TV Reviews : ‘David Brower,’ ‘Profit’ Follow Earth Day Theme

Stewardship of the planet Earth can take many forms. Hewing to this week’s Earth Day theme, PBS devotes two documentaries tonight to close-up looks at environmentalists in action, but the portraits could hardly be more different in tone.

“For Earth’s Sake: The Life and Times of David Brower” (9 p.m. on Channels 28 and 15, 10 p.m. Channel 24) sketches the career of a traditional environmentalist who has been compared to Thoreau and John Muir in the scope of his dedication to saving nature from the ravages of industrial development.

“Profit the Earth” (8 p.m. on Channels 15 and 50, 9 p.m. on Channel 24, 10 p.m. on Channel 28) introduces a new group of activists who break through the old stereotypes of “bad-guy” industrial polluters--insisting that we can’t afford to clean up the Earth--versus “good-guy” environmentalists retorting that we can’t afford not to.

The new activists have abandoned the confrontational tools of protest and lawsuits to work within the economy, seeking creative ways to reshape the free enterprise system so that everybody wins. “The new environmentalists,” proclaims the narrator, “are giving the word ‘profit’ a new meaning.”

In juxtaposition, the two shows present an effective snippet of contemporary history at what seems to be a pivotal moment of change.

David Brower, now 77, who has headed both the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, is the quintessential model of an Industrial Age environmentalist, waging battles to save lakes from being dammed and redwoods from being destroyed. John de Graaf’s documentary captures both the personal passion of the man (“the environment was all he wanted to talk about at the dinner table,” says his son) and the grandeur of the wilderness Brower has spent his life protecting.

In contrast, “Profit the Earth” focuses on men and women who are replacing the traditional “battle” language and tactics with problem solving. They are environmental entrepreneurs, a diverse and fascinating lot whose common trait is the ability to view old problems with new perspectives.

Two of the new environmentalists are economists with the Environmental Defense Fund. In California, Zach Willey is completing a complex plan for thirsty Los Angeles to buy surplus water from farmers instead of diverting it from Mono Lake. In Washington, Dan Dudek is lobbying for an emission-trading provision in the Clean Air Act that would “make industry a partner, not a foe,” in cutting acid rain emission by allowing industries that fall below the government-set pollution limit to sell its leftover allotment for a profit to another industry.

Some businesses are small scale: Gene Anderson of Seattle who runs a reusable cloth diaper service, but realizes that disposable diapers are a major contribution to the nation’s landfill problem, is recycling disposable diapers, sanitizing the plastic and marketing it for new products.

Others are large: At Minnesota’s 3M Company, which manufactures 60,000 products and accounts for 2% of the nation’s industrial pollution, a stringent program for redesigning products and recycling has cut 450,000 tons of pollution and saved a half a billion dollars in 15 years. “Profit the Earth,” produced by the Nebraska ETV Network, does not pretend that the new environmentalists have a handle on solving the planetary crisis. But it does focus on an emerging energy and optimism.

“I don’t think we have tapped a millioneth of our potential as a society,” says Dan Dudek. That’s not a bad message for Earth Day.