| In This Issue of the Sierra Club Insider: Go On a Virtual Tour and Win a Trip to Peru New Sierra Club Chronicles Episode Shop Your Wild Oats, Help the Sierra Club, and Save Diving Into California's Last Abalone Fishery Phosphate-Free Dishwashing Detergent = Healthier Ecosystems EXPLORE: Legacy: Portraits of 50 Bay Area Environmental Elders ENJOY: Send an E-Card, Spread the Word PROTECT: Arctic Drilling Update 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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April 4, 2006
Pacoima & Peru The tiny community of Pacoima, at the north end of Los Angeles, suffers from nearly every imaginable obstacle to a healthy urban environment: From lead paint and landfills to power plants and overcrowding. In this virtual walking tour -- part of the Poverty & the Environment series from our friends at Grist -- Marlene Grossman and two other leaders of Pacoima Beautiful show how the once-beleaguered neighborhood is transforming itself, becoming both a better place to live and a model of effective community organizing.While you're there, don't forget to sign up for Grist's free, award-winning environmental news and humor by email. Register by May 5th and you'll get a chance to win a free eco-trip for 2 to Peru. You can choose from irreverent news, cheeky green advice, quick hits on pop culture, eco business trends, and political muckraking. What's not to love?
Range Wars Rage On
Shopping Your Wild Oats
How Low Can You Go?  Meet Mark James, former Navy SEAL and Ironman triathlete with a fondness for diving, sans scuba gear, to depths of 50-feet or more in search of abalone. The coveted mollusks were once so plentiful in California that foragers could pry them off rocks at low tide, but overharvesting has pushed them to the brink of extinction. Today the abalone catch is strictly regulated and limited to freedivers like James. Surfer/climber/author Daniel Duane joined him recently for a foray beneath the waves. Learn how he fared in the latest issue of Sierra.
Clean Dishes, Cleaner Water  Washington became the first state in the nation to ban residential dishwashing detergents that contain phosphates. A plant nutrient, phosphates create algae blooms that rob underwater ecosystems of oxygen. The law will first take effect in 2008 in Spokane, Whatcom, and Clark counties. Richard Reed, a local Sierra Club activist, was one of the leaders in pushing for the ban. Rick Eichstadt, a lawyer at the Center for Justice who is representing the Sierra Club in cleanup talks on the Spokane River, explained the logic of the law to the Seattle Times: "By taking [phosphates] out of the consumer flow, we are saving money on technology. It's a lot cheaper to get it out of the stores than to try remove it through wastewater-treatment plants."
View previous editions of the Sierra Club Insider at the Insider Archives. |
Enduring Legacy
 Despite a population of nearly 7 million souls, the San Francisco Bay Area is blessed with incomparable open space: vibrant hills, seashores, forests, wetlands, and the shimmering expanse of San Francisco Bay. This natural legacy exists not because benevolent governments provided for it, but because stubborn citizens felt compelled to work for its preservation, often against great odds. Legacy: Portraits of 50 Bay Area Environmental Elders, new from Sierra Club Books, celebrates fifty of these extraordinary individuals with profiles by acclaimed writer John Hart and superb portraits by photographer Nancy Kittle. Subjects include David Brower, Ike Livermore, Margaret Owings, and Edgar and Peggy Wayburn -- men and women whose lifelong commitments to conservation and environmental activism are an inspiration to us all. To order a copy of Legacy, or see other recent releases from Sierra Club Books, go to www.sierraclub.org/books. 
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Send an E-Card, Spread the Word
The Endangered Species Act (and thus the critters it protects) is under attack. For over 30 years the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has worked to safeguard America's fish and wildlife by preventing the extinction of hundreds of animals across the country. America's fish and wildlife enrich our lives and add more than $100 billion to the nation's economy each year. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act the wolf has returned to Yellowstone, wild salmon still spawn in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest and the bald eagle once again soars in skies from coast to coast. Now, powerful members of Congress, backed by wealthy developers and other special interests, are trying to gut the ESA. We can't let that happen. Help spread the word about our petition to protect the ESA and have a little fun at the same time -- create and send one of our Sierra Club Postcards!  |
PROTECT
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Arctic Drilling Stopped in House
Responding to bipartisan opposition, the House of Representatives voted on March 30 to keep projected drilling revenues from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge out of its 2007 budget. This is the second time in five months that the House has declined to put Arctic drilling in a budget bill. However, on March 17 the Senate did include Arctic drilling in its version of the budget and, once the House passes a budget bill, a joint House/Senate committee will convene to reconcile the two versions. To learn more, and to find out what you can do to help keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge free from drilling, see www.sierraclub.org/arctic.  |