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Sierra Club Leader Profiles
Robbie Cox, President
RESIDENCE: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
OCCUPATION: Communication professor, environmental author, activist
SIERRA CLUB LEADERSHIP POSITIONS: President of Sierra Club (2000 - 2001, 1994 - 1996); Director (2003 - 2006, 2000 - 2003, 1996 - 1999, 1993 - 1996); Vice-President, Conservation (1996 - 1997), Communication (1999 - 2000); Chair, NC Chapter (1983 - 1985); Chair, Research Triangle Group (1982 - 1983); Delegate, international "Religion, Science, and Environment" conference, Istanbul (1995).
STATEMENT:Rapid climate change now threatens the planet's biological diversity and human communities in unprecedented ways. Vast areas of North American forests are dying. Biologists predict a 6th Great Extinction of species, while NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen warns we have 10 years to avert a "tipping point," with severe consequences for the Earth.
After 6 years on the defensive under George W. Bush, and with signs of rapid warming of the Earth's climate, the Sierra Club must lead once again. I believe our highest priority must be to influence the 2007-2008th Congress to set a new energy agenda and vision for our planet.
As former Sierra Club President and Director, I've already taken steps to strengthen our organization:
- Initiated "Project ACT": Our commitment to grassroots organizing and new communication technologies led the Aspen Institute to name Sierra Club, the nation's "most effective environmental voice;" currently I'm chairing the Club's on-line (Web) expansion.
- Helped launch the Club's national Training Academy, training thousands of activists. Public lands leaders called it, "the Club's best investment in years!"
- Worked to open our 115 year-old Club to more diverse members and vision, nurturing coalitions with labor, civil rights, faith, and outdoor groups, and funding the Sierra Student Coalition.
Now, we must go further!
In 2006, I helped lower tensions inside the Sierra Club by reaffirming our commitment to protect wild lands, even as we launched an aggressive global warming campaign. Now, we need Directors with the experience and vision to lead the Club in this critical moment. There is no other organization with the history, persistence, and community presence to play this role.
Carl Pope, Executive Director
Carl Pope was appointed Executive Director of the Sierra Club in 1992. A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Mr. Pope has been with the Sierra Club for nearly thirty years. In that time he has served as Associate Conservation Director, Political Director and Conservation Director.
During Mr. Pope's tenure as Executive Director, Sierra Club added 150,000 new members, growing to 700,000 of your friends and neighbors. The Club's importance extends beyond numbers, though. The Aspen Institute, after surveying every member of Congress and key federal officials, named the Sierra Club as the most influential environmental organization in Washington, D.C.
Under Mr. Pope, the Sierra Club has helped protect nearly 10 million acres of wilderness, including such highlights as the California Desert, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and California's Giant Sequoias National Monument. The Club brought the litigation challenging the right of Vice-President Cheney's Energy Task Force to conduct its policy making in secret negotiations with major energy interests. The Sierra Club also collected more than a million comments -- the most public comments on a single regulatory issue in history -- in support of protecting the remaining roadless areas in America's National Forests.
More recently in Mr. Pope's tenure, the Sierra Club led the charge in pressuring the Bush Administration to reverse its position against new rules that would lower the amount of arsenic in America's drinking water and mercury in our fisheries. The Sierra Club has also continued to hold the line in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling, and in stopping repeatedly proposed omnibus energy legislation that would give tens of billions in subsidies to oil, coal and nuclear interests.
In addition to his work with the Sierra Club, Mr. Pope has had a distinguished record of environmental activism and leadership. He has served on the Boards of the California League of Conservation Voters, Public Voice, National Clean Air Coalition, California Common Cause, Public Interest Economics, Inc., and Zero Population Growth. Mr. Pope was also Executive Director of the California League of Conservation Voters and the Political Director of Zero Population Growth.
Mr. Pope is co-author -- along with Paul Rauber -- of Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress, which the New York Review of Books called "a splendidly fierce book." Mr. Pope's other books include Sahib, an American Misadventure in India (1971) and Hazardous Waste in America (1981).
Mr. Pope graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1967. He then spent two years as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Barhi, Bihar, India, where he helped communities and families address the human and environmental impacts of overpopulation.
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