To our Seirra Companions,
So I got bored and left them there, they were just dead weight to me
Better down the road without that load.

I think Jane has some sort of vendetta against the club as this isn’t the first time she has been critical of the Sierra Club.

She most likely has never attended a local club event or meeting to see how hard these dedicated individuals who work for the club in their spare time and many using their own resources to help preserve and protect the environment.

It must be nice to be able to sit on her high horse and spew criticisms to the masses while others get down and dirty working on actual problems dealing with the environment. Jane is no better than Limbaugh or Glen Beck

By the way I am still waiting for a reply on my resons to your 6/15/2010 article

Atlantis

Brilliant.

Go to Jane Hamsher’s post on the Sierra Club the first week of the shill, er, spill, when they had nothing about it on their website. A picture speaks a thousand words.

You don’t seem to have looked at the post, where your article is both quoted and responded to:

Sierra Club loyalists were quick to defend the club, saying that the Sierra Club is a “grassroots organization” and that the article “insults those very volunteers and every Sierra Club member who has ever volunteered to help with an environmental cause.”

Your “wait” appears to be self-inflicted.

For someone who likes to “get down and dirty” you seem to have an odd condescension towards “the masses”.

But you do spell badly!

What are they paying you for working with the Sierra Club or is it one of the belief tanks? Is the pay based on the number of posts or a straight hourly rate? It would seem you are a prisoner of the veal pen.

She most likely has never attended a local club event or meeting to see how hard these dedicated individuals who work for the club in their spare time and many using their own resources to help preserve and protect the environment.

Completely missing the point. Insert obvious Upton Sinclair quote here.

BTW, credit to Sanlin on Twitter for many of the links in the above post:

http://twitter.com/Sanlin

Your fearless commitment to truth might require a correction of this, don’t you think?

http://twitter.com/dhmeiser/status/16245354280

Like all grass roots organizations that get too large. They bring in professional management to run the place and it winds up kissing government and especially corporate asses. Professional management is a joke. They are the biggest thing wrong with America’s business community. They think their degrees mean that they know everything, just like a teenager knows everything there is to know. After all, MBA means Minimal Brain Activity.

Jane is no better than Limbaugh or Glen Beck

Ha ha ha – I always enjoy the false equivalency required to attack criticism from the actual left of nominally left-leaning organizations that have sold out their mandates. Wait, you were serious?

Of course, that would explain why Jane is always exhorting people to buy gold from her sponsors and all the posts she put up suggesting an elite squad of environmentalists had sabotaged the BP rig and well.

Interior says they are too busy sucking off Tony Hayward to complete their “exhaustive” study of Atlantis safety red flags

When did the Sierra Club turn? And what was the catalyst behind it?

“A dire report circulating in the Kremlin today that was prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia’s Shirshov Institute of Oceanology warns that the Gulf of Mexico sea floor has been fractured “beyond all repair”….”

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/76/057/Scientists_Warn_Gulf_Of_Mexico_Sea_Floor_Fractured_Beyond_Repair.htm

There seems to be a lot of this going around in places like WWF as well.

WWF has been accused by a number of environmental groups and campaigners, such as Corporate Watch and PR Watch of being too close to businesses to campaign objectively.[12][13] WWF says that it works with companies to help them reduce their impact on the environment. Examples of companies with which it has such partnerships include Coca-Cola, Lafarge and IKEA.[14] It also has a Corporate Club that provides promotional opportunities for companies to use the WWF name and logo as a promotional tool.

Previous donors have included Chevron, Exxon and Telekids (each donating more than $50,000 in 1989), Philip Morris, Mobil, and Morgan Guaranty Trust.[citation needed] WWF received about $7 million from corporations in 2007, about 4.3% of its revenues for the year.[15]

What with ex-WWF president now being the R side of the Obama BP spill commission, along with Bob Graham. Buying their critics is just another corporate investment.

It’s not that easy being green.
Thanks Jane.

hope that pea shooter is made of HDPE

While the Sierra Club goes whole hog into the veal pen, BP is unable to capture leaking oil right now. Seems like there’s been another fire…

If you want to criticize someone, look in the mirror. It is the public’s apathetic and uncaring attitude that caused this spill. The Sierra Club spent decades fighting for cleaner energy solutions while the general pubic buys gas guzzling SUVs and energy inefficient mc-mansions and sat silently while the previous administration blocked all measures aimed at increasing energy efficiency.

It’s time you and your fellow ambassadors of anger stop complaining about the problem and become part of the solution.

You want someone to do something? You start! Write your congressman and senators and urge them to support clean energy legislation. Volunteer at a local environmental preserve. Make a donation. Just stop pointing fingers… unless it’s yourself Jane, and everyone else who reads this!

Oh my. I just read dhmeiser’s comment from the other thread. I believe the term for such sentiments as expressed is “internalized oppression.” Good luck with that.

“Carbon cap and trade was a scheme cooked up by BP and Enron lobbyists in the mid nineties. BP has subsequently dropped millions of dollars into the coffers of green groups to pave the way for it. Obama’s cry to pass Kerry-Lieberman as punishment for BP is not only highly ironic, it’s also illustrative of just how broken our national discourse around environmental issues has become.

Here is an interesting fact, Jane.

“When he wasn’t busy helping create a $127 billion mess for taxpayers to clean up, former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines, two of his top underlings and select individuals in the “green” movement were inventing a patented system to trade residential carbon credits.

Patent No. 6904336 was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office on Nov. 7, 2006 — the day after Democrats took control of Congress. Former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., criticized the award at the time, pointing out that it had “nothing to do with Fannie Mae’s charter, nothing to do with making mortgages more affordable.”

It wasn’t about mortgages. It was about greenbacks. The patent, which Fannie Mae confirmed it still owns with Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary CO2e.com, gives the mortgage giant a lock on the fledgling carbon trading market, thus also giving it a major financial stake in the success of cap-and-trade legislation.

[...]”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns-patent-on-residential-_cap-and-trade_-exchange-91532109.html

I was just rolling my eyes at the inept, quasi-literate allusion in the name.

Oh, wait…they were thinking of the casino when they named it.

Sierra Club only exists now for the sake of the Sierra Club. They started off like most people do, very high minded and so forth but now only care about the environment insofar as lip service on a subject that allows them to raise money.

Interesting thing about the fire. Lightning was said to have struck the ship so they have to wait a few hours(edit). The ship – no backups, no expectation of failure, no alternate scenerios – just business as usual.

whole hog into the veal pen

LOL

Money. It gets lots of money from BP. So do The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and Audubon. Link.

Kudos.

Why not go one step further and expose the Democrats who have helped BP greenwash their image in order to profit from the proposed cap and trade bill. BP is heavily invested in the carbon exchanges that will be created by the legislation that BP wrote with Enron nearly 15 years ago.

Dig deeper and find liberal activist John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, is playing a central role in crafting Obama’s BP response. John Podesta’s brother, is a BP lobbyist.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/why-the-bp-cap-white-house-axis-matters-96325509.html#ixzz0qx0FExDq

More spills too. Greg Palast youtube.

Having watched the elites that headed both the Nature Conservancy and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation get too “tightly with political and corporate interests”, I decided to end my financial support and volunteering my time (including paying for out of town over night expenses). I don’t see the insult to members when someone is shining a little light on the cult leaders. A little off topic, after the Prince William Sound disaster I vowed to never buy a drop of oil form the richest corporation ever, didn’t hurt their bottom line you might say and who knows if they really cared. For me it wasn’t a Boycott, just a “Free Markets!” choice bitches.

Yep. I don’t know much about oil drilling/spilling/recovery but I know bullsh*t when I hear it.

uncovering false advocacy is important work. One made a little easier by this administration.

Thank you Jane. You are a bright star in a dim sky.

I’d also like to point out this from the Sierra Club director Michael Brune:

the question:

350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. This bill will not get us there. This bill doesn’t even mention that number, or strive for that goal.

Do you think it is worth losing parts of the Clean Air Act, losing EPA regulatory ability; as well as, losing the moratorium on offhsore drilling, expanding nuclear plants, coal, etc to get a bill that doesn’t do what is needed?

there is not enough time for timid incremental legislation.

his response:

No we certainly don’t think this is worth losing CAA or the EPA’s ability to regulate. We may not get to 350 with this bill, that’s clear. But we shouldn’t give up some of the effective tools that we already have just for the chance to set a cap and price on carbon. WE should be adding to our toolbox, not reducing it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/13/866107/-Live-QA:-Sierra-Club-Executive-Director-Michael-Brune

of course, like in the Healthcare Reform, we’ll see where groups really stand.

I recall a few years back the anti-environmentalists were making efforts to infiltrate the clubs and get in leadership positions. There were quite a bit of accusations thrown back and forth over an election for president. I apologize for not remembering better. But it seems about 10 yr since they have ceased their once effective activism. I stopped supporting them some 6-8 yr ago.

Are they still legally a political organization or have they reverted to 5013c status?

Salazar in cahoots with the oil industry? Who could have predicted. Salazar sucked in CO and he sucks at Interior.

I believe the appropriate reply to that diatribe is to say “I plan on continuing to be “part of the solution” by no longer sending donations to organizations that enable policies contra to helping the environment, and instead, sending it elsewhere.”

I understand it has to do with money to do their thing. But when did they decide to go against their moral compass of not being beholden to moneyed interests and take the money knowing that it would silence them to a large degree? Who made that decision? It didn’t start out that way when the organization began.

Anybody wonder about the influx of people lobbying against cap and trade?

spoken like a pro-war, clorox drinker….I notice you can’t argue her points on the continued sellout of the organization to corporate interests. [edited by Moderator.]

heh. anecdotal, but a rig boss acquaintance says Atlantis would make Deepwater “look like a grease spot on the driveway”

Not really. Alex Jones has his minions whipped into a frenzy about it. People like Limbaugh and Norquist love it when so called lefties buy into the cap and trade hysteria.

There’s also something unpleasant about the low tolerance for dissent within the SC leadership that is being echoed here. Tribalism at its worst. I can still be a Dem but decry the pro-corporate agenda of the neolib leadership of the party. Though I suppose to the defenders of the realm that makes me a bad Dem. Oh well. Similarly, the members of the SC may individually be trying hard to enact their mandate – clearly entire chapters do just that – but when the leadership subverts the actions of its membership and threatens to dissolve or otherwise sanction them for doing so they deserve scorn and disapprobation. And their truly dedicated members should be the first in line to deliver it.

Why do you say “pro-war”?

I realize you’re mad matt but don’t you think that last sentence was a bit over the top?
(edit) this was supposed to reply to #37 sorry for the mixup.

I’ve just gotta say it once more to the people who believe cap and trade is some kind of government plot to deprive you of liberty: Anthropogenic Climate Change is happening and your opinion of Al Gore is entirely irrelevant to that empirical fact.

The Dems are swimming in an incestuous cesspool.

It’s not hysteria, it’s rent seeking by Wall Street. That is all.

I can still be a Dem but decry the pro-corporate agenda of the neolib leadership of the party.

You don’t come here often, do you?

And when I worked in the Cal State system, Ph.D. meant “piled higher and deeper” to staff members (not faculty, of course).

I very much agree that Sierra Club leadership has been in the process of selling its soul. Frankly, the other majors environmental groups have similar issues. It used to be that EDF was by far the most willing to engage corporations and advocate for market based solutions to environmental problems, cap and trade being a signature issue.

That said, you are pretty far off base in saying that carbon cap and trade was cooked up by BP. I don’t doubt however that Enron was closely involved on the corporate side. Until they blew up, they became the largest player in the SO2 cap and trade market which was precursor to the concept of cap and trade for carbon.

Cap and trade was originally developed and implemented as a mechanism to control acid rain pollution which has similar features to carbon emissions (local emissions lead to generalized impacts over larger regions). Development began under Reagan and was proposed as a solution on the international scene as early as Rio. The applicability of such a mechanism to a global problem such as carbon emission and global warming was quite broad among government and academic institutions.

Carbon cap and trade was a scheme cooked up by BP and Enron lobbyists in the mid nineties. BP has subsequently dropped millions of dollars into the coffers of green groups to pave the way for it. Obama’s cry to pass Kerry-Lieberman as punishment for BP is not only highly ironic, it’s also illustrative of just how broken our national discourse around environmental issues has become.

Probably the worst thing about Kerry-Lieberman is that it would lead to a pathetic program with weak cap and trade targets and gut the ability for EPA to regulate under the Clean Air Act and independent of any new legislation.

The whole point of cap and trade is that it lets you set relatively more aggressive targets than traditional regulatory structures: money expended on engineering studies and lawyers bills largely ends up being spent on control technologies. That’s very much a positive thing. Many opponents of cap and trade fail to acknowledge that command and control hasn’t been very successful.

It’s interesting how Jane’s article has lots of facts, and yours has none. Not a single fact in your reply, simply ad hominem attacks comparing Jane to Beck.

Perhaps you’d care to actually address some of Jane’s facts? How about the ones that speficically detail the threats coming from the Sierra Club board to those that don’t toe their corporate line? That don’t support the war? That don’t support Clorox?

Please – address those facts.

No, you probably won’t. Too inconvenient. Much easier for you to type a fact-free ad-hominem attack.

The Sierra Club has been selling out for years, all the way back to David Brower’s days there.

Under his leadership, the club’s membership grew from 7,000 to 70,000, and it began waging big-ticket environmental campaigns against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers.

In large part because of Brower’s furious and effective activism, the Sierra Club lost its tax-exempt status in 1969.

That same year, the Sierra Club Board of Directors, which included several of Brower’s oldest and best friends — including the late, great photographer Ansel Adams — forced Brower to resign. They felt he had grown too big for his britches, overreached by committing the club to positions that the board had never taken and was financially irresponsible to boot.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/obit072.shtml

Jeffrey St. Clair wrote a good piece about the Club in 2002:

Peculiarly, the Club has chosen to invoke its internal policing power mainly against members who have pushed for the Club to adopt more robust environmental policies: ending livestock grazing, mining and logging on public lands; backing Ralph Nader and the Green Party; or opposing the sell-out of Yosemite National Park to a corrupt firm linked to Bruce Babbitt. The most disgusting internal crackdown came last year in a spiteful attack on Moisha Blechman, a Sierra Club activist in New York City, who was smeared with accusations of the most scurrilous kind, mainly because she was too green for the cautious twerps who run the Club.

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair1212.html

The Sierra Club is too full of itself and full of timidity and compromise.

Which of course was a major theme of the previous and current posts. Since the “official” groups appear to have abdicated their advocacy roles, who else is out there for people to support.

Not sure about hysteria but I do think that cap and trade is a boondoggle that will do very little to fix the environment but would create a great new profit source for traders. Plenty of folks including Yves Smith and people that worked on a cap and trade pilot in CA agree. The environment needs tougher legislation not companies swapping carbon credits for money.

Well Gore’s a douche, but I agree that’s not about global warming. Can you tell me why the guy who invented cap and trade prefers a straight tax? Why all the banks want cap and trade instead, huh?

“In the 1960s, a University of Wisconsin graduate student named Thomas Crocker came up with a novel solution for environmental problems: cap emissions of pollutants and then let firms trade permits that allow them to pollute within those limits.

When he was a graduate student in the 1960s working to reduce pollutants, Thomas Crocker devised a cap-and-trade system similar to one being considered in Congress.

Now legislation using cap-and-trade to limit greenhouse gases is working its way through Congress and could become the law of the land. But Mr. Crocker and other pioneers of the concept are doubtful about its chances of success. They aren’t abandoning efforts to curb emissions. But they are tiptoeing away from an idea they devised decades ago, doubting it can work on the grand scale now envisioned.

“I’m skeptical that cap-and-trade is the most effective way to go about regulating carbon,” says Mr. Crocker, 73 years old, a retired economist in Centennial, Wyo. He says he prefers an outright tax on emissions because it would be easier to enforce and provide needed flexibility to deal with the problem.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125011380094927137.html

Heh. Sorry if I forgot the /”rhetorically obvious” tag. Was partially still reacting to some people on a different site I was reading who still get very upset when anyone suggests that the Obama WH en masse putting on their angry eyes and delivering stern looks and even wagging fingers in the general direction of BP is perhaps not an adequate response to this ecological clusterf*ck.

Hear! Hear! Cap and Trade will no doubt be corrupted in it’s implementation to increase the wealth of some people. I don’t deny that. It’s inevitable. But SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE OR WE ARE GOING TO F*CKING DIE, along with all of your cherished descendants. For the planet, that would no doubt be a good thing but for us, the suffering will be long and exquisite. If people don’t like Cap and Trade, please feel free to offer up alternatives, I’m always open minded. Not doing anything but bitching about how rich Al Gore may or may not get is suicidal (and homicidal, when you consider that inaction also kills those of us who want to do something).

I used to be a member of the Sierra Club. The only damn thng my local chapter wanted to do was go on nature walks, which is all well and good but I’m too damn old and worn out from bustin’ my ass for somebody else. When the BP Refinery in Whiting, Indiana petitioned the IDEM for permission to spew additional toxic shit into Lake Michigan my local chapter said and did next to nothing. Whiting is less than 2 hrs. away. They should have raised holy hell; I would have found the energy to go to that. Thus ended my affiliation with the Sierra Club.

Are you going to answer the points Jane brings up or simply continue to throw sand in our faces? Answer for the Clorox issue and the corporatist Board of Directors. Answer for their treatment of the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club (they must be TRAITORS!) that got the shaft because they opposed the greenwash scheme with Clorox.

Explain their love and support for cap-and-trade (a boon to Goldman-Sachs, by the way). Hell, simply address ANY of the points Jane made rather than tossing sand.

Of course some of us aren’t all that sure we are Ds any more so the position might still stand.

Gotta remember to change hats when you change blogs.
I’m guessing most people here understand what an ecological clousterf*ck this is. But, yeah.

As Crap-n-Trade allows NON-energy sector agents to buy up (and sell) credits, it is a corrupt system by design. Goldman-Sachs is itching to buy up credits and resell them.

THE best means of dealing with carbon is a carbon tax AT THE SOURCE. At the coal mine, at the well head.

Huh?

You know from Jane’s examples when the local chapters do get down and dirty they get slammed by the national organization. The concept of the veal pen is that the leadership at the national level of reformist groups loses touch with its roots and with its core mission and become interested only in perpetuating its own privileges. The Deepwater Horizon blowout is the largest industrially caused environmental disaster in our nation’s history. What does it say about the Sierra Club as an environmental organization that it hasn’t recognized the scope of the disaster let alone led the environmental response to it?

The question is whether or not a cap and trade scam will actually curb emission enough to make a difference. Further, it is blatantly apparent that there are billions ot be made from this scheme and Dems within the administration not only have incestuous relationships with BP, Goldman Sachs, et al, but personal investments that hinge on the passage of cap and trade legislation.

Will the impact of cap and trade on the environment be significantly curtailed to merit the $700 to $2200 per household yearly increase in energy bill for working families? GE, BP, GS, Franklin Raines, John Podesta, Nancy Pelosi, Ed Markey is just the beginning of the list of corporations and individuals intimately connected to this administration and the Democratic party.

Great link.

Note the kind of tropism that’s become typical of administration team players in the media (this one from Matt Yglesias):

“If [Tim Carney] really thinks CAP’s work on the oil spill is driven by a desire to help BP he should come out and say so”.

Carbon Trading is not the optimal solution of course. NOT using carbon based fuels is. We must develop alternatives. Now. If it takes a carbon tax in order to encourage and pay for those alternatives, then I don’t care who gets rich off of it because here’s the thing: We HAVE to do SOMETHING and WHATEVER we do, SOMEBODY is going to get extremely rich as a result and it won’t be me!

Jane,

Time for the moment of truth: Who did you vote for in 2008: Obama, McCain, Nader, Mckinney, or other? Time to lay your cards on the table. Attacking the Sierra Club is one thing, and they do deserve to be attacked, but where do you stand vis a vis the two party dragon that is dragging this country down?

Responded to wrong comment.

Alternatives to cap and trade do need to be proposed but that is NOT what this administration is pushing. It is looking to enrich it’s cronies and consolidate power…pure machine politics…The Chicago Way.

Settle down…the world’s not supposed to end until 2012.

Well for me, I’ve never been a Party Democrat. The only reason most of the establishment Dems seem better than Repugs to me is because those Repugs have set the bar so very low.

Go green at the Oregon Country Fair .

Hear! Hear! Cap and Trade will no doubt be corrupted in it’s implementation to increase the wealth of some people. I don’t deny that. It’s inevitable. But SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE OR WE ARE GOING TO F*CKING DIE, along with all of your cherished descendants. For the planet, that would no doubt be a good thing but for us, the suffering will be long and exquisite.

Has it occured to you, Margaret, that there may be entirely too many people on the planet for our own good, and that nature might need to adjust that? That the bankers realize this, and want to make money off the rest of us so that it’s not them that goes, but us?

I think folks here object to CnT on the grounds that it would be another Wall Street MOTU windfall vehicle, I haven’t seen anyone claim here it’s gubmint plot. Not that I’ve read every comment to every post, but it’s certainly not a theme…

It’s a government plot. Fannie Mae owns the patent on it. There you go.

: )

Not optimal? It’s not optimal because it’s not effective due to being easily gamed. A carbon tax is something that’s harder to avoid, but cap-and-trade can be gamed by having the rules written such that carbon credits can be gained for useless or even destructive activities. If lobbyists didn’t write our laws, I might be a tiny bit more sanguine about cap-and-trade having some positive effect. As things stand now, I can’t see that at all.

Government is colluding with Wall Street. Key Dems will be greatly enriched and corporations like BP and Goldman Sachs will be allowed to continue to exist.

Key Dems are helping to greenwash corporations to dupe the public and environmental groups are being paid off. Now maybe the SC truly believes that cap and trade will ‘save the planet’ but politicians are just as bad as gigantic corporations on delivering on their promises.

Has it occured to you, Margaret, that there may be entirely too many people on the planet for our own good, and that nature might need to adjust that?

Wow! Do you honestly believe that hasn’t occurred to me? Of course that’s the primary problem. Not being a fatalist though, I think the better solution is to learn to live with nature, rather than sitting around waiting for the end or hurrying my extinction.

Oh, lordy, we’ve got an alexjonesbot that calls into the station all the time.

Thank you!

That is the crux of the problem. Cap and trade is a market based approach and if people don’t understand the dangers in that they have not been paying attention the last few years. For me, it would be similar to how Goldman games the oil futures market through its subsidiary J Aron. You don’t get price discovery and market efficiency. You get jacked up prices and market distortion. A carbon tax would be far more direct and effective. It would avoid third parties like Goldman taking a cut to no useful purpose. And it would put government in a position to rebate to those ordinary Americans most affected. As for industries, those who persisted with carbon based sources would be put at a competitive disadvantage price wise compared to those who went green.

Ai-yi-yi.

Uh huh, and the second part, Margaret?

That the bankers realize this, and want to make money off the rest of us so that it’s not them that goes, but us?

They’re not dumb. If there’s one thing they know how to do it’s how to prosper off of others suffering. They also appear to control congress and the WH, don’t they? Except for a few republicans, I mean.

Gosh and golly. If there were only some self rightiousness around here. It occurs to me that then I’d be a truly happy vixen.

alexjonesbot

Someone needs to compile a glossary of snippy, sectarian epithets like this.

Ugh! I’m sorry. I met dear old Alex once at a party in Austin. Poor, pathetic and horny thing he was.

A truly happy POLITICAL Vixen! ;-)

“Until progressive groups successfully address the challenge of funding themselves independent of the elite individuals and institutions that act as enforcers of a corporate agenda, they will not be able to successfully advocate for progressive causes.”

Why are there BP and Blue Cross Ads playing on this site, then, if you’re so pure?

It’s the top of the hour. My sandwich is eaten and there’s more yard work.
Carry on, noble one(s).

That’s a great subject for a post.

Great post. If these are our environmental NGOs, they’re about as useful as Planned Parenthood often is to a pregnant fifteen year old who wants ann abortion and doesn’t want to involve her parents.

I see that dhmeiser hasn’t tried to post again once Jane showed him up as either a liar or a guy with serious reading comprehension issues.

David Brower, 1996: “President Clinton has done more to harm the environment and to weaken environmental regulations in three years than Presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years.”

http://www.debatethis.org/gore/enviro/brower.html

Carl Pope, 2010: “President Obama is the best environmental president we’ve had since Teddy Roosevelt.”

Brower became a legend in the environmental movement by taking uncompromising stands. Pope will be remembered for selling out to industry and sucking up to politicians.

She’s so excellent that way.
Hi PW.

Got proof that Jane’s working for either of these entities? What about you?

So new to the intertoobz that ya don’t know how blogads work?

Can the Hydrogen Highway Exist?
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/15/can-the-hydrogen-highway-exist/

Chevrolet, Honda, Chrysler and most other car manufacturers believe that by 2015, car production could be ramped-up to make Hydrogen viable as a fuel alternative and a possible answer to get America off of fossil fuel and the dependence on foreign oil.

If this is true…why do we need a carbon trading, corrupt money making, burdensome, job killing carbon tax?

Hey demi!

You can always tell when she’s scored a direct hit: The trollies show up and make asses of themselves.

Or he/she/it doesn’t care and is looking for a cheap attack that requires ignorance of how the internet works to succeed?

You, yourself have selectively edited my comment. You’re going to get snippy with me about the way I quoted you when you left out:

If people don’t like Cap and Trade, please feel free to offer up alternatives, I’m always open minded. Not doing anything but bitching about how rich Al Gore may or may not get is suicidal (and homicidal, when you consider that inaction also kills those of us who want to do something).

That seems to be somewhat of a double standard to me.

Bam! (with a smile)

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

A Lincoln

Came to the wrong place lookin’ for ignorance.

We’re not dependent on corporate advertising. If ads from any company disappeared tomorrow, the financial impact would be so small we wouldn’t even notice. And those particular ads are network ads. We don’t approve them before they go up and often don’t even see them.

The problem is not that all corporate/foundation/advertising/big donor money is evil. I don’t believe it is. But if an organization is dependent on that money for its existence, it will not be able to advocate against the interests represented by that money in any consistent way and still keep the doors open.

It’s imperative to not only build sustainable independent funding sources, but also to scale the size of the organization to those resources. If you’re running an organization with a $50 million a year budget, that kind of independence is just not possible.

Tax emissions, I mentioned it earlier. I’m not snippy, I think you should look more closely at cap and trade.

But they’re so deeply invested in the narrative that people like FAUX “News” peddle about liberals that when they instead find reason and fact, they don’t know how to act except to become personally insulting.

I bet Mr. Clever Handle has his wallet out right now.

I think the answer to your question most likely lies in the Big Green groups transitioning from instruments–which is to say task or agenda oriented organisations–to institutions. Sierra Club is no longer an instrument of the agenda. It is an institution devoted to it’s own agenda, which is to increase it’s income and stature, thus resulting in nice pay raises to top people and so on. It’s about pay raises and nice retirement packages for the top dogs.

The environment, it turns out, doesn’t offer the kind of perks that corporate relations does.

Cap’n Trade worked for net sulfur dioxide emissions because there was a relatively small pool of significant point sources: most all were coal fired power plants, which tend to be rather sessile. The permits could be given a fixed *national* level, and strictly enforced downward. No one could simply drive their power plant off to the next nation or country and export power without anyone noticing.

Global carbon emissions face a myriad of sources spread over the world. EU efforts to decrease carbon output succeeded in driving carbon outputs to China and other third world (non) regulated environments. The EU’s carbon trading scheme also proved to be so massive a fraud that the stolen money exceeded the EU’s entire annual budget for their Common Agricultural Policy: the EU’s version of our farm subsidies. That’s a staggering theft even by Veal Pen standards.

NASA’s James Hansen repeatedly warns us Cap’n Trade will fail. Who supports Cap’n Trade in the US? The banskters who want to rob us with yet another rigged market scam, and many of our biggest carbon emitters. Oh – and the leaders of Gang Green.

I had high hopes for the ED Sierra CLub brought over from RAN. If he’s on board with this con job, that’s the best evidence I could ask for to show the SC’s Beltway HQ instantly corrupts everyone it sucks in.

Best to fund the local SC chapters for their work and close the national HQ. Reopen it somewhere outside of the Village, and hire all new staff. Let the current SC headquarters wither and die – before it kills the rest of us for a few Veal Pen handouts.

Because carbon based energy is not all about gasoline. Also you are talking about a maybe. Hydrogen would need to have infrastructure built up for it and you would have to switch over a lot of the fleet to it. That is not going to happen any time close to 2015.

Wow, if that would work for the SC why not try it with the federal government? We couldn’t shut it down but we could reduce its power and influence by demanding more local control at the state and local levels. We could abolish entire government agencies that are corrupt, bloated and ineffective. We could demand that the revenue stream that currently fills the federal coffers be returned to the workers who work hard for every dime they make only to see our Treasury raided by Wall Street and their political cronies.

We could abolish entire government agencies that are corrupt, bloated and ineffective.

Barney Frank too.

No. But cars do not run on wind or solar power either. We do not need a financial scam that will invite corruption and create a sub-prime bubble for this market, just as one occurred in the housing market while burdening working families with higher energy prices and continued high unemployment.

Obama calls his taxes ‘transition costs’ but in reality it raises the price of public transportation for the working poor, it raises the cost of air-conditioning for fixed income seniors, it raises the price of every product and sevice that will be transported using carbon based fuels.

And for what? To enrich Obama cronies by trading air? Did we learn nothing from the Enron scandal? BP and Enron share the credit for writing cap and trade legislation nearly 15 years ago.

*groan*

It is time for all real progressives to realize, that the elites have been at war with progressives and liberals for years.

The elites learned a long time ago, all we have to do to control our enemies which are liberals and progressives is to buy some of the phony ones off and create some trojans horses.

“the elites live by this quote: “In times of peace prepare for war, In times of war prepare for peace “WAR IS CONSTANT” Sun Tzu

The elites know by buying certain “Brand Names” Green Peace, SIERRA Club, etc. etc. they can accomplish their evil goals quickly.

Obama = SIERRA CLUB, Obama is a trojan horse,

The SIERRA CLUB is no where to be found during the biggest enviornmental disaster in USA history? makes you understand the power of phony enviornmentalist and money.

The elites have developed simple and effective ways to deal with the majority of american citizens.

The elites brought news media a long time ago (they hated Walker Cronkite)

The elite brought congress and presidency a long time ago (they hated FDR)

the elite brought new papers and magazines ( people still think the New York Times is a Liberal Paper? Wow, they are the mouth piece of the rich and powerful)

the elite brought up Enviornmental Groups (they hate how the movement use to hamper Oil production, Coal Production, etc.)

The elites now want to buy up all the colleges, universities, high schools, etc. (they hate the idea of education, dumb people are is to control, seen Sarah Palin lately, remember she reads everything!)

It is a very simple game plan the elites have, “If you control what people Know in the USA, you will control what they do”

The Washington Examiner is owned by a wealthy, conservative Denver businessman, Philip Anschutz who specifically wanted a conservative paper with conservative editors, etc. People need to be aware of this when reading your link.

San Francisco Examiner also owned by Philip Anschutz specifically to provide conservative bias.

Thank you, I was aware of that possibility and wasn’t sure what their history was. Still, the facts are there. Mainly I was looking for something that communicated those facts.

A lot of Sierra Club MEMBERS are very dedicated individuals, who believe in the overarching (old school) Sierra Club MISSION. As a long-time member, myself, I am saddened and infuriated to learn what Jane has courageously unveiled here, but I am also willing to accept the truth.

People should definitely go out and check out stuff for themselves and not wholesale believe anything they read. That said, it does appear as if, at least at the Nat’l level, the Sierra Club is mostly/all in the veal pen.

This doesn’t take away from what a lot of local chapters still do, and I still rely on certain local chapter websites (at least right now) for good voter info, and so on.

But it’s time to take the blinders off and assess everything – everything is on the table anymore.

A final word: about 7 or 8 years ago, there was a relatively obvious campaign by rightwing, anti-environmental types to take over the Board of the Sierra Club. Members vote in the Board, but that time around, members learned what was happening and voted for the “correct” people.

I have wondered ever since about stealth campaigns. Rightwingers (some of them notwithstanding) are not dumb. They messed up their original opportunity by being too obvious and by having rightwing shock jocks promoting these candidates. I have since wondered about who, exactly, is running for the Board. It’s not always easy to get the “real” skinny on these people, who write their CVs to indicate that they’re long-term serious environmental activisits with all kinds of “cred.”

So, who knows? It sure seems like some stealth candidates have gotten in, and perhaps Carl Pope sold out.

Bill McKibben still speaks highly of the SC, but I think he was speaking more about the local chapters, which is where most members are most directly involved.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and I welcome very much the info that Jane and others have highlighted on this blog. Good work! We need to know this; it’s critical.

Slightly OT, but did people know they started building the manufacturing plant in May for the all American, all electric Nissan Leaf? A move in the correct direction.

http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/index

Well, wasn’t it the Sierra Club, under the leadership of David Brower, which signed off on the Glen Canyon Dam? This move was one Brower said he regretted the rest of his life. Unfortunately, many so-called ‘mainstream’ enviro groups are moving this direction.

I met Connelly at the Oregon Dems’ platform convention in ’92. That was the third straight year the Oregon Dem enviro caucus was thwarted in its effort to get planks on the platform opposing the harvest of old growth trees on public lands, largely due to the influence of the AFL-CIO delegates and the moderate downstate legislators. Well, we’ve now seen the results of continuing harvest. I subsequently became a Green because of the Dems’ intransigence. I would now no longer support the Sierra Club or Nature Conservancy (which uses pesticides to control vegetation on their land holdings) because of their alliances w/corporate interests which act in contravention to their stated aims.
It’s a sad situation, and while I respect all those local activists who are involved w/these organizations, I believe they should look at their leadarship w/a critical eye and ask the hard questions, esp before they donate money. And, I have little respect for those who call names at folks who ask those critical questions. People who believe their gods are too holy to question are fooling themselves. But, I won’t be fooled, again.

Hard to say- I’ve been looking for dates. Certainly, The National Wildlife Federation has been taking money from the big oil and gas companies since the late 80′s, and Conservation International from BP at least since 2006, if not before. Sierra Club was approached by the makers of Clorox Bleach in 2008. I couldn’t find a date for when they began their ties to BP. See this link. It certainly would be a great research project for someone to come up with exactly which groups are taking exactly how much money from which polluters, and when did it begin.

It’s ALL about the “dumbing down of America”, folks. The solution is simple for those of us who want to do more than whine: Cancel your membership NOW!

For those who cancelled membership to Sierra Club last year, as several of us did, I recommend laughing at all those who continue to flaunt its decals.

It has become obvious the large “environmental” organizations have been taken over and corrupted. Which is why we need to work at the “grassroots” level in order to keep people who truly believe in saving our earth and even our own backyards actively involved.

Tim Carney is at the Washington Examiner and I actually think a lot of his analysis is vspot-on.

While there is certainly good reason to raise eyebrows and “consider the source” in many instances, it should ultimately be the content and not the outlet it appears on that should be judged good, bad or otherwise.

Just because you didn’t catch it, and don’t want to look for it, doesn’t mean that I didn’t “lay my cards on the table.”

Why should I waste my time responding to someone who don’t have the energy to look up a very obvious and well-promoted fact.

Thank you for all of your past, present, and future activism to save the forests in Oregon!

I agree that content ultimately should be the final factor in credibility. Believe me, I look at numerous sources when researching information on a topic. But, I also keep in mind the direction of “spin” on an issue no matter who the source.

Sorry, but I’m not buying a “grass roots” anything these days – UNLESS its to vote out every Dem. incumbent up for reelection. To this end I WILL do everything I did in previous elections for the Dems. AGAINST them.
I’m not talking about wasting my vote, I’m talking about voting for their Republican opponents, however despicable they are. Sorry, we disagree on this, but I really believe this is the only way to respond to them blowing the opportunity we gave them. There is NOTHING anyone can say in defence of their actions. Truth is, Bill Clinton stumping for Blanche Lincoln says it all and more, it’s one dirty little club. Shameful, just shameful!

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I was referring to grassroots level for the environmental groups not in reference to politicians. We NEED environmentalists and activists in our communities. Although I believe we should quit support of the national, corporate environmental groups, I believe we (the people) should stay active about environmental issues. I would hate to see people stop being active on the local level because the large groups have been taken over. Instead of belonging to the Sierra Club, I’m suggesting joining a local environmental group.

Agreed.

More about internet ads, from a former ad salesman. Publishing ads is not an endorsement, until some ads are rejected. From that point forward all ads published are an endorsement. You see the slippery slope now?

Since Ms Hamsher is going to try and air all the Sierra Club’s dirty laundry, let’s list it. The controversy concerned payments for supporting Greenworks She stated clorox gave $1.1 million to the Sierra Club This is is inacurate as the amount was “not discolsed” The Club put the Florida chapter executive committee on probation not the members as she stated in her article.

for those of you who want more information on the club’s perespetive of greenworks it is at http://www.sierraclub.org/greenworks/

Delving further into the past how about the club’s immigration issue controversy which nearly tore the club apart or even further back with the club’s nasty firing of David Brower. Controversy stretches all the way back to and also involved John Muir.

Ms Hamsher stated where is the Sierra Club focusing its attention? …. The Sierra Club issued a press release saying “It’s encouraging to see the Obama administration taking steps to improve safety regulations for offshore drilling.” On that same day, they took out a full page ad in the Washington Post, thanking Obama for putting a hold on an Alaska drilling project (no press release).
Of course Ms Hamsher neglects to mention the other environmental groups who were also listed on the ad. She also totally neglected to show the other press release the club issued on June 7th (http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=180143.0) or the other ad the club took out (http://www.sierraclub.org/oilspill/downloads/beyondOil.pdf)

Ms Hamsher also tries to infer that the club is totally backing Kerry Lieberman, but if you look at this http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=adv_aces&s_src=ac the club has and is pushing to improve any clean energy legislation, But again she doesn’t bother to point that out

I stated before the actual part where the rubber meets the road of the club are the volunteers. and it is the volunteers who run this organization so when she is trying to belittle the club she is belittling every single one of the people who: set and run meetings; organize and set up events; conduct outings; write their elected officials about legislation; testify at hearing and in court for the environment.

She defames each and every one of these dedicated individuals. But NO she doesn’t think that her words hurt them, that is not the true Sierra Club in her mind. Well in the mind of every sierra club volunteer her words do!

From comments on the FDL site it is obvious that most of the club dissenters were never member of the club or if they were most likely just sent in their application and expected the club to handle “it” for them These people most likely ever laid a hand at actually volunteering at any actions or events! (and probably don’t do anything now but complain now either! These people are just looking for an excuse to bash the club

The Sierra club is not perfect it never will be and there will always be something that upsets or angers someone the old saying “can’t please all the people…” and they shouldn’t try as there is always other groups such as Greenpeace, or the the Audubon Society.

Let me also point out some additional misinformation from Ms Hamsher: Mr. Pope is not the head of the Sierra Club, He is the chairman, he was the executive director until March 2010. when Michael Brune was hired. The actual “head “of the Sierra Club is the president of the board of directors; I posted the org chart (http://bucksenvironment.blogspot.com/2010/06/sierra-club-org-chart.html) for reference. The Board of Directors are unpaid volunteers elected by the general membership of the club.

Mr. Pope does not have the authority to disband a group that can only come from the board of directors not from the executive director. And the number in the chapter was 175-member not the 700,000 which was stated by Ms Hamsher.

While we are on the topic disbandment my own Sierra Club group, The Bucks County Group of the Pennsylvania Chapter, which I was actively involved with in the 1990’s was disbanded 2 years ago. The reason several individuals from the local (Bucks County PA) democratic committee tried to take over the group and use it for their personal and political benefit. They wanted to use this group to only politically endorse democrats at the exclusion of other candidates from other parties. It took the board of directors and the PA chapter to disband the group. While I was upset at the actions I understood the reason for their action. (Note I was not “an active volunteer” at that time.)

Lastly Ms Hamsher you never bothered to address the main point of my response which I repeat here

While you feel the Obama administration can wave this magic wand and instantly fix this mess in the Gulf, they can’t. No one can. Even if the administration nationalized the efforts to cap the well and clean up the spill they would not be able too much of anything until the well is sealed.

If you want to criticize someone, look in the mirror. It is the public’s apathetic and uncaring attitude which caused this spill. The Sierra Club has been fighting for decades for cleaner energy solutions while the general pubic buys gas guzzling SUVs and energy inefficient mc-mansions. The public has also allowed the previous administration to block any measures aimed at increasing energy efficiency.

It is disappointing when people like you suddenly jump on the bandwagon to criticize others who have spent years making REAL efforts to protect our environment. It’s time you and your fellow ambassadors of anger stop complaining about the problem and become part of the solution.

So, I pose a question to all of Ms Hamsher minions what are you doing to help this crisis? Other than criticizing the hard work of others. The volunteers of the Sierra Club are gathering volunteers to help in what ever way we can in the gulf
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/VOLUNTEER_OPPORTUNITIES_AND_RESOURCES.pdf?docID=5142,
pressing for clean energy solutions
http://republicans.resourcescommittee.house.gov/UploadedFiles/ZichellaTestimony11.05.09.pdf
,and attempting to push better environmental legislation through congress
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=TakeAction_CI_Energy
and the states

It looks all Ms Hamsher and her cronies are willing to do is complain about others!

I understand why you’re so defensive, what surprises me is how weak your response is. That’s your best shot, to hide behind the volunteers & blame the public?
This would be a bad joke if the harm you’re doing weren’t so real.

For my friend and family members, most likely we’ll keep supporting our local/state heroes buyt stopoo funding National Sierra Club.
Thank you Jane.
I refuse to fund the veal pen.

Worthy entry.
Just how much does the Lanny Davis Society for the Protection of FundRaising for the Sake Of Maintaining a Penthouse Lifestyle pay anyway?

Oh, yeah – it’s built-in.

Whatever Jane wrote makes for logical reading keeping in mind the current state of Sierra club.

I absolutely agree that Sierra club is one of those organizations which attracts idealists just by its original mission but from my limited interaction I have realized it has now become totally corrupt and totally off-line with its original noble minded purpose on which it was on till as recent as three decades back.

It now has become a fund raising machine which John Muir and David Brower would now stand first in line and rail against. In my opinion it accquired unAmerican trait when it has lost capacity to call a spade a spade. When it impinges on individual liberty and tells its members that they cannot speak out their disagreements in their individual capacity it has gone too far off its course in my opinion.

Thanks Jane for the article and I recommend every one to read Jane post on the relevance of internet which is the best post I read which shows how corporate interaction in public policy is leading to decay and gradual loss of liberty in our society.

Jane’s response to your comment is fairly complete. You’ve come back with a couple of nitpicks, but found nothing substantively wrong with her post. So you resort to straw men (“the Obama administration can wave this magic wand and instantly fix this mess in the Gulf, they can’t”). You disparage FDLers (Jane’s cronies) while you complain that her posts are dispiriting to Sierra Club volunteers (although she repeatedly said her criticisms apply only to the leadership.)

Still I appreciated hearing your perspective.

Tell me how cap & trade is linked to the spill. We have the best scientists and deep water equipment in the world. Why are they not involved but movie directors & hair catchers were involved in the spill resolution effort as bloggers after bloggers commented to their exasperation week after week everywhere.

What sister Jane is doing a great service and her posts are logical when I self-analyze them. Please note it is not on the 99% of the sierra club members who join it as idealists who are criticized in the blog but the top 1% who decided the course for the whole organization un-natural corporate way just like the way our congress is doing as Jane pointed out in a lucid way in her prior article on the relevance of internet which I recommend highly to all who want to get a quick grip on the current state of politics.

I am not hiding behind volunteers I am one of those volunteers! If you can’t see the big picture that YOU and your actions (meaning every person in the country) are the cause of this then I feel sorry for you.

I didn’t bring that up that was in her article I repsonded to her pretense on what the position of the club was with regard to Kerry-Lieberman

Carbon cap and trade was a scheme cooked up by BP and Enron lobbyists in the mid nineties. BP has subsequently dropped millions of dollars into the coffers of green groups to pave the way for it. Obama’s cry to pass Kerry-Lieberman as punishment for BP is not only highly ironic, it’s also illustrative of just how broken our national discourse around environmental issues has become

Quick FYI for the site webmaster

It seems that the spell check in the “Leave your response” formatting bar goes to a broken page.

Shorter dhmeiser: “I was wrong and can’t admit it, so I’ll try to distract people from the fact that Jane was right and I was not.”

No, she was wrong she intentionally misinterpreted and vengefully distorted information in her article. I pointed out her lies.

My guess is, MANY visiters to this site have spent many years volunteering for noble causes. Maybe you’d share with us how it is you so readily assign responsibility for the oil disaster to “every person” in the U.S., but refuse to accept personal responsibility for your decision to work (for free) for those who clearly traded their ideals for short-term gain?

Most of these supporters of clean environment are funded by corporate interest and this is because to run such large organizations, you need money, especially if your a non-profit.

This goes back to taking our eye off the ball back in the 1980!

I largely blame it on Regan and the Neo-Conservatives and Neo-Liberals for not embracing what the Government already knew that Oil was slowly drying up that we need to jump ahead and be ready for spikes in oil prices and increase in operation cost of industry.

Nope, it was “New Morning In America” and we had to spend BILLIONS trying to keep pace with a similarly nutty Soviet Union. I embrace change, I think its fun, why not? If a new way can be found to do something, shhh why not?

Don’t wait for the Government to turn this mighty ship around, DIY!

Maybe you’d share with us how it is you so readily assign responsibility for the oil disaster to “every person” in the U.S

Unless you own an off the grid house, drive a solar powered car, never flown. Purchased food only locally grown, heated or cooled your house. Then you are off the hook.

Everyone else is guilty of this country’s addiction to oil!

The rest of your comment is circular logic (thought only the right wing used that for their arguments)

Why Jane Hamsher Should Join the Sierra Club

by Michael Brune

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brune/why-jane-hamsher-should-j_b_614235.html

It now makes sense. You’re not a volunteer at all, you’re a low level staff employee. Have a good day.

Um, no you didn’t. You tried to change the subject away from the Sierra Club’s co-optation by corporate polluters such as Clorox. But nice try.

How nice of you to steer any type of blame away from monied corporate interests and direct it towards the evil American public.

Actually no, as I am an chemist by profession, dealing in supplying low cost HIV mediations to sub-Saharan Africa

how nice of you to refuse to take any responsibility, you go right back to my original argument!

If so, I sure don’t understand how you can continue to support Sierra Club Mgt. I dropped my long-term membership last year when I ran out of rationalizations for its actions & fully exhausted my patience waiting for it to change.

Please note one thing. Our market economy if allowed to function properly without monopolies or anti-trust exemptions is the best possible mechanism for any technology to evolve or for any services to be provided.

Carbon cap & trade is not good for long term viability of our economy. It will cause unbearable misery to people without providing any benefit. For example due to higher utility costs caused artificially by carbon cap & trade people have to switch off heaters in winter in north and air-conditioners in the south in the summer while wall street will basically be laughing its way to the bank for doing nothing with innocents suffering on the street. If anybody thinks it is good for wall street they are really wrong. Wall-street cannot expect to trash the whole economic structure and expect itself to be immune from it.

What we need is more people like Jane fighting for the right thing for all Americans including wall street not just for wall street excluding Americans.

What we need from congress and senate for rest of their term this year is a long hard discussion about jobs, improvement of quality of life in the united states and rest of the world, method to peacefully get totalitarian regimes to become democracies not some scheme or scam as lot of people do call after recent HCR experience to translate job-less recovery to greatest depression.