| In This Issue of the Sierra Club Insider: Feelin' the Love? Send a Sierra Club Valentine E-Card! Watch Our New "Toast the Earth" Cartoon and Exxpose Exxon Mercury Study Results, Quiz, and Pocket Guide Grizzly Bears Need Your Help! Turning Down the Heat in Detroit Oil Addiction Relapse? Switching from Coal to Wind in Wisconsin EXPLORE: The Green Life ENJOY: Sierra Club in Jeopardy? PROTECT: Great Smoky Mountains View an online version of this email at www.sierraclub.org/insider. Having trouble receiving the Insider? Try adding us (insider@sierraclub.org) to your Address Book. Find out how. |
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February 8,2006
Feelin' the Love? You know you are. So, go ahead, spread it around. This Valentine's Day, show someone that you really care --- about them and about protecting America's wildlife. Create and send one of our special Valentine e-cards. When you're done, take a moment to sign our petition to save the Endangered Species Act.
The Hidden Danger of Mercury Contamination
 In recent weeks some in Congress have tried to attack the Endangered Species Act, and now the Bush administration is going one step further and proposing that the grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone Park be removed from the list of endangered and threatened animals.Please help us prevent this! We need 120,000 names on our petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by February 15 to help keep the grizzlies on the list of endangered and threatened animals. Please also send a generous donation to help us save the grizzly -- your donation will help the Club and our work to protect the Grizzly Bear and keep Congress from undermining the Endangered Species Act. Delisting grizzly bears at a time when their population is still so small and their range is so limited could have devastating effects. With your help the Sierra Club will work to protect these majestic creatures as well as other threatened wildlife and wildlands. Turn Down the Heat  Tackling global warming isn't a morning's work, but trying to get a shopping mall to turn the thermostat down can be a different story. For Frank Zaski, a retired Chrysler manager from Franklin, Michigan, sometimes all it takes is talking to the store manager. Zaski, a Sierra Club member, takes thermometers to malls in the Detroit area, records temperatures, and tries to get mall managers to lower the heat a few degrees. After all, most people are walking around in winter coats.Zaski attended his first Sierra Club meeting in November and has quickly become one of the most active volunteers in Oakland County. "He realizes that things don't change unless people get involved and become the change," says local Club organizer Leigh Fifelski. The WRONG Way to Kick Out "Oil Addiction"  In last week's State of the Union address, President Bush, a former Texas oil man, admitted that the United States is suffering from an "oil addiction." Alas, less than one week later, he is already having a relapse. Monday, the President released his 2007 federal budget request to Congress and, once again, it includes revenues from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to destructive oil drilling.So much for kicking the habit. President Bush's drill-it-all approach is a tired proposal that was defeated in last year's budget. Congress and the Administration must stop wasting energy on these dead-end drilling schemes and chart a course to a cleaner energy future. Take Action: If you haven't signed our petition yet, please do so. If you have, please tell a friend! Switching from Coal to Wind  Sierra Club field staffer Bruce Nilles reports from Wisconsin on a grassroots victory in Madison, where the local utility has announced it will stop burning coal within six years at its aging downtown coal plant and generate more electricity from wind power. Madison Gas and Electric says it will begin construction on a wind farm near Fond du Lac this year.The Club's Midwest Clean Energy Campaign, coordinated by Jennifer Feyerherm, relied on classic organizing tactics like building alliances with community groups, knocking on doors in surrounding neighborhoods, making hundreds of phone calls, rallying concerned citizens to public hearings, and getting the story on the evening news. One hearing had the highest attendance the Environment Commission had ever witnessed. The downtown Madison coal plant is the dirtiest in the state.
View previous editions of the Sierra Club Insider at the Insider Archives. |
Two People. One Year. Zero Watts.
 MIT student Eric Brende and wife moved to an Amish-like community in Pennsylvania to live without modern technology and to grow sorghum. They thrived, and then tried to rejoin the modern world without abandoning their minimalist ideals. Read more about their story in Sierra magazine's "The Green Life." 
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What is the Sierra Club?
Tonight's episode of Jeopardy! will feature the Sierra Club as one of its clues. Let's hope we're as well known as we think we are. Or better yet, that the contestant who gets the clue is a Member.  |
PROTECT
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Stop the Road to Nowhere
The proposed North Shore Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park would cut a 38-mile swath through the largest tract of undeveloped mountain forest in the eastern United States. Intended to replace a county road submerged by a reservoir 60 years ago, only the first seven miles were built before rising costs and environmental damage halted construction. In recent years, a growing number of local citizens, elected officials, environmental and taxpayer groups have endorsed a cash settlement to Swain County, North Carolina, in lieu of the destructive road, and the National Park Service "environmentally preferred" alternative is to scrap the proposed road. But Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.), determined to spur new development in the area, secured a $16 million appropriation in 2000 to restart the roadbuilding. Now the public has a chance to weigh in during a comments period that ends March 20. Visit our website to learn more and take action!  |