When Victoria McKenzie-McHarg traveled from her native Australia to the United States to learn more about anti-coal activism, she found a resource worth importing: the Sierra Club's grassroots organizing model. Impressed by the Club's successful campaign to stop 179 (and counting) proposed coal plants, McKenzie-McHarg and fellow Aussie activists invited Club organizers to travel Down Under.

In May, six representatives from the Club's Organizing Department, International Campaign, and Coal Exports program traveled to Australia, the world's second-largest coal exporter, to train activists in Newcastle. "We were humbled by the energy and creativity of the activists we met in Australia," Sierra Club representative Nicole Ghio says. "This was by no means a one-way exercise."