The California Dream is inexplicably linked to the American Dream by way of the expansion of the West, the pioneers and the great frontier. The powerful and enlivening idea that there is a place and perhaps a frame of mind like California and all things “out West,” that can provide for the many and fulfill the deepest hopes and desires is according to Brechin, fading.
As a project scientist for the Geology Department at the University of California at Berkeley, Brechin composed two books, both published in 1999 called “Farewell Promised Land, Waking from The California Dream” and “Imperial San Francisco, Urban Power, Earthly Ruin.”
“Farewell Promised Land” was a joint effort with colleague and photographer Robert Dawson. More of a coffee table type of book than a scholarly treatise. It has dozens of photographs highlighting how much the landscape of the ‘Golden State’ has change and is still changing, greatly alerting its natural beauty and bounty. “Imperial San Francisco” is a continuation of that book in a way, with a more detailed and comprehensive look at the impact massive growth has had upon the land.
This reporter as a native Californian was very intrigued by the professor’s books and was able to contact him at his office at U.C. Berkeley. Both books discus California’s expansion and the cost it has taken on the environment. “I wrote a new preface for ‘Imperial San Francisco’ in 2005 for its second edition,” said Brechin. He mentioned that he had to include mention of other great cities and their impact upon the landscape as well as the world. And in doing so, he had the tragic events of 9/11 in mind.
In terms of not only one of the most popular places but as a major world power, San Francisco and California are about an “enormous arsenal” of sorts. Unfortunately, he pointed out “war and cities often go together.” “What people don’t realize is that much of the advancements and technology has ‘military contracts’ or enormous military-strategic implications behind them.” Brechin sees Silicon Valley as a part of that mind-set, like it or not.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a war (at the moment). But an on-going preparation for war,” he said. “Critics of my two books think I hate cities; I don’t, he said. I love cities (especially beloved San Francisco). What critics don’t realize is “I have a bio-centric point of view,” said Brechin. Ever expanding cities noted Brechin are like a cancer on the planet. “One of the reasons why I wrote “Imperial San Francisco” (as well as “Farewell Promised Land”), is because in the ever-expanding consumption of goods and resources we as a civilization need to examine more that closely.”
Professor Brechin also pointed out that it is this sense of total dominance and “military-like” stock-piling that is harming the planet’ “a full spectrum dominance” as he called it (be it by technology, consumer goods, over-population) that will be the demise of any paradise on earth.
California, be it Northern, Central or Southern Cal, is indeed a paradise and Brechin warns that if we as a civilized people don’t take the time to “unplug” and check in with the natural, organic (or biotic) world around us our world of plenty and natural abundance that is so characteristic of the wild west will vanish completely. For over 30 years Dr. Brechin has made California and the golden west his focus of study and concern.
“People need to look up from constantly staring at the screen on their electronic devices. They need to recognize there is a crisis impacting the natural world. The idea that technology and all this convergence is going to make our lives complete and so much better is a complete fantasy,” said Brechin. “There is this lack of rational thinking (on the part of many people) when it has to deal the natural, organic, biological realm of the world.”
Poet and author Mary Reynolds Thompson would agree. “This is what I am talking about that is all part of my book,” she said. While Thompson does not know the professor personally, as someone who has been enraptured by the beauty of California, she too fears what the outcome will be if people ignore the needs of mother earth. Many of the professor’s issues of study are also hers.
Like Thompson, Brechin also believes that the biotic fabric of the earth as a natural living organism is collapsing. This for Brechin is a truth that is very sad and it is something that people must realize and do something about. Brechin sees humanity and its increasing dependence upon a technology as a way of life that is tearing the earth down instead of replenishing it. In her book “Wild Soul” Thompson also questions the increased dependency upon technology and its impact upon nature.
“I don’t like to sound pessimistic, but I see little hope,” said Brechin. Currently Professor Brechin is working on the Living New Deal Project. It is a collaboration of historians, researchers and archives, pulling together all information about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” administration.
During his years as President Roosevelt’s administration spear-headed hundreds of projects nationwide in an effort to keep America working and to fight off the downslide of The Great Depression. “FDR wanted to create a healthier society and to have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Brechin believes that Roosevelt tried to create a civilized nation, one that could fight off not only The Great Depression, but also the growing menace of the coming of World War II. “That time in our nation’s history is such a different culture than right now,” Brechin said.
Despite his urge to be pessimistic, Brechin still holds a deep affinity and love for California. “Long before it appeared on maps, California had a place in the mind.” Just as he explained in his book collaborated with Dawson, “the image of a glittering land somewhere at the outer edge of the known world was planted. It was planted two and a half centuries before this side of North America was explored overland by Europeans. The name appears for the first time in “The Adventures of Esplandian,” a novel by Garci Ordonez de Montalvo published in Spain in 1510. In his fantastical tale, California is an island filled with gold, “very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise.”
And no doubt for countless numbers of people who come to California that sense of a paradise in one form or another rings true. The mythic proportions of California not only in people’s minds but in its potential for being a paradise on earth is contained in its natural organic essence. If that is undermined then paradise is lost.
Water is one of the natural elements that helps make California the stunning beauty and earthly paradise it is. Without it, California becomes a dry and unpleasant desert. No one knows this more than Patrick Keopele Executive Director of the Tuolumne River Trust. Seeking new and innovative models of sustainable water use and efficiency is a must. The Tuolumne River Trust and other water and environmental agencies like it have been sounding the alarm for decades. Yet as he pointed out in previous conversations with this reporter, “the idea that California is this place of endless abundance, (in terms of water) is unrealistic.” This is especially so now that Governor Jerry Brown has issued a 25 percent mandatory reduction in water use statewide.
One of the major developments that helped make California a growing paradise was the manipulation of its waterways and the diversion of great rivers like The Colorado River. “building dams and diverting rivers is really a thing of the past, we must realize that earth needs water and that humans are not entitled to take the majority of it.”
Keopele mentioned that much of the California economy is shifting from agriculture to various forms of technology.
Technology as a tool can be used to bring about a greater respect for nature and the need to conserve all resources.
Still that debate about an agricultural economy needs to be addressed even further, perhaps in a separate venue in another article. But regardless of whether or not California embraces a new form of economy or not, Brechin worries that by the time the economy is severely impacted by the drought and other environmental concerns, the ability to act may be too late. Thompson and and even Brechin himself hopes not. Brechin’s perspective is not so much an admonishment as it is a warning and a heart-felt loving but firm plea. “Wake up dear ones!”
Professor Brechin’s books “Imperial San Francisco, Urban Power, Earthly Ruin” as well as “Farewell Promised Land,” can be purchased online from the University of California Press web site.
To learn more about Dr. Gray Brechin, PhD, his writings and his perspective, visit his web site.
