约翰·缪尔

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约翰·缪尔 (1838年 - 1914年)

约翰·缪尔出现在加利福尼亚地区

约翰·缪尔 (1838年 4月21日 – 1914年 12月24日) ，早期环保运动的领袖。他的大自然探险文字，包括随笔、专著，特别是关于加利福尼亚的内华达山脉，被广为流传。缪尔帮助保护了约塞米蒂山谷等荒原，并创建了美国最重要的环保组织塞拉俱乐部。他对待自然的价值观，帮助人们善待自然。

[编辑] 简历

缪尔生于苏格兰东洛锡安的Dunbar，父母是Daniel Muir和Ann Gilrye，在八个子女中排行第三，其他孩子包括长于缪尔的Margaret、Sarah，还有比缪尔年幼的David、Daniel、Ann和Mary (双胞胎)，以及在美国出生的Joanna 。在缪尔的自传中，他还忆起幼时的两项体验，很大程度上影响到了他后来的生活。他与伙伴玩接力赛跑，一玩就是几个小时，锻炼了其长跑的耐力。另外他还遗憾地回忆起儿时太顽皮，恶意杀戮了当地的许多小鸟，只是为了寻求一点刺激。

1849年，缪尔移居美国，他家在Marquette County, Wisconsin开始经营农场。缪尔在威斯康星大学上了几年学，但并没有从这所人的大学毕业，他决定加入"荒野大学"，他从印第安纳走到佛罗里达，旅程长达1000英里，花费了1866年到1867年大部分时间，当时他是Indianapolis的工业工程师，一次工厂事故严重破坏了他的视力。他原计划继续前往南美洲，但由于疟疾，改为前往加利福尼亚。

从Inspiration Point遥望约塞米蒂山谷

1968年3月，缪尔抵达旧金山，在得知有个叫约塞米蒂的地方后，他随即前往。他被约塞米蒂山谷深深地吸引住了，他写道：“没有哪个人造的殿堂可以跟约塞米蒂相比”，“(约塞米蒂)是大自然最壮丽的神殿”

在前往游览八天后，他返回了内华达山脉的山麓，然后先后当了渡船工、牧羊人，驯马员。1869年5月，牧场主Pat Delaney给缪尔提供了一份夏季工作，在山中看管Delaney的羊群和牧羊人。缪尔兴高采烈地接受了这份工作，在随后的这个夏天里，他一直跟羊群在约塞米蒂区域。这个夏天，缪尔还攀登了大教堂峰、Mount Dana，并徒步穿越了从Bloody Canyon到Mono Lake的传统印第安人区域。也就是在这段时间里，他开始思考此区域如何形成以及生态系统如何运作的理论。

而后缪尔更加热爱这片土地，他还经客栈老板James Hutchings指导，在约塞米蒂山谷获得了一份操作锯木机的工作。缪尔是个天生的发明家，他设计了一个水力磨坊，用于切割被风刮倒的树。另外，缪尔还在约塞米蒂小溪岸边为自己建造了一座小屋。

对科学特别是地质学的热爱，占据了他的空余时间，缪尔很快确信正是冰川塑造了山谷及其周边地区的面貌。但当时普遍接受的观点，则认为使山谷形成的使灾难性的地震，提出者是约西亚·惠特尼(加利福尼亚地质勘测的领袖)。随着缪尔观点的传播，惠特尼曾试图损害缪尔的声誉，声称缪尔只是一个业余爱好者，甚至有些不学无术。但当时地质学的领军人物路易斯·阿加西认同了缪尔观点，并称赞他是"第一位具备有冰川运动概念的人"。

1871年，缪尔在圣母峰下面发现了一处活跃的高山冰川，此发现使得他的理论更为人所接受。他还是一位多产的作家，写了许多报告及文章，有的远在纽约发表。也是那一年，缪尔的偶像之一，拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生来到约塞米蒂寻找他。缪尔原来在威斯康星大学的教授Ezra Carr及其妻子Jeanne，鼓励缪尔发表其观点。他们还将缪尔引荐给了许多名人，包括爱默生，还有许多科学界的领袖，比如路易斯·阿加西、约翰· 丁铎尔、约翰·叨雷、克林顿·哈特·梅里厄姆以及约瑟夫·勒孔特。

1872年3月，加利福尼亚Lone Pine的欧文斯谷发生了大地震(参见1872年Lone Pine地震)，约塞米蒂山谷有强烈震感。缪尔被震醒后，兴奋地跑出小屋，高呼"A noble earthquake!"(一场伟大的地震)。而其他山谷居民，仍坚持惠特尼的观点，害怕地震将导致山谷的强烈灾变。但缪尔并不害怕，他趁着月光，考察地震导致的石块滑道。这则事件使更多的人相信缪尔关于山谷形成的观点。

除了进行地质研究，缪尔还调查约塞米蒂的物种。1873年、1874年，他沿着塞拉山脉的西侧进行了两次野外考察，主要研究独立巨衫树林的分布与生态。1876年，美国科学促进会发表了缪尔关于巨衫生态分布的论文。

缪尔在加利福尼亚小镇Martinez的家

1880年，缪尔与Louisa Wanda Strentzel结婚，她的父母在位于加利福尼亚Martinez (旧金山东北部的一个小镇)，拥有一块很大的牧场和果园。在随后的十年时间里，缪尔致力于经营家里的牧场，并搞得很成功。 (他去世得时候，留下了价值25万美元的遗产，他们的房屋以及部分牧场，现在成为了国家的历史遗址。) 在这段时间里，两个女儿Wanda和Helen先后出生。

[编辑] 缪尔的西北之旅

1888年，在管理Strentzel家族产业7年之后，缪尔感觉有些心力交悴。在植物学家Charles Parry的陪同下，缪尔前往太平洋西北部以及阿拉斯加旅行。这段旅行成为了缪尔人生的转折点。缪尔此后又开始写作、爬山。

[编辑] From studying to protecting

Muir's attention soon started to switch from studying the Yosemite area and Sierra to protecting it. A precipitating event for him was the discovery of a sign illegally claiming private ownership in Kings Canyon, and loggers cutting down ancient Giant Sequoia groves south of present day Sequoia National Park. Louisa Muir encouraged her husband to retire from managing the family ranch so he could devote himself fully to his conservation work.

Muir threw himself into his new role with great vigor. He envisioned Yosemite area and the Sierras as pristine lands without domesticated animals and free of people, including Native Americans. He saw the greatest threat to the Yosemite area and the Sierras to be livestock, especially domestic sheep (calling them "hooved locusts"). In "My First Summer in the Sierra" he writes about his encounter with the Indians describing his impression; "A strangely dirty and irregular life these dark-eyed dark-haired, half-happy savages lead in this clean wilderness." In June 1889, the influential associate editor of Century magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson, camped with Muir in Tuolumne Meadows and saw firsthand the damage a large flock of sheep had done to the grassland. Johnson agreed to publish any article Muir wrote on the subject of excluding livestock from the Sierra high country. He also agreed to use his influence to introduce a bill to Congress that would make the Yosemite area into a national park, modeled after Yellowstone National Park.

A bill essentially following recommendations that Muir put forward in two Century articles ("The Treasure of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed National Park", both published in 1890), was passed by Congress on September 30, 1890. To the dismay of Muir, however, the bill left Yosemite Valley in state control. With this partial victory under his belt, Muir helped form an environmental organization called the Sierra Club on May 28, 1892 and was elected as its first president (a position he held until his death 22 years later). In 1894 his first book, The Mountains of California, was published.

In July of 1896 Muir became good friends with another leader in the conservation movement, Gifford Pinchot. That friendship was ended late in the summer of 1897 when Pinchot released a statement to a Seattle newspaper supporting sheep grazing in forest reserves. Muir confronted Pinchot and demanded an explanation. When Pinchot reiterated his position Muir told him "I don't want any thing more to do with you." This philosophical divide soon expanded and split the conservationist movement into two camps: the preservationists, led by Muir, and Pinchot's camp, who co-opted the term "conservationist." Muir was deeply opposed to commercializing nature. The two men debated their positions in popular magazines as Outlook, Harper's Weekly, Atlantic Monthly, World's Work, and Century. Muir argued for the preservation of resources for their spiritual and uplifting values; Pinchot saw conservation as a means of intelligently managing the nation's resources. Both men opposed reckless exploitation of natural resources, including clear-cutting of forests.

In 1899, Muir accompanied railroad executive E. H. Harriman and other esteemed scientists on Harriman's famous exploratory voyage along the Alaska coast aboard the luxuriously refitted 250-foot steamer called the George W. Elder. He would later rely on his friendship with Harriman to apply political pressure on Congress to pass conservation legislation.

Roosevelt and Muir

In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt accompanied Muir on a visit to the park. Muir joined Roosevelt in Oakland, California for the train trip to Raymond. The presidential entourage then traveled by stagecoach into the park. While traveling to the park, Muir told the president about state mismanagement of the valley and rampant exploitation of the valley's resources. Even before they entered the park, he was able to convince Roosevelt that the best way to protect the valley was through federal control and management.

After entering the park and seeing the magnificent splendor of the valley, the president asked Muir to show him the real Yosemite. Muir and Roosevelt set off largely by themselves and camped a few ranges into the backcountry. While circling around a fire, the duo talked late into the night, slept in the brisk open air and were dusted by a fresh snowfall in the morning - a night Roosevelt never would forget.

Muir then increased efforts by the Sierra Club to consolidate park management and was rewarded in 1905 when Congress transferred the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley into the park.

Pressure then started to mount to dam the Tuolumne River for use as a water reservoir for San Francisco. The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley was passionately opposed by Muir who called Hetch Hetchy a "second Yosemite." Muir, the Sierra Club and Robert Underwood Johnson fought against inundating the valley and Muir even wrote Roosevelt pleading for him to scuttle the project. After years of national debate that polarized the nation, Roosevelt's successor, Woodrow Wilson signed the dam bill into law on December 19, 1913. Muir felt a great loss from the destruction of the valley, his last major battle.

John Muir died in Los Angeles on December 24, 1914 after a brief visit to his daughter Wanda. Some, such as Steve Roper, a California climber, say he died of a "broken heart". [1]

The John Muir Trail, the John Muir Wilderness, the Muir Woods National Monument, John Muir College (a residential college of the University of California, San Diego), and John Muir Country Park in Dunbar are named in his honour. An image of John Muir, with the California Condor and Half Dome, appears on the California state quarter which was released in 2005.

[编辑] 名言

"Most people are on the world, not in it; have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them, undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate." John Muir Information Guide - On People and the Wilderness

"Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit - the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge." A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf

[编辑] 引用

[编辑] Primary sources

Muir, John (1997). John Muir: Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth; My First Summer in the Sierra; The Mountains of California; Stickeen; Essays, Library of America. ISBN 1-883011-24-8.

[编辑] Secondary sources

Ehrlich, Gretel (2000). John Muir: Nature's Visionary, National Geographic. ISBN 0-7922-7954-9.
Meyer, John M. (1997). "Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and the Boundaries of Politics in American Thought". Polity 30 (2): 267-284. ISSN 0032-3497.

Miller, Char (2001). Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-822-2.
Smith, Michael B. (June 1998). "The Value of a Tree: Public Debates of John Muir and Gifford Pinchot". The Historian 60 (4): 757-778. ISSN 0018-2370.

Turner, Fredrick (1985). Rediscovering America, John Muir in His Time and Ours, Viking Press. ISBN 0-87156-704-0.
Wolfe, Linnie Marsh (1945). Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-18634-2.
Wuerthner, George (1994). Yosemite: A Visitor's Companion, 25-37, Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-2598-7.

[编辑] 参见

[编辑] 其他书籍

Sachs, Aaron (2006). The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Envionmentalism, Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03775-3. Muir is one of four people the author focuses on who were influenced by Alexander von Humboldt.

[编辑] 其他条目

John Muir Trust, Scottish charity
John Muir High School (Pasadena, California), high school
John Muir College
Muir Woods, in Northern California
Timeline of environmental events

[编辑] Trivia

Author Dan Simmons named a tree on his fictional planet of God's Grove after John Muir.

[编辑] 外部链接

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