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by Shirley Taylor (Massachusetts Chapter) |
16, 2004
Ours is not a single issue country or a single issue world. Living systems are complex and interlocked with each other in the world of water, air and soil. Locating ecosystem glitches and working on repairs challenges club members to action.
The Sierra Club addresses a broad range of environmental issues. As a single issue organization the Club would never have attracted its present 750,000 members. Periodically this membership has an opportunity to indicate the issues about which they are most concerned. With this information the board of directors develops the Club's environmental action program and adopts a budget to support it. It is vital that directors come to their board responsibilities experienced in club environmental activity and leadership. Only with this experience and understanding can they make informed decisions that promote ongoing club progress. The Sierra Club's challenge is to maintain itself as a harmonious multi-issue organization that encourages an active grass-root volunteer leadership. Ours is not a single issue country or a single issue world. Living systems are complex and interlocked with each other in the world of water, air and soil. Locating ecosystem glitches and working on repairs challenges club members to action. Without board decisions that support this diversity of issue efforts across the country, volunteer leaders and the basic membership would lack any incentive to continue their membership. Were the Club to be made into a single-issue top-down structure, Sierra Club's membership would melt away, and its strength would vanish. On Forcing a Single Issue from the Top Down Any issue forcibly made by the board to be on the Club's conservation agenda, absent the customary member and leader input from around the country, is fatally flawed. Through the years, the Club's growth, and issue accomplishment, has been based on the diversity of issues undertaken by the will of the membership, and the ability of our activist leaders to work harmoniously toward solving environmental problems. We need to meet future environmental challenges constructively, our activist leaders working with the public and its governments at home or abroad. For instance, restricting immigration in hopes that by itself this might facilitate environmental protection here in the United States would be divisive and counter-productive. Environmental glitches stem from such a variety of ecosystem problems that there can be no single solution. The Club needs to advocate positions that can unite our members, not divide them. Immigration happens to be a particularly sensitive issue because inevitably it deals with race. And race sensitivity is the enemy—is the emphasis that resonates down deep. Immigration is the basic wedge that produces wrath, anger, because it gives one the economic advantage (or disadvantage). The determination to keep the economic advantage one has, or to get more, turns into action on social issues. The Sierra Club is no place for class warfare. Any faction with the illusion of using the Club's strength and resources in a divisive effort has doomed themselves to failure——the Club membership, strength, and money would quickly melt away. Chair's Note: Shirley and her late husband were long-time residents of Falling Waters, WV, and were active in many levels of the Club. They left West Virginia for the sunny clime of Florida where Shirley worked on Marine issues for the Florida Chapter and more recently she served on the Club's National Marine Wildlife and Habitat Committee. 2004 Candidate Forum The Sierra Club is organizing a candidate forum for this year's Board of Directors election. It will allow members to make a more informed choice when voting, by hearing directly from all the candidates on a variety of topics. A notice with the website url will be included with the ballots, which will be mailed out the first week of March. Candidate Discussion List A listserv has also been set up for the free discussion of the qualifications of candidates for the upcoming election of the Club's BoD. The BOD-CANDIDATES-OPEN-FORUM discussion list is open to all and only Sierra Club members. To join the forum http://whistler.sierraclub.org/listsub/?listname=BOD-CANDIDATES-OPEN -FORUM If you have questions, comments, or complaints about the list itself or how it is being run, send them to:
mailto:BOD-CANDIDATES-OPEN-FORUM-request@lists.sierraclub.org
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