Name: Nina Dutton
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Contribution: Helped organize a climate-denier variety hour

What is Sierra Club and Beer, and how do I get invited? It's an event the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club holds every other month at a restaurant in Atlanta. The idea is to attract people who might be interested in the Sierra Club's campaigns but don't want to sit through a meeting full of wonky abbreviations or who aren't quite ready to take action. What if you just want to learn? There's usually a speaker. We ask trivia questions about the topic, and you get to meet people at your table. Hopefully some conversations get started. And with a suggested donation of $5, you get a couple of free beers—nice ones, by the way. It's always fun.

Who shows up? The crowd is very different from what you get at regular chapter meetings. The atmosphere is much more welcoming to first-timers and younger folks. We used to hold the event in this little bar, but then too many people started coming, so now we hold it in a much larger space.

I heard you helped organize a comedy night. It was the Climate Denier Variety Hour. Not our typical Sierra Club and Beer. We scheduled it directly after an EPA hearing on the Clean Power Plan. We invited two improv groups to do "climate change politics" comedy, which must have been a really challenging prompt.

Did they manage to make climate change funny? Yes. One skit was about a family who owned a coal-fired power plant. They were planning a mural to brighten up the place. But the funniest part of the evening was when the troupes recited actual quotes about climate change from politicians, like how carbon dioxide is good for plants.

Have you helped organize any other out-of-the-box events? Last September, we arranged an outing called Waves in the Woods. Local musicians composed and recorded original music, and then a big group of us went to Sweetwater Creek State Park outside the city and walked through the woods listening to it on our earphones. It was a great way for members to find out what is happening in the arts scene around town and for the musicians to find out about the Sierra Club. I'd like to do more of this kind of collaboration.