Let's Party for a Change

On July 17th, the Sierra Club's Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign culminated with more than 1000 people attending over 300 house parties nationwide. The campaign's message is that in order to solve global climate change, we need to change more than just light bulbs -- we need to change direction. We need strong, serious, and fast action to get the job done. House parties were open to the public, each with a host and attendees listening in on a national conference call featuring Green For All President Van Jones, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire, and Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. Attendees then wrote letters to their governors to encourage green job development through the transition to a clean energy economy.

Throughout the nation people gathered at their local house party. Jenny Coyle, Sierra Club Website Producer and host of a San Francisco house party commented on the varied nature of the parties, "In Denver it was a festive outdoor affair. In Atlanta and Palo Alto, they were quieter gatherings of half a dozen people in a small living room. In Austin, folks packed the city council chambers, while up the road in Dallas they mingled in a café."

The House parties in Colorado, for example, were a huge success. In Denver, the gathering turned into a block party that closed the street and had live music (above). The 100 plus people in attendance continued to discuss the issues late into the evening. "The success of these parties just proves to me that people are interested in hearing about solutions to high gas prices and the continued addiction to oil evidenced in the Bush administration," said Roger Singer, Colorado's regional representative who attended the Denver block party.

City Councilman Chris Nevitt spoke at the Denver house party about local green jobs and highlighted the accomplishments of the Sierra Club and its role in the Blue-Green Alliance. Many attendees also signed a petition to protest The Bureau of Land Management's plan for Oil and Gas drilling into the wild Roan Plateau. The Enos Mills Group of the Sierra Club expects a large surge in volunteering and leadership following this successful gathering.

Besides Denver, there were around ten other house parties throughout Colorado. In Arvada, host Thomas Acampora entertained his 18 guests by showing them his personal energy costs savings from his Photovoltaic installation and resulting net metering payback. He and his guests, just like Robin Hoek and her party guests in Broomfield and other attendees elsewhere, sent their letters to Governor Ritter supporting green jobs. All in all, it was a fitting culmination to a successful campaign with a critical message.

"People want to get out and talk with their friends and neighbors about what changes in leadership need to occur this year to move us towards a new energy economy," said Singer. "These house parties gave them that opportunity, mixed in with a little social fun too. We ate, we laughed, we talked and we came away with plans before the night was through. This was a great way to spend a summer evening."

"Surely all God's people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play." -John Muir

Carpooling Across America

What if you could instantly create a new form of transportation that greatly reduced resource consumption? That was the idealistic question that led 24-year-old entrepreneurs and Sierra Club members John Zimmer and Logan Green (above) to found Zimride, a social ride-sharing service designed to make ground transportation vastly more efficient.

"The concept is simple," Green says. "Our parents had yearbooks; we have Facebook. Zimride leverages the trust inherent to online social networks to push carpooling to become a mainstream form of transportation."

Using the Facebook platform, riders and drivers can view one another's profiles before deciding to share a ride. Launched a year ago, Zimride now has 300,000 users in its carpool community and has built systems for universities and corporations; ultimately they hope to offer systems to entire municipalities. In June, musician Jack Johnson, who is incorporating a "greening" theme into his summer tour, partnered with Zimride via a carpool link on his website so fans can save gas and money by carpooling to concerts.

On July 16, Zimmer embarked on a Carpool Across America road trip from New York to San Francisco (above) to raise awareness about community-oriented travel options in times of rising gas prices and concerns about global warming. Carpool Across America ties together the themes of energy conservation, the power of social networks, and environmentally conscious business solutions.

"We'll be rotating passengers and blogging about the trip the whole way," Zimmer says, "and we'll also be interviewing young eco-entrepreneurs en route who are making a difference with creative business, art, and non-profit business solutions."

The journey will be documented by filmmaker Trevor White and covered by green consultant and eco-writer Margaret Teich. Below, Zimmer's girlfriend Christina Garcia Rivas is pictured at the start of the trip.

Read more about Zimride and follow the Carpool Across America.

Activists Stand Up to Power Company, Save Trees

 

Barbara Wilson of Jacksonville, Alabama (above right) had never been an activist before. But when a representative of the Alabama Power Company appeared at her front door last year and told her the company going to chop down the three 75-year-old pecan trees in her front yard, she decided not to take it lying down.

The power company had recently changed its longstanding policy of trimming trees underneath power lines to one of cutting them down. Wilson told the company she'd do everything in her power to stop them, and she put up signs in her yard and started a petition to save the trees.

Fellow Jacksonville resident and longtime Sierra Club activist Rufus Kinney (with Wilson, top photo) saw Wilson's signs and stopped to talk with her. And on the morning Alabama Power arrived to chop down the trees, they found Wilson and Kinney in folding chairs, chained to the trees, a crowd on hand, and Wilson's grandson Jake up in one of the trees, telling the power company to "leave my Nana's trees alone!"

Wilson, chained to one of her trees, talks with a reporter.

Kinney, chained to one of Wilson's trees, with neighbors Susan and Andy Hug.

Jake Wilson in the tree where he sat all day to save it from being cut down.

The power company set another date for removal, and this time not only were the two again chained to the trees, an even larger crowd and media were on hand. The company then sued Wilson and Kinney, who retained the pro bono services of Birmingham attorney Mark Martin (below at left, with Wilson, Kinney, and key supporter Derek Raulerson), who had successfully represented the Sierra Club before. Among other findings, Martin revealed that similarly situated trees in wealthier locales were being trimmed, not cut down.

In March 2008, a county circuit judge ruled that Alabama Power's new policy was illegal and there was no significant evidence it would increase safety. The company announced it would appeal the decision, but on June 18 it officially dropped its case against Wilson and Kinney.

"We received so much support from total strangers who appreciated us standing up for something we believed in," says Wilson.

"This is a wonderful victory for the trees, for democracy, and for the earth," Kinney says. "What's so gratifying is that people put traditional politics aside and came together for a common cause." Read more here.

Detroit Decision Makes Way for Greener Garbage

Detroit-area Sierra Club activists cheered on June 30 when Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick announced that the city will not purchase the country's largest waste incinerator, formally known as the Detroit Resource Recovery Facility, and will instead expand city recycling programs and send trash to a landfill.

"Now it's time to shout!" says Rhonda Anderson (below at left), director of the Sierra Club's Detroit Environmental Justice Program. "This announcement by the mayor is a major development and almost a sure indication that the incinerator will close." The battle over the future of the Detroit incinerator, which began operating in 1989, is seen by many industry people as a key to the future of incineration in the United States.

"It's time to retire this dinosaur of a technology that has polluted our city and planet for far too long," Anderson said at a citizen rally in front of the incinerator on June 18. "We are gathering today to say that incineration is a major liability in the context of climate change."

The Sierra Club is part of a coalition of environmental and community groups that worked with the city council's Environmental Justice Task Force to craft a "New Business Model for Garbage." The model includes goals for a future waste system that incorporates monetary incentives for recyclers, green collar jobs, and business and economic development linked to the reuse and sale of recovered materials.

Carol Izant (at right, above), chair of the Sierra Club's Southeast Michigan Group, has been a longtime leader in galvanizing citizen opposition to the incinerator through her involvement with the grassroots group Evergreen Alliance. She is also quick to credit the key roles played by fellow group activists Anna Holden and Ed McArdle (above center).

"Anna hung tough on this issue and cultivated the stakeholders needed to build a broad-based coalition of community activists, environmental experts, and sympathetic elected officials," Izant says. "And Ed's efforts over the years have resulted in the toppling of one incinerator after another."

Holden in turn praises Margaret Weber of Rosedale Recycles, a volunteer neighborhood recycling organization. Weber is coordinator of the New Business Model for Solid Waste coalition and former director of the Ecology Center, highly reputed for its work on incinerators.

The Detroit incinerator was sold to private investors in 1991, but the city, through the fees it pays to burn trash, continues to shoulder the enormous cost of running the facility. By comparison, the city of Ann Arbor, which has the most active recycling program in Michigan, pays $18.75 per ton to landfill its garbage, while Detroit pays $172 a ton to burn its trash and dispose of the ashes. Adding insult to injury, less than half of the trash incinerated at the facility comes from Detroit residents.

Read reporter Curt Guyette's series on the incinerator, The Big Burn, in the Detroit Metro Times.

Incinerator photo by Gyre.

Cool T-Shirt Leads to Green Day In Kentucky

This spring, Kentucky school teacher and Sierra Club volunteer Su-hwa "Winny" Lin organized a "Go Green Day" (above) at Tamarack Elementary School in Owensboro, where she teaches third grade. "It all started when I wore my Sierra Club "Be Cool, Go Green" t-shirt to school," says Lin (below left, in front row). "My assistant principal saw it and said, 'That's cool—where can I get one?'"

Lin had gotten her shirt from Sierra Club organizer and fellow Owensboro resident Aloma Dew, who'd printed them up in connection with her work with the Club's Cool Cities campaign. Armed with a fresh batch, Lin "sold" 20 shirts in one day to fellow faculty and school custodians for a $5 donation, with all proceeds going to the Sierra Club.

"Everybody loved the design, with Owensboro identified in the context of the western hemisphere," she says. "Now nearly the entire school staff has bought the shirt for themselves, their class, or their own kids. And best of all, they bought into the idea of 'Go Green, Tamarack.'"

With Dew's help, Lin organized a daylong program of videos, talks, and demonstrations from community volunteers on a wide range of environmental topics, including a presentation by beekeeper and local Sierra Club member Carol Mark and a talk about bicycling by Pennyrile Group Outings Chair Donnie Mayton. The City of Owensboro brought its new hybrid car, and students held a parade featuring costumes and floats they'd made out of recycled materials.

 

"Go Green, Tamarack" was accompanied by a weeklong focus on the environment at the school. Third graders interviewed custodians about how much trash the school generated; fourth graders planted a cherry tree and flower beds after studying plants; and fifth graders came up with a Top 10 List of ways to go green at Tamarack.

The event ended up promoting environmental awareness not just at the school, but in the broader community as well. "The local newspaper put us on the front page," Lin says. "I think we've started a "Go Green" movement in Owensboro!"

Coal Plant Makes Way for Clean Power in Minnesota

Four-and-a-half years ago the Sierra Club scored a major victory in Minnesota when Club activists partnered with the Clean Energy Now! coalition and the Minneapolis Urban League to persuade Xcel Energy to invest in the Metro Emissions Reduction Project, which included closing two of its coal-fired power plants and re-powering them with natural gas. The effort involved one of the largest-ever organizing efforts by the Minnesota Sierra Club, including major rallies and organizing all across the Minneapolis-St. Paul region and a big legal push before the Public Utilities Commission.

Am emphatic exclamation point was put on the Club's victory on June 28 when the smokestack of Xcel's High Bridge Power Plant in St. Paul was imploded and toppled to make way for a new clean-burning natural gas plant (see video clip, above). View a higher-res clip of the implosion here.

"This will back up the burgeoning wind investments that are booming all across the state, thanks to our recent success in enacting a renewable energy standard of 25 percent clean energy by 2020," says Sierra Club National Coal Campaign Director Bruce Nilles. "Credit goes to the chapter's Clean Air & Renewable Energy Committee and their partners at Clean Energy Now!"

The coal plant cleanup campaign gave birth to the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota (EJAM) after the Sierra Club worked with the Minneapolis Urban League and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison to host the first-ever Public Utilities Commission hearing in North Minneapolis, where more than 200 people turned out to call for environmental justice by cleaning up metro area coal plants. The Sierra Club is continuing this partnership with an environmental justice organizer working with EJAM.

Below, Sierra Club activists at a Clean Energy Campaign rally in 2002 with the High Bridge smokestack in the background.

Photo by Michelle Rosier.

Club Petition Prods EPA Action on Formaldehyde

In response to a petition from the Sierra Club, 24 other organizations, and more than 5,000 individuals representing every state in the nation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed on June 23 to conduct a four-part investigation of formaldehyde in homes, schools, and offices throughout the country.

"We hope the EPA will act as quickly as possible and show some urgency because there are many products on the market with unsafe levels of formaldehyde," says Sierra Club activist Becky Gillette, below, a national leader in the fight against formaldehyde poisoning. "Tens of thousands of people have been affected."

The Sierra Club was the first organization to discover the toxicity of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and since then has taken a lead role in fighting for better disaster assistance and emergency housing, some of which is pictured in photo at top. Gillette spearheaded the Club's effort to test FEMA trailers for toxicity after hearing about colleagues in federally-issued trailers coming down with nosebleeds, hacking coughs and headaches. She has since testified before Congress in Washington, D.C., taken the fight to the national level, and the new EPA agreement is a direct result of her efforts over the last two-plus years.

"Formaldehyde poisoning isn't limited to FEMA trailers," Gillette says. "We're seeing the problem pop up in classrooms, RVs, other kinds of manufactured housing, and conventional homes that use cheap particle board cabinets or carpeting containing formaldehyde. So this decision is a no-brainer."

Dissapointingly, the EPA declined to extend nationally the tougher formaldehyde standards already in place in California. "California did lots of research to develop standards," Gillette says, "and it would have been more expedient to extend them nationally. Still, the decision to undertake rulemaking is a very positive move, and more than we'd come to expect under this administration. We will actively support and monitor EPA's work on this important issue."

Read more about the Sierra Club's work on toxics.

Top photo by Mary DeVany.

Beautiful Memories of La Isla del Encanto

According to the first national Latino survey on global warming, more than 80 percent of Latinos say they have received information about global warming and 73 percent say they would be willing to take political measures to protect the environmental and fight global warming.

Thus, Latinos and Latinas around the country are ready to take action to protect the environment.  Latinos in Puerto Rico seem to be leading the effort. This year, a Puerto Rican activist, Rosa Hilda Ramos, won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Award for organizing the community to take action against corporate polluters. To this, we can add the extraordinary activism of the Puerto Rican Chapter, the first Spanish speaking chapter, which after only four years, already has 650 members. These members won the battle against the development of a resort in the conservation area of the Northeast Ecological Corridor. In addition, every year the chapter organizes an Earth Day Festival (Festival del Tinglar) and every weekend its outings program holds excursions with and average of 35 people per trip.

Activism in Puerto Rico is about conservation, environmental justice and a deep emotional connection to nature.

While I was there supporting the organizing of the Earth Day Festival, I missed a fabulous night excursion to the San Patricio Park. Evalexa Tomei, the leader of this excursion, enthusiastically described the outing to me.  “We stood by looking at the different kinds of snails nearby a trash can.  People were amazed at how many species there were. We continued walking and we saw different species of frogs named coquis, different sized spiders grabbing food from their webs, a few glow-worms flying around, a big frog, lizards sleeping on trees or leaves, and heard an owl. The highlight of the night was when we found a snake, a boa puertorriqueña, which is an endangered species of Puerto Rico. At this point, everyone was really excited! We learned a few facts like her weight, age and length. After taking pictures and observing the boa… she was returned to the wild… and we went home happy!”

Indeed, Evalexa is content with her volunteer work at the Club as were the rest of the volunteers that expressed their love for the outdoors to me. I asked some of them, why they work to protect the environment, and these are some of their answers:

“Because nature is life.”
José Gilberto, 77 years old

“Because we need to create a sense of consciences, we are running out of time, we need to take immediately action.” 
Alberto Luis, 57 years old

“Because we need to protect nature. It is indispensable to our existence.”
Yesarí, 26 years old

“Because to enter nature is to enter peace.”
Juana, 57 years old

Guest written by Isabel Long, Associate Representative for Latino Partnerships

Getting Wiser About Coal, One Foot at a Time

Last month, citizens from across Virginia presented a mile-long petition containing nearly 45,000 names to Dominion headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Dominion is one of the largest producers and transporters of energy in the United States, with a portfolio of 26,500 megawatts of generation serving 11 states. The petition called for Dominion to stop its building of coal fired power plants and instead to focus its resources on developing clean energy that would bring energy efficiency, conservation, renewable energy, and economic prosperity.

         

The petition was in response to Dominion's current plan to build a coal fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia. One Wise County native, Kathy Selvage, was the first to sign the petition and helped develop the Wise County-based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards into a well-known grassroots group that leads the struggle to oppose strip mining and mountaintop removal mining for coal resources in Virginia. Selvage currently serves as the Vice President of the Wise county based SAMS. Joining Selvage in presenting the mile-long petition on May 8th, 2008 were SAMS President and co-founder Pete Ramey as well as Larry Bush, the Chairman and another co-founder of SAMS. "The leadership provided by grassroots leaders like Kathy, Larry, and Pete has inspired support and participation from others throughout the state," said Bill McCabe, Central Appalachian Environmental Justice organizer. Over 200 other concerned citizens of Virginia as part of the Wise Energy for Virginia coalition were there to support these three as they submitted the mile-long petition (in front of dozens of police officers) to representatives from Dominion, who then carted the three boxes filled with the petition into the Dominion headquarters building. 

Several organizations support SAMS important work in the coalfields. "There is a broad coalition of organizations that are involved that appreciate the environmental justice implications of mountaintop removal mining and of new coal plants," said Glen Besa, Director of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. These partners include the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Appalachian Voices, and the Sierra Club, with the Southern Environmental Law Center providing legal support.  Besa continued, "We've all come together to stop this power plant and to get a mile's worth of petitions." McCabe added, "It's a great example of people who are affected by the different stages of the dirty coal cycle becoming one voice to stop the destruction of the health and environment of Virginia." Now, it is up to Dominion and the Virginia government to ensure that the chant for "no more coal!" will be realized.

Watch this video to witness the presentation of the mile-long petition.
For instructions on how to install a Mile-Long Petition Meter on a website click this link.

"The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual." -John Muir

Student Speaks of Inspiration

Last week's Pathway to the Outdoors dinner in Chicago, Illinois, exemplified how outdoor experiences are able to provide today's youth with inspiration and opportunity. The event celebrated the fourth year of a fruitful partnership between the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and the Building Bridges to the Outdoors Project of the Sierra Club. Along with the Club's Illinois Chapter, Building Bridges to the Outdoors staff has worked diligently to establish outdoor education opportunities for Keystone Club members of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago for youths age 14 to 18. "Partnering with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago's Keystone program was so smooth thanks to their dedicated and tireless staff," said Douglas Chien, Conservation Field Representative with the Illinois Chapter. Building Bridges to the Outdoors, along with the Illinois Chapter and the Chicago Inner City Outings program of the Sierra Club, run an annual outdoor program that gives these youths a weekend educational experience at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The importance of such an outdoor program is highlighted by Chien, "Nature provides a welcome respite from the noise and stress of living in a large city."

At last week's dinner, participants of this program shared some of their inspirational experiences and many of the organizational leaders of the program were in attendance. Martin LeBlanc, who manages the Building Bridges to the Outdoors Project and is the National Youth Education Director of the Sierra Club, shared his outlook on the dinner, "What I found gratifying was not just the numbers, but the excitement that future members have in wanting to participate in the program and become involved with the Sierra Club." In particular, the experiences of one program participant stood out to LeBlanc.

"The highlight of the night was Jerone Thadison," says LeBlanc. Thadison, who grew up on the West side of Chicago, was a participant of the program's first outing in 2005. Now, in his second year at Chicago State University, Thadison described how profoundly his single outdoor experience with the program had changed his life. As keynote speaker at the dinner, Thadison explained that he had never thought about the environment at all before his trip. He vividly recalled and recounted to the audience his outdoor experiences during the outing, from testing water-quality, to hiking along the dunes, to eating s'mores and seeing stars for the first time. The crowd listened in silent admiration as Thadison described how these experiences had inspired him to start an environmental club at his local Boys and Girls Club Chapter and to become interested in plant biology. He currently majors in biology at Chicago State University and maintains a 3.3 GPA.

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." -John Muir