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.

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.

Big Push for Offshore Wind Power in Maryland

After Governor Martin O'Malley's Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2012 passed in the state House of Delegates on March 30 by an overwhelming 88-47 vote, hundreds of Marylanders from across the state gathered in Annapolis on April 2 to show their support for the bill as the Senate prepared to vote.

 
Working as part of Marylanders for Offshore Wind Power—a coalition of environmental, labor, faith, business, and community groups who have joined together to help spur the development of offshore wind energy off Maryland's coast—the Sierra Club helped turn out more than 500 citizen activists from different backgrounds to listen to the governor (below), members of the House, and other wind advocates.

"It would be absolutely nuts for us, as an Atlantic state, not to want to be one of the first to harness the most available, renewable resource we have out there," said O'Malley.

The Maryland Sierra Club has been working for two years to promote the Offshore Wind Energy Act, which would jumpstart an offshore wind industry that is expected to create thousands of clean energy jobs and provide a huge share of Maryland's power in the decades to come.

Student organizations, nurses, religious groups, and minority businesses were among those who spoke in support of offshore wind. Maryland Sierra Club organizer Christine Hill (below) helped organize the Annapolis rally.

"Energy experts agree that America’s coastline from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is one of the best places in the world for wind turbines," she said. "It is a region of shallow water, very windy conditions, and it's right next to 64 million electricity users from Boston to Charlotte. A multi-billion dollar wind industry is coming soon—guaranteed—to this region as a solution to our twin challenges of energy independence and intensifying global warming."

Combating Climate Change and Global Poverty in One Fell Swoop

Native Virginian and Sierra Club member Tim Whitley was earning his MBA at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School when he attended two presentations that fortuitously connected two of his animating passions: combating climate change and alleviating global poverty.

Four years later, Whitley has founded Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty (COTAP), an Oakland, California-based organization that empowers individuals to simultaneously take action on climate change and global poverty by funding tree-planting programs that create wages for the working poor in the developing world. Below, a family-run tree-nursery in Uganda that COTAP is helping finance.

COTAP, for which Whitley serves as CEO, connects individuals' carbon footprints—determined using COTAP's online carbon calculator—with accredited forestry projects in less-developed countries, creating "meaningful and measurable" economic benefits for some of the poorest people in the world.

The organization now has up-and-running projects in Central America and Africa, with several more in the works that will expand COTAP's presence to three continents.

Its initial project, in Limay, Nicaragua, above and below, was done in partnership with Montreal-based Taking Root, a non-profit organization that develops social reforestation projects in collaboration with small-scale farmers in Nicaragua.

The community of San Juan de Limay has now planted more than 200,000 trees over an area of 160 hectares (about 235 football fields), and the trees planted by the project have generated more than $145,000 for the community.

Two subsequent projects have since taken root in Africa. In Sofala, Mozambique, below, COTAP is partnering with Envirotrade in its Sofala Community Carbon Project, where last year more than 1,800 participating farmers earned nearly $250,000 in rural areas where annual incomes are less than $50.

In Albertine Rift, Uganda, COTAP is working with Ecotrust's Trees for Global Benefits project, which has supported more than 1,000 farmers in planting native trees and fruit orchards while sequestering nearly 105,000 tonnes (metric tons) of carbon dioxide annually. Below, the program coordinator in Kasese, Uganda, records and monitors new tree growth.

Sierra Club Spearheads Largest-Ever Reforestation of Abandoned Mine Lands in Kentucky

Over two March weekends in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, hundreds of volunteers including a large Sierra Club contingent launched the largest reforestation project on abandoned mine lands in the state's history.

Nearly 350,000 trees—all native hardwood species—will be planted over the next three years on 250 acres that had been strip-mined in the Fishtrap Lake watershed in Pike County. The project is being funded by a settlement from a Sierra Club lawsuit against an illegal mountaintop removal operation.

Lane Boldman, a Kentuckian who serves on the Sierra Club's board of directors, joined Kentucky Sierra Club organizer Alex DeSha and about 200 volunteers from around the state in planting more than 7,000 seedlings on March 17, and more than 300 people—including 100 Boy Scouts—turned out the following weekend.

"This is really a bright spot of activity for a part of Kentucky that has been ravaged by mining," Boldman says. "The area where we were planting had been totally scalped."

The March 17 tree-planting was organized by Mary Miller, below at right, a volunteer with the Club's Bluegrass Group who works closely with the faith community.

"Mary coordinated the participation of at least 50 Sierra Clubbers and several faith groups," Boldman says. "Quite a few people came up from Tennessee, and we planted seven or eight varieties of bare-root seedlings using Dibble bars."

Larry Ridenour, also of the Bluegrass Group, led the second tree-planting, on March 24. "Larry is a Boy Scout troop leader and he brought several troops out for the occasion," Boldman says. "Mary and Larry did so much to make this whole thing happen. They're real go-getter-type activists who gave a lot of their time and sweat to this."

The roots of the reforestation project can be traced back to 2008, when newly-hired Kentucky Sierra Club organizer John Cleveland, at right, discovered an illegal valley fill while doing water-quality testing near mountaintop removal mine sites in eastern Kentucky.

Valley fillls are comprised of what mine companies refer to as "overburden"—essentially the blasted-off mountaintops—which is then dumped in adjacent valleys.

Election Protection -- Sierra Club Commits to Fight Voter Suppression

By Sierra Club President Robin Mann

Participatory. That is what our democracy is intended to be! Every eligible citizen who wants to should be able to register, vote, and have their vote counted.

But we are now witnessing in this country what may be the most serious assault on voting rights since the years following Reconstruction after the Civil War, when poll taxes and rigged literacy tests disenfranchised countless black Americans.

More than 40 states have passed or introduced legislation that will create unjust and unnecessary obstacles to voting that will disproportionately affect the young, the elderly, people with disabilities, and people of color.

Instead of encouraging civic participation, voter suppression laws disenfranchise voters by creating barriers to the ballot box. These laws often surround voter identification requirements, voter registration drives, and shortened or restricted early voting dates.

On March 22, the Sierra Club Board of Directors formally responded to this threat, adopting a Resolution Supporting Democracy and the Right to Vote.

Mayors Bloomberg and Emanuel Talk Clean Energy in Chicago

On Leap Day, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Midwest Generation announced that the utility's Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants in Chicago had been scheduled for retirement. A week later, Emanuel announced plans to begin redeveloping the sites.

On March 8, Emanuel was joined on a tour of the Fisk site by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was in Chicago for a Global C40 Cities climate leadership conference. Last fall Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $50 million to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.

"Closing these plants is a first step," Emanuel said, "but the key is to make sure these facilities are used to spur economic development and job creation for these neighborhoods." Chicago is the only city in the country with two coal plants inside its city limits.

“Mayor Emanuel and the City of Chicago have taken a big step forward in building a healthier and environmentally sustainable city,” said Bloomberg. “Today is also a great step forward for the Beyond Coal campaign that has been working with Mayor Emanuel, residents, and local organizations."

Below, Emanuel is congratulated by activists from P.E.R.R.O. (Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization), one of the Sierra Club's coalition partners. The Fisk plant is located in the Pilsen neighborhood in southwest Chicago.

The Sierra Club's Illinois Chapter and Chicago Group have been working with Beyond Coal and the Chicago Clean Power Coalition for the last year-and-a-half to retire Fisk and Crawford. The plants' scheduled closure pushed the number of coal plants now set for retirement over the century mark since Beyond Coal launched in January 2010.

Environmental Justice Activist Rose Johnson Featured in Ms. Magazine

Longtime Mississippi Sierra Club activist Rose Johnson was profiled by Ms. Magazine in February.

Born and raised in the historic African American settlement of North Gulfport on Mississippi's Gulf Coast, Johnson—who currently serves as vice chair of the Mississippi Chapter and sits on its executive committee—has for years been the de facto spokeswoman for North Gulfport, and is the founder of the North Gulfport Community Land Trust.

"When I first met Rose we were responding to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit application to fill in 500 acres of wetlands in the Turkey Creek area of North Gulfport," says fellow Sierra Club activist Becky Gillette. "We had less than a week before the comment period ended. Rose took to the streets, gathered petition signatures, and encouraged leaders in her community to write letters. It was an incredible response for such a short period of time."

The Corps later said it was the greatest number of comment letters they had ever received on a permit application in Mississippi. "It should be no surprise that Rose and her allies in North Gulfport prevailed in preventing this huge wetlands fill that could have dramatically increased flooding in their neighborhoods," Gillette says. "And this was despite three U.S. Senators putting pressure on the Corps to approve the permit!"

In addition to fighting for public health, one of Johnson's goals is to increase African Americans' access to home ownership. Below, Johnson with Sierra Club leaders including Mississippi Chapter Director Louie Miller at left and Sierra Club President Robin Mann at right, in front of the North Gulfport Community Land Trust offices.

Club and Allies Ramp Up Pressure to Retire Aging Chicago Coal Plants

The Sierra Club and the Chicago Clean Power Coalition teamed up to organize rallies and press conferences in Chicago on February 15 and 21, ramping up the pressure on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Midwest Generation to retire the aging Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants.

That's Sierra Club activist Abby Toms, above at left with fellow members of the Chicago Youth Climate Coalition at the February 21 rally. Below left, a Chicago mother for clean air; at right, Chicago Sierra Club volunteer leader Tony Fuller. The "I am one of the 42" t-shirts refer to the 42 Chicagoans whom studies show die prematurely each year due to pollution from the Fisk and Crawford plants.

The Sierra Club's Chicago Group, Illinois Chapter, and Beyond Coal Campaign have been working in coalition with local allies to educate the public about the health risks of coal-fired power plants and retire the Fisk and Crawford facilities. Chicago is the only U.S. city to have two coal plants within its borders, and one in four Chicagoans live within three miles of the plants' smokestacks.