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Katrina reminds us not to repeat
mistakes of past
(Note: This is a very professional job of
language deception, catering to the emotions and seeking to paralyze
the intellect.)
By Carl Pope
Executive Director
The Sierra Club
The Hour
346 Main Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06851 203-846-3281
Selma was a transformational moment in
the civil rights movement. The truth and tragedy played out on our
streets and televisions shook us up and challenged us to take a long
look at ourselves and to change deeply and forever.
Katrina is that kind of galvanizing
moment for the conservation movement, and that's
precisely why the radical right is trying so hard to attack
environmentalists and the laws that protect our air, water and land.
This monster storm laid waste to the Gulf
Coast, forced one of the world's great cities to its knees, killed
more than a thousand people and sent more than a million people in
search of life's basics -- food, clothing and shelter.
Katrina is also forcing
us to face and reconsider the way we live on the land.
There is no doubt that while Katrina was a natural disaster, it was
also a man-made disaster.
Katrina is the inescapable fact there
are consequences for our actions -- that there's
a heavy price to pay for destroying wetlands, subjugating rivers,
ignoring global warming.
Katrina is a wake-up call, a warning not
to repeat the mistakes of the past, an
opportunity to reconsider our values, our relationship to nature
and to rebuild better, smarter and safer.
Katrina has lit a fuse that can't be
stomped out and will change us in fundamental ways.
It is then troubling, though not
surprising, that the powers that be see
Katrina as an opportunity -- to benefit their friends and to make
their political agenda the law of the land.
Katrina has made it clear who this
government works for and who it does not.
Three of the first acts out of Washington
were:
to award Halliburton a major contract for
cleanup and recovery;
to suspend a law that requires federal
contractors to pay a decent wage;
and to suspend environmental and public
health laws.
It is also revealing that in an effort to
divert attention from the total failure of the Bush administration, some
leaders in Washington tried to shift the blame for Katrina to
environmentalists.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who asked an
agency of the federal government to dig
up this dirt on the environmentalists,
even suggested his intent to make Katrina-related
hearings that he will chair, into
something of a witch hunt.
Inhofe also offered to do his part for
the relief effort by trying to grant the Environmental Protection
Agency authority to suspend air, water and hazardous waste
requirements anywhere for up to 18 months, as
long as there is some way to relate any decision to
Hurricane Katrina.
It doesn't matter that EPA Administrator
Steve Johnson told Congress and the news media that existing safety
laws would not hamper cleanup ... that it already had the
flexibility it needed to respond in an emergency situation.
Or that EPA and the Centers for Disease
Control have identified serious environmental and public health
problems in the wake of the hurricane.
Inhofe's moves are part of a
larger attempt by the majority in Congress to pass a long-standing,
controversial agenda that they haven't been able to advance under
normal circumstances, from school vouchers to weaker labor
standards to oil drilling near protected coastline.
We can no
longer afford to perpetuate the sound and light show
that has passed as political discourse.
We need a
government that connects us and cares for us, that protects and
promotes the common good and our commons -- the lands and waters we
all share, that humble us equally.
Sam Cooke once warned us; "change
gonna come." Amen to that.
Carl Pope is the executive director of
the Sierra Club, the nation's oldest, largest, and most influential
grassroots environmental organization.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services
Copyright 2005, The Hour.
Additional related reading:
Sierra
Club, LCV, Defenders of Wildlife Embrace Principles of ...
Environmental Media Services (press release) - Washington, DC – In a letter to Members of Congress yesterday, 36 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, the Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Biological Diversity, endorsed the principles of Chairman ... http://www.ems.org/nws/2005/09/21/sierra_club_lcv Catchy title, but the link does not work. Faith spurs odd union to battle House bill Bill would overhaul Endangered Species Act
Sierra Club member calls for director's
resignation over immigration debate
(Note: This is an Associated Press story and was available for the
"news" wire services, but just nine picked it up. It
appears that the press has its orders, no matter how important the
story may be nationally.)
September 20, 2005
By Kristen Gelineau
The Associated Press
The San Jose Mercury News
San Jose, California
To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@mercurynews.com
Richmond, Virginia - A Sierra Club member staged a small protest Monday calling for the resignation of the environmental group's executive director, accusing him of accepting money from a donor in exchange for halting the group's discussion of immigration policy. James McDonald, a 60-year-old Springfield attorney, said Carl Pope accepted more than $100 million from California donor David Gelbaum in 2001 only after promising Gelbaum the club would stay out of the immigration debate. A faction within the San Francisco-based Sierra Club has long urged a stronger stance against immigration, arguing that the growing U.S. population is putting an enormous strain on natural resources. McDonald and a friend, who identified himself only as a "retired immigration officer," staged the protest outside the Science Museum of Virginia, where Pope delivered a speech to around 200 club members on an unrelated topic. Like most of the club's members calling for immigration control, McDonald insists he has nothing against immigrants, adding that his wife is from the Philippines. But eliminating all discussion of the topic is unfair to both the group's members and the environment, he said. "You have to talk about the subject -- you can't just say, 'We're not going to discuss it,'" he said, holding a sign that read, in part: "Carl Pope sold out the Sierra Club and America for $100 million."
Glen Besa, director of the group's Appalachian region, called
McDonald's allegations that Pope modified the club's policy on
immigration in exchange for Gelbaum's money "absurd."
"Our members overwhelmingly rejected a change to our policy, so any allegations of wrongdoing here with regard to that policy are just totally unjustified," Besa said. Gelbaum, the donor, was quoted last year by The Los Angeles Times as saying: "I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me." Pope acknowledged that Gelbaum did make clear his position on the issue, but said it had nothing to do with the club's decision to stay out of the debate. "I personally, and subsequently the membership of the Sierra Club, voted that we would remain neutral on immigration, years before Mr. Gelbaum made those large gifts," Pope said.
"It is true that Mr. Gelbaum said that if we had taken
the opposite position, he would not have given us the gifts,
but we had already taken that position."
Most of those attending Pope's speech seemed puzzled by the protest, and few had strong opinions either way on the immigration debate. But a handful applauded McDonald's efforts.
"That's right," Greg Moser, 58, of Richmond, said, gesturing
toward McDonald's sign. "They don't want to deal with difficult
issues."
Founded by Scottish [LEGAL] immigrant John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is the country's oldest and largest environmental group and has traditionally advocated for clean air and water and protection of wildlands and wildlife.
On the 'net:
Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization: http://www.susps.org
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