Lindbergh's higher calling

Early in the morning on May 20, 1927, my grandfather, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, took off in the Spirit of St. Louis in a misty fog from a muddy field near New York City. When he landed 33-½ hours later at Le Bourget Field outside Paris, he became the first aviator to fly nonstop solo from New York to Paris across the Atlantic Ocean.

Before he made his flight, people who flew in airplanes were called barnstormers, daredevils and flying fools. After he made his flight, people who flew in airplanes were called pilots and passengers. His flight accelerated the course of aviation — and human — history.

As a result, scheduled commercial flights became broadly available. Transcontinental flights soon followed and travelers could fly from one end of the globe to the other. Charles Lindbergh may not have recognized the real importance of his flight in the spring of 1927, but he began to recognize its full impact as the years went by.

In their flights together around the globe, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh realized that the advancing technology that gave us tremendous power over life could also threaten our quality of life. In this way, they became pioneer advocates for environmental awareness and protection. As early champions of ecology, they envisioned a need for striking a proper balance between technological advances and protecting the fragile environment.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Grandfather traveled the world on behalf of wildlife preservation. At the same time, he wrote eloquently that "perhaps we can now accept our responsibility to Earth, and our heritage from it, which we must protect if we are to survive."

His and my grandmother's tireless efforts were credited with helping save the Alaskan gray wolf, the blue and humpback whales, the monkey-eating eagle, the one-horned Javan rhinoceros, and a number of once-endangered species in East Africa. My grandfather also served on the World Wildlife Fund's board of trustees from 1966 until his death in 1974.

On the 50th anniversary of my grandfather's epic flight, a group of my grandparents' friends gathered at The Explorers Club in Manhattan and were joined by Gen. James Doolittle and astronaut Neil Armstrong to create an organization to honor my grandparents. They established The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, which provides grants to researchers and educators whose projects seek a balance between the technological advancements the Lindberghs helped to pioneer, and the preservation of the human and natural environments they cherished.

A prime example is the current push to wean ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, much of it under the control of unstable and unfriendly regimes.

One recent grantee, Dr. David Sands of Montana State University, is working on a promising project to use state-of-the-art molecular techniques and mushrooms as a host organism to produce an enzyme that can convert ordinary vegetable cooking oils like canola and safflower into special, high-value, bio-based lubricants like axle grease and motor oil. If successful, its forthcoming products could go a long way in replacing much of the 8 billion quarts of motor oil and other lubricants annually consumed in the United States.

The Lindbergh Foundation is quite unique within the philanthropic community since its major areas of concern impact such diverse fields of study, including conservation, development and sustainability of natural resources, agriculture, aviation and aerospace, education, health and waste management.

To date, 270 men and women have received more than $2.6 million to support such studies. Grantees can receive up to $10,580 — the exact cost of building the Spirit of St. Louis 79 years ago.

While perhaps small compared to others, the grants are prestigious and legitimize research, thus leading to larger, more-expensive studies. More than three-fourths of the awardees attract supplemental support from other organizations.

As pioneer aviators, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh developed a unique "overview" perspective of our planet. They fought hard to preserve the quality of life that they knew — for their children and for future generations.

The enormous changes they witnessed in the land, air and sea from advancing technology fostered what I believe is their greatest legacy — the foundation that bears their name and has strived to carry on the concept of balance between nature and technology.

Erik Lindbergh is a pilot, sculptor and speaker who lives in the Seattle area. He is a grandson of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh and chairman-elect of the Lindbergh Foundation (lindberghfoundation.org).