge the more typical global (as opposed to American) view of wilderness and protected areas, and come to terms with problems not understood in previous generations.

But Muir still has much to teach us: the power of effective communication with the masses who are ignorant of the power and value of our natural world, the ability of a generation to forestall short-term gains for longer term benefits to ourselves and groups beyond ourselves, and the absolute spiritual value and (what we now have come to call) ecosystem services.  There is much to learn also from someone who was nearly blind and chose to dedicate their life to a larger purpose.

The rejection of Muir sounds like someone is bucking for tenure or seeking to get a new funding source, not a proper debate about the value of one the largest figures in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century.