Sierra Club
"We're not going to tolerate lies and obstruction! We're not going to sit back and let a climate catastrophe happen!"
So said Sierra Club president David Scott, above, at a Sierra Club rally on Central Park West just before the start of the People's Climate March in New York City.
"Social justice demands action," Scott said as the crowd pressed in. "For people in low-lying nations, for indigenous people in the Arctic, and for many others, climate catastrophe isn't some far-off threat. It has already started."
"We have solutions," he said to cheers and applause as the crowd swelled in numbers and energy. "What we need now is the political will."
"What do we want?" Scott shouted.
"Climate justice!" the crowd roared back.
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"
Scott then turned the stage over to fellow emcees Karissa Gerhke and BoRa Kim of the Sierra Student Coalition, who introduced several more speakers, including former president Allison Chin. Ten of the fifteen members of the Club's Board of Directors -- vice-president Spencer Black, Loren Blackford, Lane Boldman, Michael Dorsey, Jim Dougherty, Chuck Frank, Jessica Helm, Robin Mann, Susana Reyes, and Scott -- participated in the march.
But the Board set the stage for the Sierra Club's deep involvement with the event months beforehand. "Back in May, we voted to postpone both our annual meeting and our September meeting, both of which would have conflicted with the People's Climate March," says Spencer Black. "This sent a strong message to Club members of the importance of the march."
Board members played an active role in publicizing and promoting the march in their states, both internally and with partner groups, and several members contributed financially to help with transportation costs. Typical was Board member Chuck Frank, who helped sponsor several Club members to attend the march and rode the overnight bus from Chicago to New York.
"As a Board we supported the Club's deep involvement with what was a very significant strategic opportunity," says Robin Mann. "Our goal from the start was to have a major mobilization right before the UN Climate Summit and partner with a broad diversity of civic organizations to make the march reflect our values of inclusiveness and commitment to climate justice."
Mann's involvement leading up to the march was also typical of Board members: She recruited an environmental justice organization with which her local group was partnering, she helped captain a bus to New York City, and she was deeply involved in local and chapter recruitment efforts in the weeks leading up to the march.
And the work and commitment paid off, as more than 25,000 Sierra Club members participated in the march -- the largest-ever Sierra Club gathering. Meanwhile, Sierra Club volunteers and staff helped organize hundreds of solidarity events around the country the same weekend as the big New York march.
"I think we made an emphatic statement to global leaders and the world," says Scott. "And we were involved from the get-go."