Sierra Club leader departs amid discontent over group's direction

[XemaSab]

The leader of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's most influential environmental groups, has stepped down after 18 years amid discontent that the group founded by 19th Century wilderness evangelist John Muir has strayed from its core principles.

The departure of Carl Pope, 66, chairman of the club and a member for more than 40 years, comes as the nonprofit group faces declining membership, internal dissent, well-organized opponents, a weak economy and forces in Congress trying to take the teeth out of environmental regulations.

He has been replaced by Michael Brune, 40, a veteran of smaller activist groups, who has pledged to concentrate on grass-roots organizing, recruit new members and focus on issues such as coal-fired power plants. "We have different approaches," Brune said of his relationship with his predecessor.

Pope said he will leave his position as chairman to devote most of his time to "revitalizing the manufacturing sector" by working with organized labor and corporations. That emphasis caused schisms in the club, most notably when he hammered out a million-dollar deal with household chemical manufacturer Clorox to use the club's emblem on a line of "green" products, and more recently with its support of utility-scale solar arrays in the Mojave Desert, the type of place the club made its reputation protecting.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-sierra-club-20111119,0,2052409.story

[ellisonz]

1. Good. Time for some fresh blood!

:headbang:

P.S. I'm going to cross-post to GD so soak up some of that cesspool. ;-)

[Kolesar]

2. That Clorox story was way overblown

If members had donated more, Carl Pope would not have proffered that million dollar gimmick. But donations were falling and the club was terminating professional organizers. I saw organizers lost in Columbus and Cincinnati. The purism expected by critics of Clorox was silly.

I see they quoted that gas-bag, Ed Mainland: "in bed with industry and utilities"