Pesticide and Environmental Update
The
Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox
Lost in The Fumes
By KARYN STRICKLER
Counter Punch, Apri1 9, 2008
In 2004 I was recruited by grassroots activists to run, as a reform
candidate, for a spot on the national Sierra Club Board of Directors. At
the time, I believed that election was going to be a battle of the old
guard versus the reformers. I thought then that the old guard wanted to
maintain power for power's sake and perpetuate the status quo. Reformers
wanted stronger protections and fewer compromises on environmental issues
and more grassroots involvement in the process.
All efforts at reform were squished that year, and for a long time to
come, when reformers were overwhelmed by a masterful public relations
campaign orchestrated by Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope, who
deceptively, but successfully made Club members, the nation and the world
believe that the Board was about to be taken-over by an anti-immigration,
hate group.
In the 2004 Board election, a group whose membership is still a
mystery, called Groundswell Sierra, orchestrated a bizarre independent
expenditure-type campaign on which there were no spending limits and no
reports, in apparent violation of internal Sierra Club policies and
California law. By my estimate, Groundswell spent as much as half a
million dollars to elect the old guard -- a group of Board members who
were hand-picked by, and the human equivalent of rubber-stamps for Carl
Pope.
Beyond the detrimental effects within the Sierra Club, the Groundswell
tactics took the focus off of direct assaults on the environment posed by
the Bush administration. Squelching all reform candidates' chances didn't
stop industry from taking the tops off of our mountains and dumping them
into our streams or making our air and water human health hazards. It
didn't reverse global warming. The orangutan still faced extinction along
with countless other endangered species and their unique habitat.
Extractive industry continued to destroy our public lands, profiting a few
at the expense of many.
Still, in 2004, even reformers did not imagine that Carl Pope and his
Board of rubber-stamps would partner with Clorox, the manufacturers of
deadly toxins that threaten the natural world. Supporting Clorox's
"Green Works," will not diminish the production of their noxious
chemicals. The partnership will allow the kind of green washing with which
Sierra Club members, activists and chapters do not want to be associated.
Everyone is wondering how much control of internal Club policies
Clorox's money will buy. One thing is certain: The fog of big money, mixed
with chlorine gas and the bright lights of power that come from being
players in the political game of compromise -- has caused Carl Pope and
the national Sierra Club board to completely lose sight of the path to
true environmental protection.
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