December 23, 2018
If you were standing next to me at my computer right now, you’d be able to see the steam flowing out of my ears.
I was just reading the New York Times’ latest investigative report about the oil and gas industry’s behind-the-scenes work to rewrite federal tailpipe pollution standards.
The piece is long and you really need to read it yourself to fully appreciate the dastardly ways the Koch Brothers, the oil industry and that weird rightist group called ALEC operate.
Let’s just say that a lot of the worst characters and entities Sierra Club activists have been fighting in California and around the country as we try to deliver clean air and a liveable planet are prime offenders.
Am I Shocked? Not exactly. Disappointed? Yes. Disgusted? More than ever.
But it has also motivated me to come up with some ways Sierra Club members can fight back against the power of climate-change deniers and well-financed, politically organized polluters from the comfort of your own community. So, in the spirit of the approaching new year, I offer these six items for you to consider adding to your resolutions list.
(If you don’t make New Year’s resolutions, welcome to my club. Instead, I make to-do lists. If you make to-do lists, add these.)
1. Sign up to learn how to do in-district meetings with your legislators. We need volunteers we can call on when legislators need to hear from constituents in their districts about bills we support. See the November Letter from Sacramento for more information about signing up.
2. Send at least one hand-written (or typed) letter via regular mail to a legislator this year about an environmental issue you care about. Legislators need to hear from constituents. They enjoy hearing from constituents. And nothing shows how much you want them to hear from you as an old-fashioned letter. If you want a reply, be sure to put your email address under your signature on your letter.
3. Respond to at least one action alert from Sierra Club California. We try not to swamp our members with alerts, and only send them when we really need your help. We know it makes a difference. We’ve seen legislators change positions and regulators take tough votes when they hear from our members and supporters who respond to our alerts.
4. Attend a Sierra Club local chapter event. We have 13 local chapters in California, and dozens more regional or interest groups within the chapters. Most chapters hold special events, from hikes to movie nights to speaker nights about specific issues. There are also regular meetings at which chapter volunteers discuss various local environmental issues and how to respond. You can go here to find a chapter near you (and its website).
5. Get outdoors. Seriously. It’s the outdoors—California’s parks and wildlands, coasts, forests, deserts and mountains—that have inspired Sierra Club activists for more than 126 years. Getting outdoors will help you feel refreshed and motivate you to do items one through four listed above.
Sierra Club activists have accomplished a lot over the years, and especially since 2016. Together, and with our allies, we’ve managed to keep good environmental policies and actions moving forward, particularly in California, even as the White House has taken a disturbing tack.
We’ve accomplished so much because people like you have taken the kinds of steps listed above.
So in 2019, if you are one of the people who always meet with legislators and write letters and answer alerts and are involved in the local chapter, please keep it up.
If you haven’t taken those steps, make the New Year the year of action.
It will make a difference.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Phillips
Director
Sierra Club California is the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 California chapters of the Sierra Club.
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