Big Vermont Rally to 'Put People and the Planet First'

Despite a hard morning rain and daylong threatening cloud cover, the Vermont Sierra Club and partner groups came together on May Day for the largest weekday rally ever in Montpelier, the state capital.

[Little known factoids: Montpelier is by far the smallest state capital in the nation, with about 7,700 residents, and is the only state capital with no McDonalds restaurant.]

An estimated 2,000 Vermonters marched through the streets of Montpelier to the statehouse in support of the right to healthcare, the right to form unions, the rights of migrant farm workers, and the Vermont Sierra Club's Our Forests Our Future campaign.

The Vermont Workers' Center, a key Sierra Club ally and a strong supporter of Our Forests Our Future, was the lead organizer of the May Day rally. More than 30 Vermont organizations mobilized for the event, billed as Put People and the Planet First.

"When environmentalists, labor, Native Americans, and others from the 99% are united in supporting our various struggles, only then do we begin to build the power necessary to Put People and the Planet First," says David Van Deusen, at left, Vermont-based organizer for the Sierra Club's Resilient Habitats campaign. "May Day in Vermont was an important step in building such a popular front. We are winning."

The Vermont Sierra Club marched together with members of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, which has joined forces with the Club in advocating for the creation of new tribal and town forests that will link up and create a mosaic of wildlife corridors crossing the state—from the northern Connecticut River to the Nulhegan Basin and from the northern Green Mountains to the New York State border.

Vermont Sierra Club organizer and Abenaki tribal leader Luke Willard addressed the rally, outlining the goals of the Our Forests Our Future campaign and detailing the ongoing challenges facing the Abenaki people. That's Willard below, firing up the crowd.

[Click on the image above to watch a video of Willard's speech, or click here to read the transcript.]

Other speakers included U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

"All told, today was a very powerful demonstration of cross-movement solidarity," says Van Deusen. "We talked with many, many people at the rally and gathered about 175 petition signatures supporting Our Forests Our Future."

Our Forests Our Future is the Vermont component of a larger Sierra Club goal to link the forests of Vermont's Green Mountains with New Hampshire's White Mountains and Maine's North Woods to the east, and New York State's Adirondack Mountains to the west—a regional effort of long-term forest preservation promoted by Resilient Habitats.

TAKE ACTION

If you are a Vermonter, sign the Vermont Sierra Club's petition in support of Abenaki Tribal Forests.

Then download an Abenaki Tribal Forest petition and have your friends, co-workers, families, and neighbors sign.

Learn more about Our Forests Our Future and Resilient Habitats' Adirondacks to Acadia vision.

Sierra Club Proud to Be a "Got Your Six" Campaign Partner

 

The "Got Your Six" (GY6) campaign is a show of force from the American pubic to ensure that we welcome home our returning veterans - an additional one million in the next five years - as leaders and civic assets who can be key contributing members to our communities. There are six pillars to the GY6 campaign: Jobs, Education, Health, Housing, Family, and Leadership.

The Sierra Club is proud to be a strategic partner to help assist the activation partners on five of the six pillars. We will work with our partners to help identify employment opportunities in the great outdoors and clean energy fields for veterans; support continued environmental education; improve social and mental health, as well as the reintegration of families through expanding outside recreation opportunities; and ultimately through transitioning military leadership skills to the outdoors to get all of America outside.

The Sierra Club has a long history with the military, highlighted by WW2 and 10th Mountain Veteran David Brower who as a Sierra Club member helped to train the 10th Mountain, and as a decorated Veteran (won the Bronze Star) of the 10th Mountain went on to become the Sierra Club’s first executive director. We reinitiated our partnership with the military with the creation of the Military Family Outdoors program in 2006, now a part of Mission Outdoors.

We have strong qualitative evidence that time in the outdoors helps to strengthen families and mitigate the effects of post-traumatic stress. We help veterans utilitize their skills through leadership in the outdoors and through community service. Community service opportunities for veterans abound in the Sierra Club through programs like the Water Sentinels, Inner City Outings, Local Outings, and more.

 

Supporting military families and veterans is not a partisan issue. We can all do our part and at the Sierra Club we are proud of the work we have done and will continue to do to ensure our military and veteran communities and families can all get outside to experience the freedom of the land they defended.

Learn more about "Got Your Six" at their website.

Film and Forum Kick-Start Campaign to Protect Wild Bison in Montana

The Montana Sierra Club and partner groups recently hosted a public screening of the critically acclaimed documentary, Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison, at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.

The screening was followed by a discussion about the future of wild bison in Montana and a call to action to protect the iconic animals and their habitat. Above, attendees mingle and sign petitions; below, the packed auditorium.

"We had an outstanding event tonight, with more than 200 'bison-enthusiastic' folks in attendance," says Bozeman-based Sierra Club organizer Zack Waterman, below. "There were folks standing in the back of the auditorium and sitting in the aisles."

Among the decision-makers on bison issues who attended were Mary Erickson, Gallatin National Forest Supervisor; Pat Flowers, Region 3 Supervisor of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; and staff from the office of U.S. Senator Jon Tester.

"After the screening Pat Flowers pulled me aside and thanked us for our efforts," Waterman says. "I let Governor Schweitzer know about the energy and enthusiasm we had at the event, and he told me that with the public support we demonstrated tonight, he thinks he can begin a public process with the federal and Montana EPA to consider the first year-round habitat in Montana for migrating Yellowstone bison, including the three key areas the Sierra Club has identified."

Senator Tester's office commented on the progress the Sierra Club and its partners are forging and asked to be informed of future bison-related events. A thank-you email from Testor's office was waiting in Waterman's Inbox the morning after the screening.

Club Teams Up With Labor & Faith Groups for Pennsylvania May Day Rally

On May 1, more than 200 people rallied outside the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg calling for Governor Tom Corbett to invest in renewable energy, infrastructure, and education. The Sierra Club partnered with a coalition of labor and faith groups to organize the rally.

Sierra Club President Robin Mann, below, addressed the crowd. That's Pennsylvania State Representative Tom Conklin, at right, who also spoke.

"We're calling on the Corbett administration to throw away their playbook—a playbook that was written by, and for, the fossil fuels industry and other special interests—and to reverse their gutting of critical investments that can drive Pennsylvania toward a prosperous future for us all," Mann said.

Representative Conklin charged that the administration "wants to invest in nothing but carbon fuel, but the future is in clean, renewable energy." He said green energy jobs will not only benefit the environment and the state's economy, but they will be good-paying jobs that will give people the training they need for a lifetime.

Among the Sierra Club's partners in organizing the May Day rally were the Blue Green Alliance, the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Pennsylvania NAACP, and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches.

Watch this video of the rally.

Daily Green Acts Ripple Out from 350 Home and Garden Challenge

Janet Beazlie, a Sierra Club member since 1983, has always been involved with conservation and growing food. Her grandparents homesteaded a dry-land wheat farm in western Montana, and she grew up hearing stories her mother told about living in a frontier farming community and riding her horse Brownie to the one-room schoolhouse. Life was challenging, and as her mother used to say, "We didn't know we were poor, because no one else in our community had more."

Her mom's stories were often about their neighbors banding together to build a barn and then holding a barn dance. Neighbors didn't always like each other, but people knew they only had each other to depend on. They shared food and water and pulled together in tough times.

Times have been tough recently for a lot of people in Sonoma County, California, where Janet now lives, and she has been involved with a special community event, the 350 Home & Garden Challenge, designed to bring people together, grow their own food, and save energy and water. That's Janet with her stepson Finn, at right, in their family garden.

In May 2010, community groups and county government agencies collaborated to kick off the inaugural event. The target was to start 350 gardens in Sonoma County over one weekend. People came together and planted nearly twice that many—628 gardens—many of them community gardens at churches, hospitals, and schools.

Last year, the event was coordinated by the group Daily Acts, whose mission is "to transform our communities through inspired action and education which builds leadership and local self-reliance." Home energy efficiency and water conservation were added to the list of actions people could take, and 1,044 such actions were officially registered throughout the county, including installation of 21 grey-water systems and transforming nearly 250 lawns through sheet mulching. Through Transitions US, the challenge was extended nationwide to so-called Transition Towns.

This year, the slogan in Sonoma County is, "it's time to stand up and be counted," and the 2012 target is 2,012 actions. Registered actions show up on a map on the 350 Home & Garden Challenge website. "We see we are not alone," says Anita Smith, the Challenge's project manager. "So often, the problems of climate change seem daunting, but this is a way to be inspired and make positive, tangible change."

Nationally, Transition US is encouraging people to register their own events to build community, grow food, save energy, and conserve water. They are urging people to register their events not only at Transition US's website, but also at www.350.org for the May 5 international climate event "Connecting the Dots" because these actions reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"My grandparents knew that all their neighbors pulling together could save them," Janet says. "Today, when we know climate change is a worldwide phenomenon, our community includes everyone on this Earth—yet it's my local neighbors who can work together to grow a community garden."

Janet and her husband David share a garden with their neighbors in the town of Forestville. They use many gardening methods to adapt their garden to climate change and they hold Climate Resilient Gardening classes there. The first year of the 350 Challenge, David worked to start a community garden at a local church. The next year he helped plant a healing herb garden at a nearby hospital. Janet is on the steering team of the Sustainable Enterprise Conference that some 400 businesspeople are expected to attend this May 11.

After pondering the appropriate decorations for a sustainable business conference, Janet asked a local nursery, Harmony Farm Supply, to donate organic vegetable and flower seedlings, which she arranged in wicker baskets and placed throughout the conference with little signs describing the 350 Home and Garden Challenge. The next day conference volunteers delivered them to community gardens.

People participate in the 350 Challenge in many ways. Actions can include something as simple as hanging a clothesline to dry clothes for a summer, which can reduce a family's carbon emissions by up to 700 pounds a year. People do what they can and involve their neighbors, who may or may not be strangers.

Recently, Janet was driving home and saw a man digging in a pile of dirt that had been dumped by the roadside. Realizing that he was probably taking the soil for his garden, she thought he might want to know about the free cubic yard of compost that a local business was offering for registered gardens. So she turned around and pulled up next to his truck.

"For a moment, I was afraid," Janet says. "He was a tough-looking guy who probably didn't share my politics. But he was a gardener! I noticed as I approached him with my 350 Challenge flier that he looked nervous, and that set me at ease. And it turned out he was eager to register his garden for the compost and took more fliers for his friends."

Growing food, saving water, and conserving energy aren't new ideas—communities have always done these things. "Now is the time to take the challenge and do them together," Janet says, "to build a sustainable future full of fresh homegrown food, neighbors working together, and a climate that supports everyone."

Southwestern Tribes Lead Cultural Healing March to Move Beyond Coal

Enduring record heat, Native Americans in southern Nevada led a three-day, 50-mile Cultural Healing Walk over Earth Day weekend to draw attention to the devastating effects of coal pollution on their community. The Moapa Band of Paiutes partnered with the Sierra Club to organize the walk and Earth Day rally, which drew members of several tribal nations and supporters from throughout the Southwest.

The cultural healing walk commenced at the Reid Gardner coal-fired power plant, which abuts Moapa Paiute lands, and ended at an April 23 rally at the Lloyd George Federal Building in Las Vegas. Reid Gardner is the last coal-burning power plant in Nevada.

The goal of the healing walk was to highlight the harm Reid Gardner is doing to the tribe's health, culture, and economy. Toxic coal dust from the plant is picked up by wind storms, blows over tribal lands and the towns of Moapa and Mesquite, and up to pristine areas like the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.

"We were here, we are here, and we will be here," Moapa Paiute member Calvin Meyers says of his tribe's relationship to their historical lands. Watch this video about the cultural healing walk, produced by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, featuring Moapa Paiute members and local Sierra Club organizer Vinny Spotleson. That's Spotleson below, with his mom, Kay.

Water Sentinel Lynn Henning Wins Planet Defender Award

Photo by Tom Dusenbury

On April 20, Sierra Club Water Sentinel and Michigan family farmer Lynn Henning received a 2012 Planet Defender Award from Rock the Earth, a Colorado-based environmental advocacy organization that works closely with the music industry.

Then that evening, she appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

"My favorite part of the interview was at the end with Bill telling her she was 'a real American hero,'" observed Water Sentinels national director Scott Dye. "Truer words were never spoken—and Bill Maher doesn't hand out that kind of praise like candy."

Rock the Earth presents three Planet Defender awards each year. Henning was the 2012 winner in the Grassroots Activist category, while singer Willie Nelson won in the Music category, and scientist, writer, and Rocky Mountain Institute Chairman Amory Lovins won in the Community Leader category.

Henning was honored "for her extraordinary commitment and focus on water quality, fighting pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)."

Her activism over the last decade has exposed the egregious polluting practices of CAFOs, gaining the attention of the federal EPA and prompting state regulators to issue hundreds of citations for water quality violations.

On Real Time, Maher, who performed at the Sierra Club's national convention in 2005, asked Henning about the sewage "lagoons" associated with CAFOs.

"I find the term 'lagoon' misleading," he said. "When I think of a lagoon, I think of a young Brooke Shields and beautiful, clear water, "not a pool of s***."

Taking it in stride, Henning said there are 12 CAFOs and 60 lagoons containing more than 400 million gallons of antibiotic-laden animal waste within a 10-mile radius of her home. "People need to start looking at what they're eating and where their food is coming from and get to know their local farmers because the way they're producing food now has to stop," she said.

Inner City Outings Brings Out the Kid in All of Us

The facial expression of a kid can really tell a story.

Just ask Allan Fein, a San Diego Inner City Outings leader. He recalls an overnight road trip to Sequoia National Park in which the group of kids and trip leaders set up tents under the stars.

"The next morning the kids climbed out of their tents and stood next to these giant sequoias that they couldn’t see in the dark of night," he says. "They had never seen anything that large in their lives. Put a nine-year-old next to General Sherman that's 108 feet around and 250 feet high. I saw her eyeballs pop out of her head."

Moments likes these are a dime a dozen on ICO outings. And that's why outings are as rewarding to adults as they are to the young ones.

Inner City Outings is made up of about 50 groups across the country, reaching some 14,000 kids who rarely experience nature. Many of these kids grow up in tough neighborhoods, unaware of the natural areas nearby.

More Than Half a Million Carbon Pollution Comments Delivered to EPA

On April 24, the Sierra Club joined a coalition of groups in delivering to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more than 500,000 public comments in support of EPA's carbon pollution safeguards.

The half-a-million comments demonstrate the broad national support for these critical protections, which were announced in late March. More than 154,000 of the comments came from Sierra Club members and supporters.

Carbon pollution is the main contributor to climate disruption and is linked to life-threatening air pollution like smog—which triggers asthma attacks—making it a serious hazard to Americans' health. Right now, 158 million Americans live in counties with unacceptable air pollution levels.

Coal-burning power plants are the primary source of carbon emissions in the U.S. Once finalized, the new EPA protections will ensure that new power plants will meet public health standards and protect Americans from dangerous pollution.

EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe (at left) thanked the coalition for the comments, saying they help EPA accomplish its mission.

Tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that you, too, support strong carbon pollution protections. And learn how you can get involved in helping move America beyond coal.

Photos by Trey Pollard

Leasing Sun Power in Los Angeles

David Olds and Sarah Auerswald both live in the Mar Vista district on the west side of Los Angeles, an economically diverse neighborhood of apartment buildings and single-family homes.

Both recently installed solar arrays on their houses thanks to an innovative leasing arrangement with Open Neighborhoods, an organization from nearby Culver City that has developed what it calls "L.A.'s most affordable rooftop solar program."

Open Neighborhoods did extensive outreach in Mar Vista over the last couple of years and built a strong neighborhood presence by creating a community social networking site and a wireless grid that is free of charge for residents who sign onto their solar lease program.

"I'd wanted solar for awhile," says Auerswald, "but it was a stretch to purchase and install my own system. It was through the Mar Vista wireless social network that I learned about the option of leasing."

Open Neighborhoods partners with SolarCity, a solar provider that installs and maintains the panels. In return for residents leasing their solar arrays, SolarCity gets the energy-efficiency rebates from the state. Between 30 and 40 homes in Mar Vista were involved in the initial solar effort.

Auerswald had her solar panels, below, installed about two years ago. "It cost us zero dollars—no installation or construction fees, and no fee to the solar company. I see no downside to leasing. I pay about the same electric costs as before, and I'll pay the same amount for the 20 years of the lease, so I'll see a big net savings over the long haul."

But the best thing, she says, is that the household is energy net neutral. "We produce as much energy as we consume. Energy goes into the grid during the day, and then we take back from the grid at night."

Olds had SolarCity install his panels just over a year ago. "The experience has been great," he says. "I would have switched to renewable energy anyway, but the leasing arrangement made it easy. SolarCity came out, put the system in and tested it, and then the L.A. Department of Water & Power came out and flipped the switch."
 
It was Open Neighborhoods building the wireless network that got people into the solar initiative, Olds says. "SolarCity helped fund some of the infrastructure for the wireless network if people signed on to the solar lease program, and now more and more people are going solar—half a dozen houses in the immediate vicinity."

Open Neighborhoods' plan is that residents will be able to generate enough electricity to offset the cost of leasing the panels.

"If you produce more, you save money, which I think most people do," Olds says. "My electric bill is $100 less than it was before, and my lease fee isn't $100. And now the leasing program gives back to the neighborhood by funding the wireless grid. If you can lease it, it's the way to go. It's a win-win."