Public to President: Just Say No to Keystone XL

President Obama held a fundraiser in San Francisco on October 25, and more than 1,000 of his supporters showed up—not inside the swanky W Hotel, where some 200 donors convened for lunch—but outside on the streets to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed $13 billion, 1,700-mile conduit that would carry tar sands from Alberta to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast.

As protesters massed on the sidewalks, audio clips from Obama's 2008 campaign, promising to end America's dependence on oil, played over loudspeakers. That's a cutout of the prez, below, with one of those campaign statements.

"There's a sense of, 'Look, you haven't given us a whole lot during this administration. It's time to give us something significant, and this is it,' " Michael Marx, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Oil Campaign, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "'If you don't give it to us, it's such a sign that you've betrayed your promises to us.'"

The Sierra Club is part of an action in Washinton, D.C., on Sunday, November 6—exactly one year from Election Day 2012—to rally thousands of citizens and encircle the White House for the largest-ever protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Hiking Through a Place That "Challenged My Senses"

Ben and Duane Greuel near the March River three miles from the Arctic coast. 

Duane Greuel might live in Wisconsin, but you can call him a Sierra Club Arctic Hero. So how does someone who grows pickles and fruit on a hobby farm become a defender of the Arctic?

For Duane, it was his two-week backpacking journey last September through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he trekked alongside caribou, gazed at the northern lights, and made friends with native people. He immediately realized how special this place was.

"The wildlife, the mountains, the plains, the coast. All these systems come together and work in harmony with each other," he says. "This place challenged my senses. I never knew what quiet was until I went there. I could hear my son clearly talking to another person a quarter-mile away. Here at home, you can't hear someone 20 feet from you."

Duane is one of several activists fighting to keep the Refuge intact. Right now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on whether to permanently protect a huge chunk of the coastal plain from Big Oil by designating it a Wilderness Area.

Keeping oil and gas companies out of there is paramount to preserving a way of life for the people Duane met during his trip. Opening up the area to oil would parallel the days of a young America, when white populations slaughtered buffalo that the Sioux depended on.

A nearby caribou.

"The Gwich'in and Inuit people who live there are caribou people. Their culture is based on the caribou, which breeds along the coastal plains. The caribou are more than just wildlife. They are part of a culture, and the destruction of the caribou's habitat would destroy the culture of these indigenous people," he says.

Movie Night Attracts New Faces to the Maine Chapter

By Bob Wuerthner, executive committee member of the Maine Chapter

For the past five years I've been hosting a movie night at the UU church in Kennebunk. We show three films in the fall and spring. The format is to show the film and then have an expert comment on the film and conduct a question and answer session. Sponsored by the Maine Chapter and the church’s social justice committee, we include coffee and dessert. Average attendance hovers around 30, but we had 100 show up for PBS's "Butterflies" program. We recently had 85 show for a speaker who talked about spending 12 weeks in Alaska canoeing wilderness rigers.

This is good PR for the Sierra Club because it gets articles in local papers about the event and we ask attendees to contact their state and federal legislators. We draw new people and the events have probably attracted new members. It's a good way to distribute our newsletter to new people.

Sierra Club Maine executive committee. Left to right: Bill Pearce, Bill Briggs, Becky Bartovics, Andy Burt, David Mokler, Bob Wuerthner, Joan Saxe, and Jim Frick.

Recruiting experts for post-film presentations can be a challenge, but that's why we have a team that works on putting our movie nights together. After a while I've been able to put together a good network, but it takes a lot of work to put this together. I couldn't sustain this program without help from our administrators in the Chapter office and Kennebunk folks and volunteers who are there to assist me.

Have a success story to share? We'd like to hear about it. Go to the Success Stories project on the Sierra Club's Activist Network and let others learn from your experience.

Wisconsinite Works for Washington Wilderness

Photo by Sarah Babbington, courtesy of The Wilderness Society

Wisconsin native Ben Greuel, an organizer with the Sierra Club's Resilient Habitats Campaign, was recently featured in Wilderness, the magazine of The Wilderness Society. A photo of Greuel introduced the article, "Building an Army of Young Conservation Leaders."

Greuel is a "graduate" of the mentoring program run by the Wilderness Society's Wilderness Support Center (WSC) in Durango, Colorado. The Center was created in 1999 to train new leaders to protect our public lands and help build a stronger, more interconnected wilderness movement.

Greuel recently undertook a backpacking trip across the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with his dad to advocate for protection of the Arctic coastal plain from oil & gas drilling. That's Ben & his dad, Duane, below.

Ben devotes his prodigious energies and organizing skills to protecting wildlands and watersheds in the Greater Puget Sound Ecoregion, especially on the Olympic Peninsula.

"I do everything from educating our members to reaching out to everyone from economic development councils to local fishing guides to recreation groups to local elected officials to local tribes to timber companies," he told Hannah Nordhaus, who interviewed Greuel for Wilderness.

Connecting Youth to the Outdoors

Longtime sportsman and clean water activist Tim Guilfoile was recently named Conservation Editor of The Contemporary Sportsman, where he authors a regular column, Wilderness Journal, in his official capacity as Deputy Director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels Program.

The following article, Connecting Youth to the Outdoors, is part of Guilfoile's ongoing work to introduce the Water Sentinels to the hunter/angler community. It appeared in the magazine's Fall 2011 issue.

The Sierra Club Water Sentinels work to protect, improve, and restore the waters of the United States by fostering alliances to promote water quality monitoring, public education, and citizen action. Formed in 2001, the program has trained, equipped, and deployed nearly 13,000 volunteer water-quality monitors at 56 locations in 23 states.

The Water Sentinels are aware that participation by youth in outdoor recreation is on the decline. We recognize that this trend threatens the health and well-being of our youth and future generations, but it also represents a decline in the engagement of our citizens in protecting our environment. We are committed to reverse this trend and have developed a robust program to involve our youth in outdoor activities. Water recreation is, more than any other outdoor activity, the gateway to future, sustained involvement in outdoor recreation and the development of environmental leaders.

Photo by Mark Lance, courtesy of The Contemporary Sportsman

Studies have clearly demonstrated that involving children in outdoor recreation improves school performance, including higher test scores in science and mathematics, reduces stress, enhances self-esteem, improves interpersonal relationships, and has a positive impact on overall health.

The Water Sentinels' youth programs are extensive and include teacher training, fishing, floating, nature hikes, water-quality monitoring, outdoor education fairs, interpretive field trips, community litter cleanups, tree planting along stream corridors, nature photography, and a variety of other activities. These activities extend to all ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Sierra Club Marks 40 Years for New England

Sierra Club President Robin Mann with Chapter Chair Dan Proctor.

By Danielle Piscatelli, Development Associate, Massachusetts Chapter

In 1970, the New England chapter of the Sierra Club was established. Twenty years later the New England Chapter split into five separate state chapters. To mark the 40th anniversary, the Massachusetts Chapter decided to celebrate this milestone by hosting a celebration.

We had about 100 people attend. Included were people from all the individual New England chapters. Overall the event inspired folks to continue the work they started. There was a lot of work behind putting this celebration together. There was a small steering committee of four volunteers and one staffer who really worked to pull a lot of the details together. There were a couple of folks who stepped up as leadership donors basically covering the costs, enabling tickets to be revenue for the chapter.

One challenge in putting this together was finding names and addresses of people who were involved 40 years ago. We had to hire an intern to focus on the guest list by tracking people down. She did this by going through old, archived newsletters and contacting long-time volunteers for contacts of others.

We held a rather simple but elegant reception with heavy hors d'oeuvres and a short speaking program featuring Club President Robin Mann. There was also a 12-minute video, produced by a long time chapter volunteer, highlighting successes over the past 40 years.

One of the key lessons in putting this together was the need to keep good records and to surround ourselves with exceptional volunteers who were willing to roll up the sleeves and work. Although the committee didn't operate in a vacuum, some felt we did. I'd be more communicative to others about the planning process next time and give longer lead time. I had a worksheet with deadlines.

We overcame the obstacles in putting this event together and it proved to be a big success. The featured video introduced ten long-time activists talking about issues they were (and in some cases still are) involved with. Each effort represented years of work and, when all is said and done, it may be the power of the human spirit that is more impressive than the final score. Click here to watch the video.

Have a success story to share? We'd like to hear about it. Go to the Success Stories project on the Sierra Club's Activist Network and let others learn from your experience.

Vermont Sierra Club, BlueGreen Alliance Promote Green Energy and Green Jobs

Under the banner of the BlueGreen Alliance, on October 17 the Vermont Sierra Club joined the Vermont AFL-CIO, the Vermont Building Trades Council, Vermont Iron Workers Local 7, and 350 Vermont in hand-delivering a letter to Liz Miller, the state Commissioner of Public Service.

"Vermont's leading voices for working families and the environment are united and speak with one voice when it comes to renewable in-state energy production," declares the letter, which was signed by Vermont Chapter Chair Zak Griefen and Energy Committee Chair Steve Crowley on behalf of the Sierra Club.

That's Griefen, below at far left, with Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Vermont Chapter Vice Chair David Ellenbogen at a climate rally in the state capital of Montpelier this September; Crowley is pictured at right.

The Oct. 17 manifesto, entitled "Green Energy and Good Jobs for Vermonters," asserts that environmental and economic issues related to new energy development cannot be separated.

"Creating green energy without also supporting a strong local economy, or aggressively seeking job creation without addressing basic environmental issue undermines the future on which our Green Mountain State is predicated," reads the declaration, addressed to the Governor and the People of Vermont. "As Vermonters, as the leaders or organized labor, as environmentalists, we do not and cannot accept a disjunction between these two foundational beliefs. In brief, we need green energy, and we need good green jobs!"

The delegation also met with Alexandra MacLean, Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs. That's Vermont AFL-CIO President Ben Johnson, Public Service Commissioner Miller, Secretary MacLean, Vermont Sierra Club organizer David Van Deusen, and Becky Jones of 350Vermont, pictured atop this post. The meeting took place at the capitol.

"The meeting was very productive and was a very strong step toward meeting our green energy and green jobs goals," says Van Deusen. "Secretary MacLean offered to arrange a follow-up meeting with Governor Shumlin, and a good line of communication was established."

Read "Green Energy and Good Jobs for Vermonters," and learn more about what the Sierra Club is doing to promote clean energy and green jobs.

National Plug-In Day an Electrifying Success

The weekend of October 15-16 was National Plug-in Day, a nationwide observance sponsored by Plug-in America, the Sierra Club, and the Electric Auto Association. Plug-in vehicles of all kinds got the spotlight at more than 25 events across the country. That's the New Hampshire Plug-in Day in the state capital of Concord, above and below.

The flagship event was held in Los Angeles, where speakers included California State Senator Fran Pavley, sponsor of a 2002 bill requiring 30 percent reductions in new auto emissions by 2016. The "Pavley Bill" was adopted by the California Air Resources Board and later adopted by 11 other states.

That's Pavley, above, speaking at the Los Angeles event. Also speaking was Chris Paine, below, director of the films Who Killed the Electric Car? and Revenge of the Electric Car.

Protecting the Grand Canyon — An Organizer's Story

By Alicyn Gitlin, Sierra Club Resilient Habitats organizer.

I'm probably like you: I'm the one who will show up at public meetings and speak loudly, and I prod my friends to do the same. I will stand up and ask questions of water managers and foresters and politicians, and if their answer doesn't make sense, I will ask again.

I live in Flagstaff, Arizona—a place that's small enough to make easy connections. I see the same people at every meeting, and I rapidly realized that by being one out of the 10 or 20 people who show up to a hearing, I alone might offer 5-10% of the opinions that my decision-makers hear.

One year ago, I began organizing for Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Protection Campaign. One of my most important goals: empower more of the public to show up, speak out, and just plain participate in public processes. Easy, right? After all, everyone I know lives in northern Arizona because of our vast and stunning landscapes. Why wouldn't they want to protect them?

Persuading people that they must speak up to protect what they love is just like medicine: part science, part art, and some inherent skill; and what worked last time might utterly fail this time.

Volunteers Bag Four Tons of Trash in Two Hours in Columbia, Mo.

More than 650 volunteers turned out in Columbia, Missouri, on Saturday, October 8, for the Eighth Annual Hinkson Clean Sweep.

"That's 150 more than last year," says Scott Dye, national director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels Program. The Missouri Sierra Club's Osage Group co-sponsors the city-wide cleanup event each year.

Volunteers convened at 10 a.m. at eight different locations along Hinkson Creek, where they received red trash bags and mesh bags. This year cleanups stretched beyond the creek itself, with many volunteers collecting trash and litter from downtown Columbia. A recent lack of rain meant trash hadn't run off into local creeks, allowing it to collect on city streets.

"We're very gratified to see this annual cleanup event grow over the years to include city, county, and state partners," says Dye. "It's a testament to the value of building local partnerships, and to the civic pride of my fellow Columbians."

City of Columbia Stormwater Educator Mike Heimos estimates that 8,000 pounds of trash was collected during the 2-hour cleanup. Heimos participated in the cleanup of the Grindstone Nature Area, where nearly 700 pounds of trash was picked up.