India RPCV Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, promises to address the extreme Right's "reckless assault on the civic environmental compact, ignoring the rules of political decency, science and the law in the name of radical individualism."
Status Quo At The Sierra Club
Good versus evil? Old against new? The past, or the future? The recent Sierra Club Board of Directors election offered all this drama, and then some, garnering national attention because of what the Los Angeles Times called "an unusual alliance of anti-immigration advocates and animal rights activists attempting to take over the Sierra Club." The reality, of course, was much different.
The election pitted the stodgy and entrenched faction of the venerable environmental organization's board ("the conservatives") against a group of reform candidates ("the radicals") who had the courage to openly question the relationship between unchecked human population and many of our environmental problems. Board member Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who was not running in this election, backed the "radical" candidates.
"I am not opposed to immigration," said Watson. "We need less sprawl and more wilderness -- in short, less people. And we don't need to end immigration, just reduce the numbers to achieve population stabilization." Watson, labeled anti-immigration during the controversy, is himself Canadian.
The challengers -- all of whom were soundly defeated -- included highly respected and qualified environmentalists, like a former Colorado governor, a onetime executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a Cornell University ecology professor and the leader of a Sierra Club chapter. The board took the unusual step of spending nearly a quarter million dollars in stealth funds to endorse five hand-picked nominees who, rather than address difficult issues, would prefer to see the once proud and progressive organization continue its descent into complacency. All five won. In effect, the conservatives bought the election. A lawsuit to nullify the election has been filed.
Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, put it this way: "[The organization's] dominant perspective has been to protect nature for people. But by pulling up the gangplank on immigration, [the non-club-endorsed candidates] are tapping into a strand of misanthropy that says human beings are a problem." Right.
Are Humans a Problem?
Is there a limit on how many people we can protect nature for? You'll get your chance to ask Pope that question when he speaks at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. Pope, co-author of "Strategic Ignorance," will give a lecture titled "Restoring the American Environmental Dream," in which he promises to address the extreme Right's "reckless assault on the civic environmental compact, ignoring the rules of political decency, science and the law in the name of radical individualism."
Pope, head of the Sierra Club since 1992, is a Harvard graduate and a former Peace Corps volunteer. He is also the co-author of California's Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, and, surprisingly, was a board member and the political director of Zero Population Growth.
The lecture takes places Thu., May 13 at 6 pm at the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market St., San Francisco. For more information, or to make a reservation, visit its Web site.
