Fresno resident portrays environmental activist at Pine Ridge Assn. meeting

Published in the Feb. 19 – March 4, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Staff Report

Photo by Marty Cheek Frank Helling in front of the El Toro painting at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center

Photo by Marty Cheek
Frank Helling in front of the El Toro painting at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center

At their annual meeting Feb. 1 at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center, members of the Pine Ridge Association, the nonprofit group that supports Henry W. Coe State Park, enjoyed a talk by environmental activist “John Muir” as portrayed by Fresno resident Frank Helling. Morgan Hill Life asked Helling to talk about the modern world as Muir might see it.

John Muir

John Muir

Mr. Muir, you first arrived in California in 1868, then walked from Oakland to Yosemite Valley, passing through our South Valley region in the spring. What were your impressions of the valley at that time?

As I wandered enchanted down the Coast Range, the goodness of the weather was beyond all praise. The sky was perfectly delicious, sweet enough for the breath of angels. The hills were robed with the greenest grass and richest light I ever beheld and colored and shaded with myriad flowers of every hue. Larks filled the air with music, strange and beautiful mountain ferns, brakes of blooming shrubs making it an Eden. And oh, what streams, singing as they go on their pathways to the sea. Leaves, flowers, birds, bees, mingling together in spring-time harmony. Sauntering to the deep heart-beats of Nature worries, cares, are happily forgotten.

When you visited Morgan Hill recently, you must have seen a lot of changes in the South Valley region. What changes might have impressed you the most?

What impressed me was what has been saved. Some had the wisdom to preserve some of nature’s beauty in Henry Coe State Park and elsewhere. We need beauty as well as bread — places to play in and to pray in where nature may heal body and soul alike.

In the Morgan Hill Unified School District, one of our local schools (San Martin/Gwinn Elementary) will become an “environmental science” magnet school starting next school year. Why is it important to teach young people respect for the environment?

Our environment is our life support system. We are inseparable. The plants give us the air we breathe. When passing a tree, inhale and say “thank you.” The living soil supplies our food, the sky clouds, rain the water we drink. All nature feeds our spirit. We all come from the same source. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. It is essential to awaken in children a sense of wonder and teach them to live in harmony with the Earth if we are to survive as a species.

You invented several interesting machines and have an interest in technology. How do technology and the environment relate with each other?

When I was young I had a talent for inventing and thought I would make my living working with machines, but I also had intense love for the natural world. Nature won. I gave up working with machines, the inventions of man, and devoted my life to nature, the inventions of God. Green technology is needed to solve many of our problems created by “dirty” technology, but technology alone will not save us. We must learn to live lightly and in harmony with the Earth.

What words would you share with 21st century Americans about the conservation movement and how they should be involved?

We are beginning to awaken to a realization that we are in a crisis. In China, when they write the word “crisis,” they use two characters — the first being danger, the second, opportunity. Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid hit the earth, wiping out the dinosaurs and causing the planet’s fifth mass extinction. About 65 percent of all species became extinct, paving the way for us.

Today the danger is an “us-teroid.” Human beings have disturbed and degraded the environment to the extent where we are losing 40 to 50 species per day. If we continue with “business as usual,” we may lose half of the Earth’s species in the next 50 years, ourselves included. We are standing on the edge of a precipice. That is the danger.

Where is the opportunity? We can turn, take a different path and go forward. In every adventure the hero faces a danger and does what is necessary to prevail. David Brower said, “Our greatest foes are apathy and despair.” Each of us can contribute to saving the planet for future generations. We each have gifts, talents. We need to find them and act. Then our children, grandchildren and those generations unborn will look back and say “thank you.”