Juan Martinez Appointed to Sierra Club Foundation's Board of Directors

On December 19, the Sierra Club Foundation announced that Juan Martinez, above, has become the newest member of its Board of Directors. At 27, the native of South-Central Los Angeles becomes the youngest member of the Foundation's board.

"It's an honor to be part of an organization where I've gone from being a participant to now sitting on the board," Martinez says. "The Sierra Club deals with environmental issues, but ultimately these are human issues. The environment affects people's lives, and we can improve people's lives for the better. I hope to represent the heartbeat of the environmental movement on the Foundation's board."

Martinez first became involved with the Sierra Club as a participant in Building Bridges to the Outdoors while in high school in South Central L.A. He worked his way up to the position of youth volunteer coordinator, and went on to join the Sierra Student Coalition's executive committee and helped construct the organization's policy.

"The Sierra Club is a big part of my personal story and a significant part of my life," Martinez says. "So many of my friends and mentors are part of the Club. I feel I can point to almost anyplace in the country and find people who are part of this tribe and the fight to improve the way of life for ourselves and future generations."

That's Martinez at center, below, as part of the Sierra Club contingent at the 2009 Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great Outdoors conference.

How Renewable Energy Is Getting a Charge from the Hoosier Chapter

By Steve Francis, Chairperson of the Hoosier Chapter.

While helping organize the implementation of a renewable-energy feed-in tariff in Indiana, we were able to collaborate with labor, environmental stakeholders, business leaders, and social justice groups. This is an ongoing organizing effort through a series of campaigns and events to get this program off the ground in Northern Indiana for solar, wind, and biomass power. The Chapter worked with ally organizations to craft the program in a way to set long-term contracts, prices, and small-scale set-aside which will be advantageous to collaborating with a utility and non-traditional groups, and bringing in new members and supporters.

We currently have a Green Corps organizers working the area and collaborating with an allied environmental group (Save The Dunes) in northwest Indiana. We are using existing member base to reinvigorate the Group in the area, as well as reaching out to involve labor organizations, social justice groups, and businesses to provide a broad-based effort for a successful program. Our hope is to expand this program in a broader beyond-coal-to clean-energy campaign and challenge other utilities to competitively offer this type of program in other areas. We will then use that expansion to enlarge our collaborative base.

So far, we are in the middle of the campaign, but we have held several meetings and rallies with excellent participation of dozens of people and several organizations. We will continue to hold events that will attract media attention as well as engage customers who will support the program and other efforts to expand renewable power in Indiana.

Major factors include: 1) Involving the utility from the beginning, 2) thinking beyond environmental allies to bring in non-traditional groups, and 3) leveraging those who are interested in renewable energy to spread the effort to those who will potentially benefit from the clean air and water, jobs, and investments. Having an organizer on the ground is a key component with backup volunteer and Chapter support.

Maryland Offshore Wind Town Hall Promotes Clean Energy & Green Jobs

The Sierra Club filled the room at a recent town hall meeting in Maryland about offshore wind energy. The event was held in the Hillcrest Heights community of Prince George's County, a predominately African American community just a few miles upwind of the GenOn Potomac River coal plant in Virginia. [The GenOn Potomac plant was recently scheduled for closure, thanks largely to the work of the Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.]

"The town hall event drew a diverse crowd," says Sierra Club organizer Chandler Sherman, "from lifelong Sierrans to Prince George's residents who, having never heard of offshore wind energy before, wanted to bring cleaner air and jobs to their community." That's Sherman at left, above, with Maryland State Delegate Aisha Braveboy and fellow Sierra Club organizer Chris Hill.

"Organizing in my communities, communities of color, is key to moving Maryland and our country beyond coal and into clean renewable energy, says Hill. "I'm so pleased to see that this was a true grassroots community-based town hall." Below, new Sierra Club members sign postcards to protect Chesapeake Bay.

Chicagoans Deliver Clean Air Photo Petition to City Hall

On December 2, more than 100 volunteers with the Chicago Clean Power campaign converged on City Hall to deliver a wall of photo petitions to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The photographs in the petition featured children, families, and other Chicagoans holding up signs saying, “I have the right to breathe clean air.” Below, ralliers at a press conference outside City Hall before the photo petition was delivered to the mayor.

The Sierra Club is one of the charter members of the Chicago Clean Power Coalition. For the past three months volunteers have been collecting hundreds of photo petitions on college campuses, at local events, and mainly while canvassing on doorsteps and street corners in the Pilsen and Bridgeport neighborhoods of Southwest Chicago.

Pilsen and the adjacent neighborhood of Little Village are home to the city's two dirtiest power plants: the Fisk and Crawford Generating Stations. The Sierra Club and its allies have waged a multi-year campaign to shutter Fisk and Crawford.

"Today we demanded that the Mayor set retirement dates for the Fisk and Crawford plants by the end of the year," says Sierra Club organizer Christine Nannicelli, below, who played a key role in collecting petition photos and putting the event together.

"It was awesome to see the coalition in action," says Verena Owen, a longtime Illinois Chapter clean leader and now volunteer co-lead of the Beyond Coal Campaign, who attended the rally. "This is what people power looks like."

Big Public Health Victory in Michigan as Coal Plant is Nixed

The Sierra Club won a hard-fought victory on December 2 when Consumers Energy, which provides electricity to 6.5 million of Michigan's 10 million residents, announced plans to cancel a proposed $3.5 billion coal plant near Bay City.

"This is a tremendous victory for Michigan, clean energy jobs, and families struggling to pay electric bills," says Michigan Sierra Club Director Anne Woiwode. "For years, the people of Michigan have spoken loud and clear: No more dirty coal. More clean, renewable energy."

Consumers Energy, the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy, also plans to shutter seven of its existing coal-fired units around the state by 2015. The announcement came after years of organizing and pushback on the proposal by neighboring communities and environmental groups.

Sierra Club activists rallied outside CMS Energy's shareholder meeting last year (left, right, and above), where the Club, Clean Water Action, Progress Michigan, and the Ecology Center delivered 8,000 petition signatures opposing the Bay City plant.

"This is a big victory for Sierra Club members and our allies who have have fought this coal plant for years," says Sierra Club organizer Tiffany Hartung. "Hundreds of Michiganders have spoken at hearings, sent letters to the editor, attended rallies, and submitted comments. The cancellation of this proposed $3.5 billion coal plant clears the way for clean energy job investments in Michigan."

A Cruise for Water on Lake Erie

By Pat McKenna, Executive Committee Chair of the Northeast Ohio Sierra Group.

One of our recent successes was the "Sunset Dinner Cruise" aboard Lake Erie's largest cruise ship, the Goodtime III. The lake cruise included dining and an environmental/political satirist folk singer. By holding this event, we were able to enhance our relationship with one of our major supporters by choosing water as our main topic. We created club awareness by reaching non-members, we generated camaraderie amongst the ranks, and we raised awareness of our greatest environmental asset here in northeast Ohio -– Lake Erie!

The event drew more than 100 people. When disembarking, EVERYONE said they "can't wait until next year's cruise!" and that they all "had a wonderful time." These comments were enough to make us commit to making it an annual event and plan the next one for August 2012.  

Solar Project Helps Veterans Gain Green Job Skills

Three Bay Area veterans committed to building sustainable communities and helping other vets make the transition to civilian jobs raised more than $7,000 to help sponsor a two-day, hands-on training for local veterans to install a solar electric system on the home of a low-income family in San Francisco's Bayview district.

Among them was Sierra Club staffer and US Naval Academy graduate Alicia Washkevich (above at left). Working with former Marine Ian Thomson (second from right) and fellow Navy vet Brian Wiechowski, the three raised money through individual contributions and donations from the Sierra Club and Sungevity, a residential solar company.

The two-day training, timed to coincide with Veteran's Day, was organized by GRID Alternatives, a solar installation training company operating throughout California, and Swords to Plowshares, a community-based non-profit that helps make the transition to civilian life easier by providing counseling, job training, housing, legal assistance and other services to veterans in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anthony Sordini, director of Veterans Green Career Pathways for Swords to Plowshares, is second from left, above.