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I'm Cally Crossley This is the Calla Crossley Show. The Charles River has been all things to all people. It's where Native Americans once fish. It's where thousands convene for one of the world's longest regattas once and infamous because authority for industrial waste. Dead fish and unwanted cars. Today it's a leafy and lush awaits us where we can dive into stretches of swimmable river. It's also the main character in a new book. Writer David Gessner along with his how eco planner Dan Driscoll paddled down the Charles in a three day excursion. Their canoe Chronicles are part adventure part meditation on a new kind of environmentalism. Yes new details how we can reconcile our inner tree huggers with our 21st century way of life. Up next David Geffen Earth's green manifesto. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Obama is

nominating Princeton economists Alan Krueger to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers. NPR's Ari Shapiro reports this puts Krueger at the head of a team in charge of executing the president's top priority in a White House Rose Garden statement the president praised Krueger's work as chief economist at the Treasury Department. Earlier in this administration. Now he'll rely on Krueger to come up with other ideas for improving the economy as the new CEO Chairman. I rely on the Council of Economic Advisors to provide unvarnished analysis and recommendations not based on politics not based on narrow interests but based on the best evidence. Based on what's going to do the most good for the most people in this country the announcement comes a week before a highly anticipated speech where President Obama will lay out new proposals to create jobs if confirmed by the Senate Krueger will replace outgoing Council Chairman Austin Goolsbee. Ari Shapiro NPR News Washington. Likely welcome news to the White House's economic team the Commerce Department says

consumer spending has risen eight tenths of a percent. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports July's increase is the largest in five months and is more than analysts were expecting. Consumers spent more and save less reviving hope that the third quarter is off to a stronger start. Most of the spending increase was due to purchases of cars and parts. The savings rate for the month decreased from five and a half percent to 5 percent. The increase in spending comes despite a decrease in consumer confidence and is considered a boost to economic health. Since two thirds of the U.S. economy is driven by spending. Yuki Noguchi NPR News Washington. Syrian security forces have stormed a northern village in their pursuit of an anti government protesters. Activists say at least one person was killed and many others wounded during raids and house to house searches. Turkey is once again criticizing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. NPR's Kelly McEvers reports the Turkish president stopped just short of calling for Assad to step down.

The statement was made by Turkey's second in command. President Abdullah Gul to a Turkish news organization girl said he's lost confidence in the Assad regime and he plans to enact reforms are too little too late. Google said the world has no place for authoritarian regimes and such governments can be replaced by force. Turkey had been one of Syria's main allies in the region earlier this month. It gave Syria two weeks to stop firing on anti-government protesters but dozens if not hundreds more were killed in cities and towns around the country. GL said he was saddened by the fact that the Syrian government keeps breaking its promises. The U.S. and some EU countries have already called for Assad to step down. Kelly McEvers NPR News Beirut. The Dow is up more than 200 points now a nearly 2 percent 11000 493 This is NPR. Downs across the eastern seaboard are assessing damage and cleaning up from the storm that was Hurricane Irene. Millions of customers are still without electricity for many. Power may not be restored for at least a week. Vermont is facing its worst floods in a

century in New York the big worry was the morning commute. The transit system shut down over the weekend for the first time because of weather slowly came back online and airlines are dealing with a heavy backlog of flight disruptions out of the New York area. A Chinese court has sentenced a Tibetan Buddhist monk to 11 years in jail on charges of intentional suicide for hiding another monkey. NPR's Louisa Lim has details. This sentence stems back to an incident in March when a 16 year old monk set himself on fire as a political protest. The monks uncool drunk who was today given an 11 year sentence. This after a court in the Tron province found had hidden the injured monk and prevented him from receiving emergency treatment so causing his death. A report on the state run news agency Sin Wa says drunk group ped guilty to murder and said he felt great regret. He said he wouldn't appeal the verdict to all the monks from the same on the street. He had to go on trial on

Tuesday for plotting instigating and assisting with the self-immolation where they live has seen a number of Tibetan protest against Chinese rule over the past few years. Louisa Lim NPR News Beijing. At last check Dow Jones Industrial up 210 points or one point eight percent at eleven thousand four hundred five Nasdaq up more than two and a half percent. Twenty five forty six. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News Washington. Support for NPR comes from Lending Tree providing multiple loan offers from a network of lenders. Learn more at Lending Tree dot com or 800 5 5 5 3. Good afternoon. I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show this hour we're rebroadcasting an interview we did earlier this summer. Since this weekend marks the last time many of us will be able to enjoy the great outdoors. We decided to

check back in with writer David Gessner an eco planner. Dan Driscoll in his new book My green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. David Gessner writes about a new practical everyday kind of environmentalism. David Gessner is a professor of writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He joined me in the studio with Dan Driscoll then Driscoll works for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and recreation. He was the project manager for the upper Charles River Reservation restoration program. He paddled the Charles River in a canoe with David Kessler. Although we did take listener calls during the original show since this is a rebroadcast we will not be taking part. Did you have a green manifesto first and then decided to go down the Charles that wasn't the other way

around. Well let me first say for both Dan and myself that it's very nice to have a theme song. There one can play wherever they were really happening simultaneously. But you know as I said in the intro I didn't have a lectern with me in the canoe I did not create my green manifesto which is a little bit tongue in cheek anyway. Well going down the river with Dan I had been kind of cast as a nature writer I was supposed to be one of those enviro speak profits. And I was getting tired of it. I couldn't tell jokes when I was that guy so I've been thinking about new a new language or a sloppy or funny or more blunt language to speak about nature with and at the same time I for a magazine assignment ended up going down the river with Dan and Dan seemed to embody a lot of that. You know he was actually living out when I was starting to think about as a writer. Dan you and David were college buddies and you also were in the business so to speak of environmentalism working for the state is you have recreation

part of it in the restoration part of it. What did it take why did it take much for you to be persuaded to get in the canoe with you. No it never takes much for people to persuade me to get out on the water in the river or in a canoe. I love it out there. In fact the love of being out there is partly what compelled me to work so hard at trying to make it a better place for the community. So I think once you know one day into it when the canoe cracked I was having my second thoughts as you know I think about the book but I was impressed that you knew to stick a sandal on it and stick some duct tape. I was impressive OK. But it was you. You were ready to go and you kind of sort of what David was going to find is as you all went down the river. I did I was. I I was really well aware that David was going to be surprised by how wild the upper Charles was how striking it is and his beauty and

also the amount of wildlife that you see out there. I think a lot of people think even with the cleaned up Charles thanks to the great efforts of S.R. whl xover watershed Association and especially in the 60s they spent about 100 million making this water cleaner and that he would be really struck by by how special it was and then when we came into the more urban transition area I was also looking forward it with excitement to show him how much cleaner it is not only the river but what we have done on the river banks through DCR to make this a really special place. Well first a few facts about the Charles that I'm going to get from both of you and then I I'd like David to read a bit about you. Traveling down the Charles in canoe and kayak 22 miles Dan long and what else can you tell us. Well the river I think what David wrote was from Hopkinton to Boston is obviously 26 miles because it is. It is the Boston marathon route. The river itself is 81 miles from Hopkinton to Boston showing us that it

meanders and twists and finds its own way. It's the longest river that has its entire course in the Commonwealth the Connecticut River is longer but it travels through multiple states. And it's you know the watershed itself is quite large. It contains a lot of communities in the metropolitan region whose activities and whatever they do end up in that river. And as I emphasized the Charles River Watershed Association has been doing great work on the water quality elements and most recently. As the water has gotten cleaner unfortunately there's been a big demand to extract it. So quantity has become the big challenge of this decade and making sure that these sort of so-called Interbase and transfers don't extract too much of the water and leave it in an ecological state of disrepair because of quantity not quality. OK David I'm going to ask you to read from your book by way of lead and I'm going to also note that you say really you turned into a quote nature writer

because of Dan and moving to Cape Cod and learning to appreciate there so you were of a mind set to begin to see the beauty alone. Sure I wasn't there just to kind of your test case there on the Charles I'd been thinking about the natural world for a long time. But I guess in a way it was breaking away from being a nature writer as you'll see in the past as you asked me to read. I think you want me to read this book I read ahead. That's the that's the first day demos talking about the surprise I felt on basically paddling from dawn to dusk without seeing anybody. I've always liked the word turtle like bowing or scrotum. It seems innately comic today turtles specifically painted turtles are my companions. Over the course of the afternoon I see hundreds of them almost despite myself I'm going to know they're yellow and dark green striped heads the orange under their shells the glistening water on the shelves before they plop into the water. It's a beautiful sight but let's face it this marsh isn't exactly pristine and in the black banks of Mach's icy tennis balls and beer

bottles and mysteriously dozens of orange golf balls. When I finally emerge from the marsh I pass a dock with a large American flag unfurled for the coming holiday and next to the dock a massive fire pit on the riverbank. It isn't until mid afternoon that I pass the first human being I've seen since living leaving Dan this morning. This is an amazing fact considering that I've been paddling through the suburban towns of Medfield in Millis. It's a guy about my age fishing under a bridge he claims to have caught 18 fish most recently a catfish in a bass. The Charles I know used to be a dead place dirty water as the song went so even the possibility that he's caught this many is reassuring. The guy asked me to look for a lure he lost downstream and I do so after shouting goodbye. Well let's let's us know how the how much beauty there is actually when I read that part about the turtles and everything I'm thinking on that Charles. I mean I really still do have a little bit of a bias about what one would find a line that you also have to say. So there you are the book starts with me comparing it to being on the Amazon or Colorado and and

then saying it's a little more modest than that though we did see sharks and hawks we saw within the first minutes of Dan joining me on the second day he had said in the book that he had to go fight for the state which took precedence over paddling in the first day. Yeah. Like for the river rather. And within I don't know an hour we saw deer on the banks. We saw all kinds of birds and it was it was pretty wild and in the book I argue for kind of a except in a more limited wild you don't have to go to the Amazon you don't have to go to the top of Everest. There's a wildness in our backyards and we certainly saw that as we paddled through these backyards. They seem like some secret the people had you know had the front of their house and they had this watery secret in their backyard. That's one of the reasons I like the book that I don't have to go to the Amazon to like nature is by reading your book OK we're taking a caller Barbara from Weston Massachusetts you're on the Cali Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven Go ahead please. I'm I'm so glad they were talking about the Charles River Ike years ago when my husband was alive and I and we were both in good shape. We've

done it from where we could put in our rather large canoe just above the Needham bridge and gone down chiles and across the bay and landed up in Newton Upper Falls. When we went with another couple so we had the set cars on either end and another time we went from the part that goes through walls. I am down to the dam. Yeah and it is a beautiful river and I agree with all your thing and you see turtles you see. Oh yeah it was it's my and then you get the fishing wall they have for the herring run right. Well Barbara I'm telling you it sounds like you read David's book. My goodness you're getting two parts that he describes distinctly in the book I have to tell part of the book is that everybody has similar experiences when they're in similar places to put ourselves in those places. Barbara what year was this when you when you were we DO YOUR we did a fire not me we do it periodically because they're right next to an eye it goes to parts of what part of west and in

the new western area right bam. So if we just used it that way this is a beautiful beautiful if you love to know paddle. It's this the beautiful river you can't believe you think you remain and part of it. Do you remember exactly what year you started doing this when trying to figure out if before they didn't claim it was back in the butt it was before it was cleaned up and my husband worked for a while for trials for watershed Association. OK and so that was the beginning of when he started which was back I think it was. But they finally found that we had was a dirty river. Right you do and you did see things like tires even when we started but then all you changed so plain Oh my goodness yes. Oh thank you Barbara. Because we know that you're going to be buying David's book then because it's telling you it's like your challenge challenge channeling the green manifesto I have to tell you. Thank you so much for your call thanks Barbara.

Thank you thank you for my comment on Barbara's call. I think what she's really emphasizing that is so eloquently presented in David's book is this this concept of contact which has always been. At the root of the environmental movement is that the initial contact with nature the enduring contact with it. And here we have in relatively urban suburban places an opportunity which we see as the DCR and many others have seized to go out and restore these riverbanks. And what's incredible is to see not only the animals and the wildlife come back but the people and the people reestablishing that contact. And while most people that go out in the nature very few of them will end up fighting for the environmental improvements or enhancements. But I think most of them really end up caring more about the natural world as a result of those experiences and that's really what I think David is trying to write about here is let's make the movement more inclusive for those that simply go out and enjoy it and come back and feel a little differently maybe behave a little differently

not necessarily ready to take up the fight and become members but it's a great stuff. I don't want to jump in there on that one. On the other side of this break when we come back we have much more to talk about this hour. We're spending that was Dan Driscoll's speaking and he's here with David Guest nice college buddy and the author of a new book called My green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. And we're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 0 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Are you saying goslings in the Charles River. Is it a walk around to make a pond. How are you reconnecting with nature this summer. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. We'll be back after this break stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Concord lamp and shade

Concord lamp and shade has been home to contemporary and traditional lamps and shades for over 30 years. You can visit them at Concord lamp and shade dot com or call 9 7 8 3 6 9 3000. And from Newberry court a full service residential community for persons over the age of 62. Newberry court invites you to schedule a visit any day of the week. Visitors are welcome for tours on Saturdays and Sundays by appointment. Newbury CT dot org and from WGBH to presenting the Jewish people a story of survival the first Jewish film organized around the central themes of survival and the achievement of a people. Tonight at 7:30 on WGBH too. On the next FRESH AIR Bring your appetite for food and conversation. We begin a week of interviews about food and cooking with Chef Grant Achatz. He co-founded a Chicago restaurant famous for its Avent garde food Achatz lost his sense of taste for a while after being diagnosed with tongue cancer. He's now in remission and has opened a new restaurant. Join us. This afternoon at 2:00 an eighty nine point seven WGBH.

The power behind public radio is listener support and just this summer your support has meant reporting like this. There are about twenty five hundred Navy SEALs who go through some of the toughest training in the military SEAL Team Six is even more exclusive if you take 20 guys that have done this. Why then so the losses in Afghanistan amount to about 10 percent of their force. That's what listener support means to WGBH show your support at WGBH dot org. Good afternoon. I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Cali Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about getting back to nature and reconciling that with our 21st century modern day ways. With this weekend being the last time so many of us will get to enjoy summer weather and the great outdoors. We're replaying a conversation I had earlier this summer with writer David Gessner an eco

planner Dan Driscoll. They reconnected with nature in a three day canoe trip down the Charles David Gessner has written about this adventure in his new book My green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. Dan Driscoll was instrumental in rehabilitating the Charles River. Though we took calls during the original show we cannot take calls this hour since this is a rebroadcast. David gets there. Now you want to add something to what Dan was saying well when we went to break. Yeah Dan was talking about contact and how it sometimes and sometimes doesn't lead to fighting for the place you love. I wanted to say that at the time we went down the river four years ago environmentalism was suddenly hot you know and Leo DiCaprio was on the cover of Vanity Fair with a polar bear you know and I wanted to do one thing that seemed missing to the from the conversation to me like a missing leg was this

contact. We had a lot about green underarm detergent we had green toilet paper twisty light bulbs. But I wanted to get back to the original Thoreau Vian thing of you know falling in love with the place because why else would you fight for the place. And I thought I have a chapter called The Myth of Dan which is a little tongue in cheek where I compare him to not sorry Dan. Yeah. When I compare him to Thoreau and Rachel Carson and I and John Muir and I say these did their their work their writing their gift to the world did not come from a vacuum. It came from specific places a lake a pond in Concord canyons and in callous your own place no place in a sense and a cove in Maine and that's where they went into retreat fell for the place thought deeply about it and returned with their gift whether it was a book activism you know some kind of I just think it's really interesting the way we treat is tied to worldly action for instance Thoreau is the greatest most famous retreat of all times Mr.

solitude. But if you flip over a card in Trivial Pursuit and it says who is Gandhi and Martin Luther King's biggest influence you flip it over and says the robe. So by going inward He gave an outward gift. Now one of the things that you tell your team and a couple of things in your book not only that connectedness that place that you want us to have to help us reconnect with nature. You're also talking about people who have sort of taken environmentalism to someplace else that it removes the place and this removes our connectedness in some way and they become for lack of a better expression and this is my expression not yours but I'll write you nasty e-mails extremists you know in the in the movement of environmentalism and I want you to read from the book. Mr. Peak Oil this this really got me about how far people can go when they are you know very fervent about a cause but this is a lot. Well you know I did and I will talk a little later. You know you do need the fervent people. Yeah. Of course

sometimes you get that what do you Allyn reaction I'm due back on planet earth right now. So this particular person whose name has been changed to protect the innocent is quite fervent. His marriage for instance has dissolved in part because he was critical of his wife for being concerned concerned with quotidian things like playing tennis and going out to dinner. How could she care about such petty concerns when the world was about to end. Lately he started talking about taking his kids up to the mountains with other like minded Peak Oil list where they could grow food and canned their own canned their own vegetables. Despite my own environmental leanings I can't help but feel that this plant has a Unabomber whiff to it. I first learned how serious things had gotten when he told me we needed to talk. He's not a big talker so I knew something was up. After a bunch of us he finally got to his point a couple of years before he and his wife had asked my wife and I to be the legal guardians of their children. Should anything have. But to them. But now he was having second thoughts. When I asked him some more before

mumbling something that I had to ask him to repeat I'm not sure you're going to make it he said. Make it in the coming times. Then by way of explanation he added you and your wife know nothing about canning food. Just burst out laughing when I read that I mean I didn't want to make fun of the guy but come on for real now. Well it's crazy you know. I mean unfortunately I mean that's part of what the book's about. We get you know all of us get labeled with that kind of extremist I mean you can use that phrase I think I use it in the book environmental extremists thing and I want to show that environment the Middle East can have a sense of humor can be hypocrites can be. Well we'll talk about the talks a little bit but can be sloppy and done and not you know that's one thing Dan and I were talking about earlier is if they if if young people reading the book get anything out of it. It's how much fun it is to be out in the wild world. Well Dan that's. You know that was an interesting point you make about just trying to reduce some of this intensity to the level that Mr. Peak oil here and the book is

described as having you know when I speak of college campuses I know that it's the college kids who are in front of the environmental movement. Right. And for sure they're not going to you know they're not at the place where they're telling somebody you can't look after my kids because you don't know how to canned food. Right. I just I'm going to get on board with a little bit more relaxed being a little bit more relaxed about that. I think it's a little more relaxed. I also think when I think of people like John Muir and Rachel Carson and Thoreau and Emerson extremists I think that's true but I think also there's contact which is why we went for a walk you see some nice birds you feel a little different you feel a little regenerated juvenalia in your spirit. But I think for these folks the people that I call a deep contact they immerse themselves in nature and they see things and experience things that the majority of us never do. And in that I think it becomes a spiritual quest spiritual quest in general can have an extreme feel to them. But these folks were all very much compelled by the

spirituality that nature brought to them in their in their contact which wasn't just a walk in some cases Mir would be out there for eight weeks. So it's it's a different kind of thing. Well. You know and I can relate to people who are you know who infuriate those folks because they have a larger question they want those of us who may not seem to be as concerned to be concerned. I went on a safari in Africa years ago and I am not known as a nature person please and I think gardening get away from me. I can't even think about it. I go screaming into the night but I'm on the safari in Africa and we're part of it. I just see the animals. The tour guides are very into the floor and the fun so they're describing in great detail this Florida and all of a sudden I'm much into the flora and fauna. Wow look at that little. Flower What does that mean and you start to really have a connection that you didn't think about and you know in that way I never would have thought about you know the land the earth the flowers in that way I think the John Muir quote probably is the most apt you know you pick up one thing in the universe

and find it hitched to everything else. I mean with me in the book I detail how I fell for Ospreys which had come back to Cape Cod the big Raptors Bird Yeah Raptors are probably thinking Jurassic Park. Yeah exactly. But what a great idea and how by getting into this one bird I started to get more into the natural world I started I ended up traveling illegally to Cuba and Venezuela just opened up my life in ways I didn't expect and if you told me before that oh you're going to fall for this bird and then you're going to do all these things I never would have believed. Exactly. All right let's take a caller. Iris Go ahead please you're on the Kelly Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven. How are you doing. I think I've been listening to the show and it made me so happy to hear that you all went down the Charles River and it's clean and and I can't wait. Great week to read your book but I should tell you I grew up on Charles K Road in Hopedale and our backyard was the Charles River and we play in there and jump from a

cat tailed cat you know a lot of times fall into our waste and muck and we'd be a mess and we had a great time and and yeah it smelled pretty funky back then I'll tell you that but it's what we did as children and to hear that it's clean hey that's cool too. I love that the word mock because I've been doing talks and I keep saying you know what does environmentalism start with It starts with mucking around. It's a groat coup. Yeah. Now Iris would you get in a kayak and take a little trip down the Charles the way that David and Dan did. Now that you know it's clean Absolutely and you know it's funny I live now I live on the banks of the acid though and I do that as much as I can with my young friend and their children and they love and we do count count the painted turtles and all the animals we see and it makes me feel like a youth again and I love it when I have my doubts. I don't know what my paddling with my my daughter who's eight and you know

you hear a lot about environmental education but once again you know you're you have an environmental education the mocking the paddling that's the good stuff. Think you're one of the new environmentalists now. I know it's OK to do a bad official you know environmentalists are right. Thank you so much for your call. Thank you all. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can give us a call there you can also send us a tweet or write to our Facebook page. You are listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kalee Crossley and we're talking about reconnecting with the great outdoors. I'm speaking with David Gessner a professor of writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a former Cape Cod resident. His new book is my green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. He joins me here today with Dan Driscoll. Dan Driscoll works for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and recreation.

He was project manager for the upper Charles River Reservation rez restoration program I'm going to get it out. You can get in on the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 3 0 1 89 70. Jean from Boston Go ahead please you're on the Calla Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven. Hi I love the topic and it's so timely. I'll try to be succinct. I have recently started having to stay in the city so to speak. These summer weekends because I'm spending time with a mom in a nursing home and so I'm not going to places in situations like where I would normally enjoy the marshes and that kind of thing that are so beautiful and to my utter delight I have discovered Millennium Park in West Roxbury and I have to paint who is ever responsible for the planning and design and all the things that go into places like this because it has been such a spiritual

little gem for me. You go there thinking. You're just going to it's an open space it's beautifully manicured it's a big open lawn and you can simply enjoy walking around and enjoy the wide open spaces of it which is just gorgeous. But I've also discovered it goes down into the Charles River as these guys obviously know. And because of all the natural growth the flora and fauna that's happening. I've seen amazing birds and insects that I wouldn't be able to name but that are just gorgeous and it has been an absolutely every time I go there now it's just such a surprise and I'm just so grateful that there are people who have done the work that they've done to create such a beautiful place in the city and I. There's other parts as well that one in particular is just. Beautiful and maybe you guys can talk

about places like that wouldn't maybe Absolutely. Maybe you will learn the names of those things you know they told me I needed bullet points at the end of the book and I don't like take the lint out of your dryer instead I one was fall in love with the place to start a fight for the place and three start a larger project about the place and a project can be started to learn the names of things I mean you get to know your neighbors. Dan has a great story about someone going out and kind of making contact with the place and maybe you can tell a little bit about what I mean. A couple of quick comments because this is both both of the last callers is just it. David writes a lot in the book about hope and that you know when we hear that things are hopeless and there's nothing we can do about them. It's easy to turn away. Callers like this were to give people like me and where I work in my agency so many good public workers hope to keep moving forward and doing good things. And there's a great irony in the park you're describing and then it's a former landfill.

Millennium Park was a landfill and here you come upon it as this transformed place you know teeming with life attached to the river. So it's and it's a good display of hope that we can we can take a place like that that's beaten up and transfer and transform it. I should point out though that this is hard work. I mean we don't want to we don't want to undermine that. And one thing I have I say to people is that you know making positive changes in the world is so difficult these days that many well-intended efforts actually leave the advocates with less hope. And I hope that we all. You know government and nonprofits and all and everybody working together. We need to make positive change an easier proposition. And I think that for example environmental regulation has become so complex that I think it needs to continue to evolve so that we can make appropriate development and positive change easier and inappropriate things like mountaintop mining mining harder.

But it has I think it has a fair way to go though. But thank you for those calls there. They're really inspiring. Just quickly the story David alluded to. I was actually coming down the river one day and was coming out on to an overlook deck that the DCR had built on the Charles. Two women were out there and they were throwing something in the river. Playing the environmentalist said what you guys just throwing something in the river there and they turned around both teary eyed and one of them said yeah that was our dad's ashes and. They generously offered me a little anecdotal story that their dad had actually their parents and them had grown up in Watertown. Their parents were on a fixed income and retired and were fairly miserable. And then all of a sudden all these pathways started showing up on the Charles River. And for about six or seven years the two of them retired. This elderly couple walked out there every possible day they could. It became the guys most important place in the world where he wanted to end up which is pretty stunning considering what it was.

That's Dan Driscoll my guest he's with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and recreation and he was instrumental in getting those walkways put in place and cleaning up. Along some parts of the Charles River so people could walk out and commune with nature. We have much more to talk about here including more with David Guest in his book My green manifesto. We are talking about what it takes to fall in love with nature and what it means to care about an outdoor space your backyard and oh oh tree or the lush leafy stretches along the Charles River. 8 7 7 3 0 170 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Tell us how you get your outdoor fix. We'll be back after this break. He put down a 9.7 WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Museum of Science.

Nature destroyed Pompei but also preserved it. You can experience the new exhibit a day in Bombay opening October 2nd at the Museum of Science. Tickets on sale now at M.O.s dot org. And from the castle group celebrating its 15th year delivering public relations social media and events management results that drive business locally nationally and internationally. You can find more information at the castle DRP dot com and from the 15000 WGBH sustainers who helped the station save thousands of dollars by having their contributions of 5 8 or 12 dollars a month automatically renew. Learn more at WGBH dot org. PR as the world brings you voices from around the globe in a place like a refugee camp a dollar an hour for work in an air conditioned computer lab is possibly the best job that you could ever come upon. It's your daily source for international news and a gateway to cultures beyond our borders. I'm Marco Werman. Join me right here for the next edition of the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven

WGBH. Hi I'm Bob C.. Host of Morning Edition of eighty nine point seven and I'm Brian O'Donovan host of a Celtic soldier August 30 1st marks the end of WGBH as the school year and while it's the most important time to support the programs you love this program is coming to you. Fundraiser free help keep your community connected to quality news and great music all throughout the year. Call 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 give online at WGBH dot org and thanks everybody for Hans's bones to the world he has seen. Didn't you see him in front of his brown instantly and he deafness gave my life coming up at eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just

tuning in we're talking about getting back to nature and reconciling that with our 21st century modern day ways. With this weekend being the last time so many of us will get to enjoy summer weather and the great outdoors. We're replaying a conversation I had earlier this summer with writer David Gessner an eco planner Dan Driscoll. They reconnected with nature in a three day canoe trip down the Charles David Gessner has written about this adventure in his new book My green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. Dan Driscoll was instrumental in rehabilitating the Charles River. Though we took calls during the original show we cannot take calls this hour since this is a rebroadcast. I want to talk with you David about something that you make clear all through the book that while we're talking about and we've already talked about Mr. Peak Oil being

a little bit extreme in his view is that those of us who may not consider ourselves extreme don't have to be pure in our pursuit of a new environmentalism tell us about that right. Well first let me you know I realized I was thinking during the break that we've been using the word beauty unlovely a lot. And as I say in the book you know I want to break away from the oh so lovely school of nature writing which isn't to say the world isn't lovely and an example that you brought up earlier was on the second afternoon we would jump to sewer conduit pipe the jump is an interesting word since we were in a canoe and most people would realize you can't really jump. Jan and I decided to go for it anyway basically cracking his boat in half and as you said jamming a sandal in and duct taping it. But that night we stayed in long did shear off of long ditch. In Dedham and Dan show me where we would camp in the grass was like five feet high and a machete to down with the canoe paddle and then we

paddled across. Once we set up our tent we paddle across Cow Island pond to the old Irish ale house where we people looked down from the balcony we tied up behind and went in and had stakes involved gimlets then paddled home saw Dan's first Australia on the river. So I think that's important bring up because that's environmentalism too. That's wildness too and one thing I talk about is the human wild and we have to not think of ourselves as in some box over here in the environment in some box over there. And I like the idea of a messier environmentalism and Dan had a great line on the first day. First morning paddling where he said you know we're all hypocrites and we kind of give ourselves a break we let ourselves off the hook because of that we say we drive a car you fly in a plane so I can fight for the environment. But Dan had a great you know he just said we need more hypocrites to fight and I'll let Dan kind of explain what he means if you like. Sure. I. You know as I said I would have been accused throughout my career obviously fighting hard under the leadership of the

CIA to try to make positive changes and calling people on some of their you know things that I thought they could do better whether it was recycling or getting out in nature more and then come back and say well you ski and you get on a plane now and then I said OK I'm I'm a hypocrite Absolutely. So I felt there was this real need to invite the hypocrite's which is really all of us on some level if you're an American especially to the movement and to tolerate in consistencies to Basically it meant that we have animal flaws. And one of the things I think I said to David as well is let's let's be realistic. The second law of nature is the law of entropy. All things tend towards disorder. We environmentalists and I think sometimes gets caught up in thinking it's going to stop what the Earth is doing on its own and I'm like no that you know things are happening species go extinct sometimes because of us sometimes not. We need to realize that we're not quite in as much control as we are let's live a good quality life. And let's also show people you know that if.

I don't want to let extreme hypocrites off the line either I mean a pit somebody is doing mountaintop mining or strip mining out west. We need to call those people to task. And I'm glad that the environmental groups that are out there doing that they need to keep doing that. But we also need to make it a more inclusive movement and say to people Look just because you do that you can still come out and you can still yell about it. OK. Here's a comment from our Facebook page. This is from Mark Delaney. He says I wonder if some people might miss the nature that's in the city caught up in the tar and pavement the cars the buildings and the concrete skyline. When I'm in the city I focus on the trees and the green spaces which there should be more of some of my best memories from six years working on Mass Ave Cambridge where my afternoon walks through the back neighborhoods to Central and Harvard Square's. Nature is everywhere in the city. You just have to seek it and follow it. It will repay you a thousandfold Well that's a perfect lead in to one of a quote from your book that I'd like you to read over there Mark Gessner about nature in the city

being devalued by many. All right. The places we passed prove his point. Industrial parks car lots. Chain link fences right on the river. After its stately ramble through the large lawn suburbs the Charles turns gritty. True it isn't the nature you find in Sierra magazine. It is not distant pristine and pure. It's not the nature of the National Park. The nature you need to drive or fly to see. Instead it's the nature of the creek that runs through your neighborhood. The nature of the abandoned lot the nature of the small secret patch of beach protected by rocks. I understand that there are those who would scoff at my trying to make claims for will for the wilderness of Needham. But I think we are making a deadly mistake if we ignore the smaller more compromised patches. Since that is what so many of us are left with and that is David Gessner who is the author. OK my green manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism Let's take some calls.

Yeah I'm on the road. You're on the Kelly Crossley Show Go ahead please. Thank you thanks for taking my call. This is that program I grew up in the projects just outside of central square and the river was pretty much the only place we had to go there was any great space. This is this is. Back of this but. I want to congratulate you for having used the banana David on together because putting the liberal arts and science together like this is very important as well to have a writer who is not necessarily a science is putting this and putting dance great work into troops is a tremendous service. I know how to put this. I'm driving right now from lawfully on the cape up to North Adams so I feel like I feel like I'm going from God's country to go its country. Wow I have a house in Wellfleet. I couldn't agree more.

I was just there this morning and everything's looking for the good out there and I'm heading out to the Berkshires. I don't know what I did to deserve this but. I'm really enjoying the work of BCR Asaad of watershed resources is by you know the province of Washington up to the Birchers. Everybody's doing such great work I don't know how anybody could not support all the great work I was going to ask. I really thank you thank you very much Jim. Thanks for the call. Thanks Jim and I would I would like to give. I worked at the Commonwealth for 25 years and I think what Jim is alluding to I mean this in those 25 years the current administration with Governor Patrick but also Secretary Jeff Ma wanted our transportation agency and Secretary Sullivan who is it is the secretary of the environment and my Commissioner Ed Lambert I have never seen a team more dedicated to the continuation of what we're talking about

today and presently in the Commonwealth. There is tens of millions of dollars dedicated to pedestrian and bicycle enhancements along Green ways of this type. So it's a really exciting time in gyms noting it appropriately. Dan while you're speaking I'd love you to share. What it took to take back some of the pieces of land along the Charles in the book David makes very clear that we many of us might I did. I thought that was just private land but in fact some part of that land is owned by the state and you had to go in there and talk to people and get them to see why it needed to be returned to its wildness that the early you know early park visionaries particular Charles Eliot and others back in the early 1900s had actually purchased the land on behalf of the Commonwealth post-World War Two it fell into disrepair. The Commonwealth itself as well as the citizenry turned their backs on the river which was dirty and the land people being territorial slowly kind of

encroached out there so now there had been a few decades of use where they just assumed that it passed on to other hands and everyone assumed it was theirs. The real critical element in all of this is that in state parklands the laws of adverse possession that you can say it's mine now because I've been here for 15 years don't apply to state park land and one individual in particular I really want to credit is Jim milky who with the he was with the attorney general's office. He helped me customize a really proactive solution that didn't ostracize these people and think that they needed lawyers to countersue us. We came at them reasonably and frankly a number of them as David points out in the book have now been converted into stewards. People that had illegal encroachments on Parkland are now taking care of those new parks so it was a really successful thing. I. Know that part of the book really surprised me that piece about the land being you know owned by the state I didn't know that so that was really important. And the reason I bring that up is many reasons because I think we should all know that and

that was an important point that you make in your book but also because we've come so far in the cleanup and the revitalization of this land that the Charles River people is now a finalist for an International River prize. I don't know how many people know that the Charles River. Is up with two other places one is the Tolly you tell me if that's correct pronunciation Dan and my Tele in California and the Yarra River in Victoria Australia and the Charles is the third to be considered and this is no small thing. If you get this prize the winner gets a $250000 cash award and a hundred thousand Great hundred thousand dollar grant to share the river restoration expertise with another river. Oh that's amazing. I'm wondering if those rivers have theme songs the way we do. I know you do. Here's a quote from the study from the International River foundation just to let you know how big this is. Says the Charles River should be congratulated for their achievement as a finalist for best River Basin

manager vying for the world's largest environmental prize creates a lot of competitive tension with winners to join the ranks of iconic rivers like the Thames the Danube and the Mekong. Pretty amazing. That's outstanding I mean that's where I heard the Charles River Watershed Association man you know mentioned several times there doing just yeoman's work out here they're probably one of the premier watershed associations in the country that helps a lot. And trustees of reservations on the river as well as as I said the DCR has made huge efforts out here and it's really exciting. You have mentioned several times wildness and what you mean by wellness you know limited wellness not necessarily the Amazon but what we may encounter on a daily basis. The other thing that you mention that I think needs to be talked about is joy and how you felt often as sometimes the joy in the appreciation of the environment which leads then to one want to fight for it is missing.

Yeah I mean it's a strange time. I have a piece here where I say you know wordless n'est ce leads to words in my case. You know often it's those small moments that spark much more thought and everything later on. And I made it clear that I meant weild you know there's a famous throw quote in what and wildness is the preservation of the world and people mangle it and say and wilderness and I'm saying no it's not wilderness. For instance I write about the joy I felt when my daughter was born and the joy or not joy but the wildness I felt holding my dad's hand as he died and it was this deep animal feeling that reconnected me and made me remember we all know it in theory but in fact that I'm an animal too and I'm an animal with terrain and turf. And when I'm in places that. That cause that your way it stirs something up in me and one of the things that stirs up that's not always hand-in-hand is that is wanting to defend my turf and fight for it. And

I just I just think it's so much part of all of us we but we've evolved we evolved in the natural world for millions of you know thousands and thousands of years and now we say well that's over there. That's you know that's a park and that's nonsense. You know we're we're still like the last caller said you know he's stirred by the coast and he started by the mountains and and we're just so lucky to have that. When you say a new environmentalist what comes to mind. LS Well I think we were down I was just talking you know it's really in some ways it's an old environmentalism it's saying let's get a little less policy driven and wonky and get back to what they're always talking about when he's talking about contact but in a way it's also saying we don't have to wear our Saint robes when we go into nature we don't have to speak in a hushed whisper Oh the butterfly God's creature. We can joke around we can we can make you know fart jokes we can we can you know. Most fun times I've ever had my life been around a campfire and believe me you're not solemnly

speaking the whole time. So I think it's both things it's gotten back to the roots of why we're fighting for in the first place. And it's using an everyday language a messy language of funny language for me. All right and for you Dan for me I mean I agree with the increased joy the decrease in sort of disparity that it's hopeless but I this weekend I had an interesting anecdote I was out camping in Myles Standish state forest with my my wife and my 5 year old son Dylan. And we had been there for two days just running around bonfires things David writes about in his in his book. And we woke up Sunday morning and my Dylan turned to me and said so we going home today and I said yeah we are and he said why can't we just move our friends here and stay here forever. And it really hit me how even as hard as I try to get Dylan out into the wilderness and into the woods and walking and canoeing and all these things he still feels like probably his life is a little too over structured and it was

like I want to come back here where we have bonfires every night. I can fish in it. I mean I think that's a big part of the environmentalism that David's writing about is that it's it's just remembering that we're all in this together that you don't have these fraction groups over here fighting one fight and you know you're not part of that because you drive a car and do these other things. And all I could say to the you know the listeners really is just get out every time you go out doors something special seems to happen and that's environmental ism. And we're not doing it enough. And it's and most importantly it's free. It's really available to everyone especially with all the urban war that's happened under DCR and other groups. Well my friends and while fam will be shocked when I call them to say let's go to that place I read about in this book. I want to go see that blue heron bridge and some other things I'm shocked they will grab their hearts I can assure you. They're all who are listening the book is funny not heavy so you'll enjoy it and we'll I guess belong in that.

You've been listening to a rebroadcast this hour. We were talking about getting outdoors getting dirty talking about with David Gessner and Dan disco. DAVID Yes there is a professor of writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His new book is migraine manifesto down the Charles River in pursuit of a new environmentalism. Dan Driscoll works for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and recreation. He was project manager for the upper Charles River Reservation restoration program. You can keep on top of the Cali costly show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Antonio only our Jane pivot and Alan Magnus and produced by Chelsea

Mertz will Rosalynn and Abby Ruzicka our intern is senior award where production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station news held true.