Sierra Club at Brave New Films

Carl Pope on Pickens' Plan and the Progressive Response

2008-12-02T22:22:30Z

OurFuture.org asked the Sierra Club's executive director, Carl Pope, about how progressives should respond to Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' plan for energy independence and political obstruction on energy issues in Washington. Pope also explains harmful natural gas policies that need to be corrected by the next administration. Pope was interviewed after a forum at The Big Tent in Denver during the Democratic National Convention Agust 27, 2008.

(Flip Video courtesy of the Voter Genome Project.)

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This Brave Nation online premiere!

2008-06-02T02:36:01Z

"Just take what you love doing, and do it with enough other people to make it the future."

Those are the inspired words of the Sierra Club's Executive Director Carl Pope. And it's just a snippet of his fascinating conversation with Van Jones of The Ella Baker Center and Green for All, in tonight's thrilling premiere of This Brave Nation!

Watch the full episode here.

This Brave Nation reflects months of collaborating with our partners at The Nation to bring you a 6-part dynamic dialogue among progressive activists. Each Sunday for the next five weeks, you'll see Carl Pope and Van Jones, Bonnie Raitt and Dolores Huerta, Pete Seeger and Majora Carter, Anthony Romero and Ava Lowery, and Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein. These are some of the most celebrated progressive minds in our country today, and now we want to know who your local activists are.

Nominate your local unsung hero for our This Brave Nation Award. We will fly the winning activist out to Los Angeles to be part of our series finale, which will air LIVE on July 13th featuring special guests.

Our hope is that This Brave Nation will raise the discourse about progressive issues in our country. And you can help by donating $15, for which you'll receive 2 DVDs with all 5 episodes that you can pass along to your family, friends, local schools, and libraries.

Then send this e-mail to everyone you know. The best way for us to encourage the next generation of progressive activists is by promoting awareness about our current icons. Be sure not to miss a single episode of This Brave Nation by getting them all on DVD. Think what a great gift that could make to aspiring activist leaders!

Powering Clean Energy Politics

2008-10-27T09:30:37Z

Watching the Pennsylvania Democratic Presidential Debate, you would think environmental and energy issues are no longer salient — but various interest groups are working hard to make them central to the 2008 Election at every political level. The Sierra Club's Power 2 Change campaign recently toured various green projects in Minneapolis.

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Sierra Club Chronicles joins the Sundance channel

2008-10-21T03:30:39Z

We're proud to announce that the Sierra Club Chronicles series will begin airing on the Sundance channel at 9pm on February the 5th. A new episode will air every Tuesday night. Be sure to check it out!

The series is produced by Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films in association with the Sierra Club and focuses on the dramatic efforts of committed individuals across the country working to protect the health of their environment and communities.

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Support The Death Of The Plastic Bag

2008-10-22T09:31:36Z

Watch this video from the Sierra Club where eco-conscious Hollywood stars walked the green carpet at the 17th annual Environmental Media Association awards last week. The Sierra Club was there and they asked Hollywood stars, which they hated more, plastic bags or paparazzi. You'd think they would pick the photographers who hound them every minute of their lives, but plastic bags are the focus of these stars who say things like,

They're the scourge of our society. I would love to see no more plastic bags anywhere ever again.

Bring your own re-usable bag to the supermarket. It’s a common sense, easy to do habit that we can all get in to that carries with it tremendous benefits for the environment.

Making disposable plastic bags requires energy equal to 4 million barrels of oil a year, while paper bags use up 14 million trees annually.

Internationally, discouraging plastic bag use already has caught on in parts of South Africa, Ireland and Taiwan, where authorities either tax shoppers who use them or impose fees on companies that distribute them. Paris, Zanzibar and Rwanda are moving to ban plastic bags, while the nation of Bangladesh already does. Furniture giant IKEA is also charging five cents a plastic bag at its U.S. stores.

Watch the video, and then, after hearing the stars voice their opinions, make your own voice heard to your members of Congress.

Pssst! Do something. Never use a plastic bag again!

h/t The Sierra Club

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Adam Werbach: Wal-Mart's New Fraud Salesman

2008-11-13T10:06:35Z

How do you go from green to red? From the youngest president of the Sierra Club, to a corporate-crony at one of the most polluted money-grubbing machines in the history of mankind?

Just ask Adam Werbach, of Act Now Productions, the progressive DVD club Ironweed and the Apollo Clean Energy Alliance Board. He'd whip out a gun and tell you it's to protect the peace (hmm...maybe in addition to Wal-Mart he can sign up the NRA as a client to "improve things from the inside?").

Werbach has joined the Wal-Mart borg, and is actually trying to convince those with the ability to reason that he will change things from within the company. He is working on their "sustainability" project, which means he is somehow under the impression that there is something Wal-Mart wishes to sustain besides high profits and low wages.

Oh, that's right, they will also be sustaining his bank account with a rumored $400K per year fee that should ensure those late night sweats over environmental degradation don't reach a level that would threaten to tarnish the silver plating on his bed.

Werbach whines that many of his liberal friends no longer talk to him. I wonder why that may be (although sadly I am suspicious he is exaggerating). Could it be, and I am just spitballing here, that the company he once called "a new breed of toxin," is now his employer? Perhaps his old friends know the following about his new friends and financial sponsor:

Five of the 10 richest people in the country are from the founding Walton family. But to help the company offer its proclaimed "Every Day Low Prices," workers are paid an average of $17,530 a year, nearly $2,000 below the poverty level of a family of four. Almost half of the children of those associates are uninsured or on Medicaid. In California alone, that annually costs taxpayers $86 million, according to the New York Times.

Score one for progressive corporate governance!

9/11 Forgotten Heros - Sierra Club Chronicles

2008-10-20T09:30:50Z

The terrorist attack on 9/11 was one of our country's most horrific moments, and the damage continues. Told there were no health hazards in the aftermath, the truth shows there was and many first responders are now afflicted and ignored by our government.

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Dioxin, Duplicity & Dupont - Sierra Club Chronicles

2008-10-20T09:30:47Z

The DuPont plant in DeLisle, Mississippi has been releasing large amounts of dioxin and heavy metals for nearly 20 years. This film explores health problems being experienced by residents and former workers, and evidence that oysters in the area exported for sale around the U.S. have been contaminated by DuPont's poisonous discharges. About 2,000 people have filed lawsuits against DuPont alleging pollution from this facility has harmed their health.

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Range Wars Rage On - Sierra Club Chronicles

2008-10-20T09:30:51Z

In the West, The Bureau of Land Management has allowed increased drilling and allowing drilling practices that are killing ranchers' cattle. Now, a coalition of ranchers including Republicans and Bush supporters are fighting back.

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Breathless in LA - Sierra Club Chronicles

2008-10-20T09:30:49Z

The Port of Los Angeles is one of the biggest and busiest ports in the United States, not to mention, that it is surrounded by numerous oil fields and with that comes a toxic price to the surrounding residents.

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Rats to Roses - Sierra Club Chronicles

2008-10-20T09:30:58Z

This multi-year time arc witnesses the threat and loss of the community gardens in New York - but also the commitment and resilience of community organizers. Charles Louis founder of the Euclid 500 Gardens, says "these gardens have become community centers for people with nowhere else to go."

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