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| Planet Turns Ten 1 2 3 4 5 | |||||
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< March Madness: First, Bush reverses his campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Then the administration suspends the roadless rule, pulls back a rule that would reduce arsenic levels in drinking water, and pushes for more oil drilling in new national monuments. And there are still two more weeks of March to go. (MAY 2001) | ||||
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< What’s Lost, What’s Left: The Club’s Lewis and Clark campaign, launched in January 2000, highlights 33 special places in need of protection in the nine states along the Corps of Discovery’s historic route. By late 2001, two of the areas targeted by the campaign have gained protection—Oregon’s Steens Mountain and Washington’s Hanford Reach. (NOVEMBER 2001) | ||||
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< Is Everything Different? After 9/11, the pundits said things would never be the same. But by the end of 2001, the environmental debate in the nation’s capital looks pretty much like it did on September 10. The war in Afghanistan thrusts energy policy and dependence on oil more front and center, but the administration promotes the same solutions as before, this time repackaged in national security rhetoric. (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002) | ||||
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< Energy Bills Gets Ugly: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle introduces an energy bill in early 2002 that the Sierra Club praises as a “strong framework.” It includes raising fuel economy standards and support for renewable energy. A month later, it looks like the same fossil-fuel-friendly plan the Bush administration proposed a year earlier, which included drilling in the Arctic Refuge. In April, 54 senators vote against Arctic drilling, the largest number ever to stand up for Arctic protection, but then pass an energy bill that the Club calls “loathsome” despite sparing the Arctic. It still calls for billions in subsidies to the coal, oil, and nuclear industries. (APRIL/MAY 2002) | ||||
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< Communities at Risk: Throughout 2002, the Sierra Club connects the dots between Bush administration changes in toxic waste and clean air policies and the damage they cause to communities around the country. The Sierra Club and The Planet help tell the stories of the people and communities at risk from such policy changes. (SEPTEMBER 2002) | ||||
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< Raising
the Bar: But all is not bleak. Yes, Bush’s allies
take over Congress, but the election isn’t a mandate to
pollute our air and water and cut down our national forests.
Americans continue to strongly support environmental values.
And we have the know-how and technology to solve our most pressing
problems. The Club’s job is to mobilize the public to
demand the protections they support. In 2003, the Club focuses
on a solutions-based message: “We know how. There’s
a better way.” |
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| In a leaked memo that is widely circulated, Republican pollster Frank Luntz states that the environment is the issue on which Bush and the Republicans are most vulnerable. (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003) | |||||
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< Shining the Spotlight: Week by week, the Bush administration chisels away at environmental protections; one of its most dangerous moves is weakening the Clean Air Act so that old power plants can expand without installing modern pollution controls. The Club continues to expose Bush administration misdeeds. Meanwhile, Planet editor Tom Valtin travels to Anniston, Alabama, where, despite a concerted campaign by Club activists and allies, and safe and proven alternatives, the Army begins burning its chemical weapons stockpile. (SEPTEMBER 2003) | ||||
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< "What
Your President Won’t Tell You and Your Neighbors Need
to Know: “The Bush administration is dismantling
three decades of environmental progress,” says Sierra
Club President Larry Fahn, “and most Americans don’t
even know it’s happening.” The solution: talking.
Americans are bombarded by an estimated 60,000 messages, ads,
signs, and e-mails a week. One of the few sources that can cut
through the clutter is personal contact—talking with friends,
family, and neighbors. (JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2004) |
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< Supreme Court Date: Lawyers representing Sierra Club argue that the proceedings of Vice President Cheney’s secret energy task force should be made public, and that Cheney is not, as his counsel contends, above the law. (JUNE 2004) | ||||
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< Retiring Bush: The Sierra Club seeks to have George W. join his father as a one-term president. The Planet celebrates its 10th birthday. (JULY/AUGUST 2004) | ||||
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| Here’s our compilation:
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| When Pictures
Tell the Story Here are two photos we wondered if we should run. At right is one we ran with a story on hog factory water pollution. No one complained. At left is a 1996 photo of retiring Oregon Representative Wes Cooley, as he greets a small group of Sierra Club demonstrators celebrating the end of the 104th Congress. A Club staffer asked him to repeat his gesture for the Associated Press cameraperson. He did. The San Francisco Chronicle published it. So did we. |
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