Julie Lowe, volunteer leader - Executive Committee Chair, Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter
Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter leaders, Julie Lowe, Chapter Chair (right) and Roxanna Caldwell, Vice-Chair (left) joined an event with Dead & Co. and "REVERB, Music Climate Revolution" in Participation Row at Ruoff Music Center on June 25th. The Chapter was invited to participate in the concert event by tabling in Participation Row that includes groups like Headcount, an organization that helps concert goers get registered to vote and interested in democracy and like REVERB.
Since Dead & Co. hit the road in 2015, REVERB has been helping to reduce their environmental footprint and to increase the band’s positive impact.
The environmental action that the Hoosier Chapter asked concert goers to make was to submit a public comment to the Bureau of Land Management, (BLM) on the proposed Public Lands Rule published in March. This proposed rule change would provide tools for BLM to restore critical wildlife habitat and clean water and protect public lands in the face of increasing drought, wildfire and climate impacts. Action takers were able to read the Climate-Forest Coalition online petition, asking the BLM and the US Forest Service to protect “Mature and Old Growth Forests for Climate Resiliency”. About 200 concert goers took action that day by taking a moment to sign a petition and others scanned a QR code at our table to go directly to the BLM and USFS site to make public comments. Hoosier Chapter volunteers entered the names onto a spreadsheet and sent the file of signatures to the BLM by the July 5th deadline.
Sierra Club sent 17,020 comments to the US Forest Service by the USFS deadline of July 20th. Together on July 20th, Sierra Club and other environmental group folks that represent the Climate-Forest Coalition, met for an in-person coalition comment delivery in Washington, DC. As a coalition, we submitted over 500,000 comments! See our Tweet here and read our press release here.
Thank you to Sierra members like you, who signed the petition or who sent individual comments to the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service asking that “Mature and Old Growth Forests be protected for Climate Resiliency”! And thank you to our Hoosier Chapter members that make donations that help us continue our climate work and to protect Indiana forests.
Are you interested in joining Hoosier Chapter volunteers in this work on the Conservation Committee or another Chapter committee? We'd love to hear from you!