|
January 19th 2006 • Printer version
 AUTHOR TALK AND BOOKSIGNING
The Sierra Club's
Mike McCloskey 61
The Eugene native writes about Oregon forests, politics, and
industry in the 1940s and 50s and how they shaped his life as an environmentalist.
Mike McCloskey 61, retired Sierra Club Director and chairman and an
architect of the modern environmental movement, will speak about his
new memoir on Thursday, January 26 at 7:00 P.M. in Room 175 of the
Knight Law Center. His talk is free and open to the public. A
booksigning follows.
In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club (Island Press 2005,
cloth, 415 pages, $29.95) will be available at the event and at the University
of Oregon bookstore.
McCloskeys book opens with a description of his Eugene, Oregon
birthplace as it was in 1934: The slow rains of mild winters nourished
great stands of forests on the surrounding hills...more mass of wood
was found in the average acre of these forests than in any other in the
world. . . I took the lumber industry for granted, but I also took the
old-growth forests as a given.
(Read excerpts about environmental law and law school in the late 1950s and Eugene in the 1940s)
He started work as the Sierra Club's first field representative right after
he
graduated from the UO School of Law in 1961.
I wanted to shape the law, not just apply and interpret it,"
McCloskey said. I asked myself which causes were relevant to the
area where I lived. The answer was conservation. Oregon was then all
about natural resources and the issues concerning their use and future.
Later on, as the environmental organizations executive director, he
was present at the creation of Earthday in 1970, directed lobbying for
the enactment of over one hundred environmental laws, and helped Sierra
Club membership rise from 70,000 to half a million.
McCloskeys many accomplishments include his roles in establishing
North Cascades National Park and Redwood National Park. He is credited
with building support and ending opposition for the Wilderness Act.
McCloskeys legal skills, combined with his ability to rally support,
have had profound effects on environmental policy.
McCloskey initiated the Mineral King litigation in 1969, which resulted
in U.S. Supreme Court decisions to ease rules for lawsuits based on
environmental grounds. He was a major force leading to the passage of
the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal
government to review environmental impacts of federally funded
projects.
In the nineties, he led the fights against attempts to undercut EPA
regulations and against trade agreements that curtailed environmental
programs.
McCloskeys talk will be preceded by dinner with a number of UO law
alumni hosted by the law schools Environmental and Natural Resources
Law Program.
The ENR program and the UO Bookstore cosponsor his talk and booksigning.
INFO: Laura Carroll White (541) 346-4331 or Heather Brinton 346-3741.
Buy the book online
-E.S.
|
