Sierra Club

The Sierra Club was chartered in 1892 in San Francisco, California. The United States was experiencing the threshold moment at which the apparent limitless storehouse of natural resources was first recognized as, in fact, limited and in need of being conserved to ensure its long-term viability. The Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and most powerful environmental advocacy group, has pioneered the need to preserve the American natural environment against the demands of what it deems to be overdevelopment. The Sierra Club has maintained two core principles: When it comes to the environment, regionalism cannot be applied, as the environment is a single, living ecosystem; and present needs cannot be the sole consideration in development, because every development plan necessarily impacts the survival and integrity of the environment for future generations.

Background

The Sierra Club began as an expression of the bold and ambitious land management vision of John Muir (1838–1914), a Scottish-born naturalist and botanist who is frequently cited as the first high-profile advocate of environmental responsibility. Living in California at the time of the massive stripping of lands to feed the rapidly growing needs of the emerging West Coast industrial network, Muir vociferously advocated federal management of public lands to ensure responsible and measured development. He saw this as the only way to preserve wilderness for future use and enjoyment. He had a powerful ally in President Theodore Roosevelt, himself an accomplished naturalist. Decades before environmental biologists would first define the delicate operations of an ecosystem, Muir voiced concerns over damage done to what he termed wild places, damage that would take centuries to repair. Muir spearheaded the campaign to create the massive Yosemite National Park, the nation’s first federally protected wilderness area. But Muir had fears concerning long-term development of the entire Sierra Nevada area, encompassing parts of California as well as Nevada. To provide a public forum for advocating the preservation of the Sierra wilderness, Muir created the Sierra Club with the mission to preserve the Western wilderness for future generations to explore and enjoy and to educate citizens about the implications of industrial development and land mismanagement.

The Club’s first organized foray into environmental activism, despite being a significant defeat, set the tone for the organization’s development. Less than twenty years after being chartered, the organization worked to oppose the construction of a massive dam, a project deemed by utilities managers and politicians as necessary to ensure a water supply for the growing city of San Francisco. Because the project had strong support from politicians (including President Woodrow Wilson, who recognized the importance of the state in national elections), the Club’s initiatives proved futile. The attention the organization received, however, catapulted it into national awareness, and its efforts were pivotal in Congress’s decision in 1916 to create the National Park Service to manage and maintain public lands.

Initially the organization, made up largely of wealthy Republicans who enjoyed the wilderness while at the same time using its resources, focused its efforts in the West, developing programs to introduce wilderness areas to people. The club’s programs include hikes, rafting excursions, river tours, mountain climbing, bird counts, tours of national parks, as well as sponsoring public awareness forums and education programs to raise awareness of both the beauty and fragility of the natural environment. The Sierra Club became nationally known for its series of highly successful coffee table books that highlighted the beauty of the West, most notably the black and white studies of Ansel Adams (1902–1984).

As industrial development increased after World War II and cities began to encroach on previously protected environments, the Sierra Club took on a more national profile and a progressively more activist approach to protecting the wilderness. Its most aggressive campaigns, however, have never endorsed so-called eco-terrorism, that is the interruption of land development projects through acts of violence or destruction. Rather, the Sierra Club advocated public awareness. The organization's membership grew exponentially, most notably under the leadership of environmental activist David Brower (1912–2000). The organization, increasingly identified with leftist causes, led the environmental protection movement in the 1960s and 1970s, lobbying for national legislation to curb air pollution, minimize the construction of intrusive dams, protect the waterway system from careless dumping, and preserve wetlands and wooded areas essential to biodiversity. The national focus engendered controversy, most notably its ill-conceived (and later rejected) advocacy of population control in the 1970s. The organization has strongly endorsed scientifically based warnings regarding global warming. It campaigned to increase regulations on the construction of nuclear power facilities, and it advocates the elimination of the national dependence on coal, an energy source it has argued is not compatible with long-term environmental management.

Sierra Club Today

Although caricatured by critics as a far-left tree-hugging organization of backwards thinkers and obstructionists, the Sierra Club has become the largest grassroots environmental protection organization in the country, with more than two million registered members. It has a working annual budget of more than $100 million. Its size alone—a network of state and local chapters—makes the Sierra Club the preeminent national voice in the ongoing campaign to develop the environment responsibly.

Although at times embroiled in leadership controversies (most notably a 2010 kerfuffle over the organization’s acceptance of large contributions from natural gas interests to help fund the club’s ongoing anti-coal campaign), the Sierra Club has vigorously pursued public awareness campaigns to maintain the responsible use of resources, believing, as its founder did, that an informed public will always act to respect and preserve the ecosystem that alone sustains it. The Sierra Club has moved well into organized activism. It coordinates political activism to promote green-friendly legislation through a national cadre of lobbyists, natural resource engineers, land researchers, urban developers, environmental studies activists, academics, and lay experts.

In 2020, in light of the George Floyd protests across the United States, the Sierra Club published an article grappling with its roots. The organization acknowledged that some of its prominent founding members, most notably John Muir, were outwardly racist. Others advocated for eugenics programs, including the utilization of forced sterilization. The Sierra Club then announced that it would be redistributing $5 million to help make amends for the damage that its members caused. In January 2023, the organization named former NAACP President Ben Jealous its executive director. This marked the first time that a Black man held the position.

Bibliography

Berry, Evan. Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism. Berkeley: U of California P, 2015. Print.

Brower, David. Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run: A Call to Those Who Would Save the Earth. Gabriola: New Society, 2000. Print.

Cohen, Michael P. The History of the Sierra Club, 1892–1970. New York: Random, 1988. Print.

Cruz, Ramon. "Introducing the New Sierra Club Executive Director, Ben Jealous." Sierra Club, 30 Jan. 2023, www.sierraclub.org/sierra/1-spring/top/introducing-new-sierra-club-executive-director-ben-jealous. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

Graham, Otis. Presidents and the American Environment. Lawrence: U of Kansas P, 2015. Print.

Highland, Chris, ed. The Meditations of John Muir. Berkeley: Wilderness P, 2010. Print.

"The Sierra Club: About Us: History and Mission." The Sierra Club. n.d. Web. 2 July 2015.

Turner, Tom. David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement. Berkeley: U of California P, 2015.

---. Sierra Club: 100 Years of Protecting Nature. New York: Abrams, 1993.