The Recent Environmental Group Shake Ups

[LYIN' KING]

What is the driving force behind all these recent changes? What do they know that we may not?

Is it all just coincidence?

Come on folks, we have a wealth of brilliant minds here, what the hell is going on???

Speculation, opinions, facts, more news reports . . . let’s figure this thing out together!!!

[cruzila]

They are losing credibility.

[LYIN' KING]

While I agree, there has to be MUCH more.

They will NOT go sit in a corner sucking their thumbs over minor losses of credibility and would definitely not enter into the major changes that they have, almost overnight, because of it IMHO.

[SurfnSnow]

While I'm no brainiac, it's seems to be a combination of things:
-Loss of income due to the slow economy (less contributions from members)
-Too many cooks in the kitchen (too many ideals conflicting, what do you save first?)
-People (the general public) are seeing through the BS that the enviros are pushing.
-Different groups other than OHV are starting to fight back using their tactics.

[cuttenkid]

Lying King,

TPAC wrote an opinion on this issue today.

TPAC blog
http://thetrailpac.blogspot.com/2011...-club-and.html

[LYIN' KING]

Originally Posted by cuttenkid

Lying King,

TPAC wrote an opinion on this issue today.

TPAC blog
http://thetrailpac.blogspot.com/2011...-club-and.html

Cuttenkid,

Hope you don't mind . . .

************************************************** ***************


Op-Ed
By Don Amador, Founder
The Trail PAC
Date: November 22, 2011


Opinion on Political Events at Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society

Not since the radical departure of Dr. Patrick Moore from Greenpeace in the mid 1980s has the green lobby been rocked by two large seismic events. Last week, Carl Pope, resigned from the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society cut their staff by 31 percent.

According to the LA Times, the departure of Carl Pope, 66, chairman of the club and a member for more than 40 years, comes as the nonprofit group faces declining membership, internal dissent, well-organized opponents, a weak economy and hostile forces in Congress trying to take the teeth out of environmental regulations.

An E&E News article stated The Wilderness Society has reduced its workforce over the last year from 224 to 155. In addition, the Washington, D.C.-based group, which currently runs on a $26.7 million annual budget, cited reduced donations amid a sluggish economy as one reason for the cuts.

The Trail PAC believes the “trail-access tides” are turning in Washington D.C. and in many other places in the country. Sure there will be many tough political battles ahead in 2012. However, TPAC plans to be in that fight ensuring that pro-trail federal candidates have the support they need to win elected office.

Source: http://thetrailpac.blogspot.com/2011...-club-and.html

[Chain Drive]

The sudden changes in the leadership of major green organizations is a very complex situation. We have to look beyond our side issue world of Off Road to understand the big picture. The progressive administration that the greens have prayed for for decades is not coming through with the regulations and policy changes that the big green dollars thought they had purchased. The best that the Obama administration can muster is delayed decisions and additional regulatory delay. No significant changes in law or policy have happened in the past 3 years.

For decades the green industry has been financed by leftist foundations and the tithing of industries who are paying protection money to avoid law suites from the greens. The big energy and automotive corporations are no longer in the financial position to sustain the high level of "giving".

Internal conflicts always arise in organizations that are under funded to the level that they have to make stratigic decisions about which fight to persue, and which fight to walk away from.

[Stonebone]

This is when we must increase our efforts like never before... An animal is most dangerous when wounded. They will fight more savagely now than ever. We must not only hold our ground, but fearlessly advance.

[cuttenkid]

Stonebone,

I agree. One of these new tools is TPAC.

Don

[LYIN' KING]

What Does Carl Pope’s Departure From Sierra Club Signal to the Green Movement and to Business?

By RP Siegel | November 22nd, 2011


Carl Pope, the long-time Executive Director of the Sierra Club announced last week that he would be stepping down as Chairman of the organization next year. This follows his move last year, to turn over the Executive Director’s reins to Michael Brune.

Pope’s decisions in recent years to seek cooperative action with corporations, and in particular, his agreement to endorse the Clorox Green Works product line in exchange for sponsorship, caused some deep divisions within the club, particularly among those die-hard activists who had grown up seeing big companies as the enemy.

Yet Brune, who was two years old when Pope first joined the Club, came to Sierra Club, from Rainforest Action Network (RAN), where he secured environmental commitments from the likes of Home Depot, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Kinko’s, Boise, and Lowe’s seems to be philosophically aligned with Pope in this regard, so this does not seem to be the reason for Pope’s departure.

But times are turbulent for relations between green groups and companies, with corporations often sitting on a razor’s edge, supporting green causes one minute and then undermining them the next. One of the companies RAN worked with in the past was Bank of America, a company which is now the object of an action campaign called “Not One More Dollar” that essentially asks its members to boycott the mega-bank for a laundry list of dirty deeds ranging from raising consumer fees, laying off workers, foreclosing homes, and heavily funding coal-fired power plants.

In a statement released by Sierra Club, Pope said that he would dedicate his time to working with business, labor, technology innovators and local government to strengthen American manufacturing. “To be competitive in the 21st century, a revitalized manufacturing sector must deploy clean energy, low-carbon fuels and sustainable technologies.” Of all the issues I’ve seen environmental groups take on in the past several decades, I can’ really say that I ever saw competitiveness as one of them.

But Pope is clearly stepping back in order to take in a bigger, more inclusive picture that I think is essential to making progress on large complex issues such as climate change.

He explained in the Huffington Post last week that he was “opening up [his] dance card,” in order to “broaden [his] scope and take on some challenges that, although essential to saving the planet, are not what some might narrowly define as purely environmental.”

“…the most important insight we environmentalists need if we really want to respond to the climate crisis, the collapse of biodiversity, and the impending arrival not just of “peak oil” but of “peak stuff,” is to recognize that we cannot solve these problems on our own. There are not enough environmentalists to save the environment. There are not enough workers-rights advocates to protect workers. American manufacturing companies cannot compete, on their own, with China’s. America must build much bigger coalitions with much broader visions if we want to lead the 21st century.”

His first post-Sierra endeavor is a project called “Made in America,” which is aimed at restoring the “preeminence of the United States in manufacturing.”

He correctly recognizes that as long as our economy is in a down-slide, it will be difficult to get people to pay attention to environmental issues, a fact that is underscored by the nearly 15 percent decline in Sierra Club’s membership since the economy tanked in 2008. But he, along with other thought leaders like Jeremy Rifkin recognizes that the multifaceted problem of economic malaise, peak oil, and climate change can be effectively countered with a new outlook that involves a merger of what have long been opposing perspectives.

“Our politics may be broken, but our country isn’t — yet. If we want smart public policy that leverages sustainability, innovation, and clean energy to rebuild our economy and our middle class, then we need to break out of our boxes.”

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water. Like airplanes, we all leave behind a vapor trail. And though we can easily see others’, we rarely see our own.

Source: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/...ment-business/

[Brewster2]

Another item to consider is the proliferation of environmental groups. With limited funds available, each additional group cuts into the contents of the piggy bank, leaving less $$ for each group.

Ride on
Brewster

[Jeff Knoll]

Originally Posted by Brewster2

Another item to consider is the proliferation of environmental groups. With limited funds available, each additional group cuts into the contents of the piggy bank, leaving less $$ for each group.

Ride on
Brewster

This ^



I have always felt that environmental business is more about profits than feeling good. When you get that big of a budget and that kind of power it seems more about making money than doing whats right.

Sound business would say cut and run. It appears that the cash cow of recouped lawsuit money may be running dry, and with a bad economy free money may be drying up from contributions as well.

The leadership will move on to the next big thing, which seems to be the labor movement.

[LYIN' KING]

Originally Posted by Jeff Knoll

I have always felt that environmental business is more about profits than feeling good. When you get that big of a budget and that kind of power it seems more about making money than doing whats right.

I agree, this seems to be at root of their current retrenching. Without leadership willing to make deals with the Devil and act as attack dogs in return for funding, all that remains is the litigation gravy from the EAJA and membership funding.

They long ago alienated the green principled baby boomers, many of whom still have money, by accepting funding from corporate America.

With the exception of the long-standing old school movements like The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society, most of the groups existing today got their seed money from profit seeking greed mongers less than five decades ago. Corporations and big business, via the "Trusts" they create, use them until they accomplish their goals, then abandon them like toxic waste.

It is perplexing that these old school groups accepted corporate funding instead of leaving the dirty work to the newer upstarts created for this very purpose. I suppose the old school power was needed to accomplish certain goals and the money offered was and still is too good to refuse.

Interesting that one group has apparently chosen to return to its roots and the other appears to have embraced business as usual.

If the EAJA goes away, that's when the show really begins.

[Jeepndel]

Me, I like to "follow the money" and watch the tide changing...Mr. Pope sees it, feels it and is running fast to catch up with the changing tides...Enviro-wacko radical stuff is no longer working; chaining oneself to the rocks to stop dams is old news; preserving good hiking trails is well established....all the reasons the "Club" was formed. It's time for a new environmentalism. And they are planning it under our noses.

The public is tired of the silliness. Businesses are sick of being shut down for a bug. Federal laws are being targeted by private landowners who are sick and tired of being run off their own land. The economy is crying to more jobs.
Pope sees it. BlueRibbon Coalition and other organized recreation groups are seeing it as well.

NOW is the time to build our side up -- build our Access Army and whatever other OHV groups we can...build their budgets; build the pride; take over the press/media; fund the budgets; keep Johson Valley on our side; and just plain launch backcountry motorized recreation as a premiere force in politics.

I suggest we start with our first mission as the 2012 ELECTIONS. Let's build the Trail Political Action Committee (TPAC) to start with -- this could be most powerful leg of our legal/political efforts. TPAC is after the 2012 elections to ENSURE we know who is on our OHV side when the ballots come out. That is what it takes as our very first mission.

http://www.thetrailpac.com
Del

[Brewster2]

Originally Posted by LYIN' KING

I agree, this seems to be at root of their current retrenching. Without leadership willing to make deals with the Devil and act as attack dogs in return for funding, all that remains is the litigation gravy from the EAJA and membership funding.

The amount of money that these groups get from the EAJA is a small percent of their funding, even though it looks like a lot from our perspective.

Ride on
Brewster

[LYIN' KING]

Originally Posted by Brewster2

The amount of money that these groups get from the EAJA is a small percent of their funding, even though it looks like a lot from our perspective.

Ride on
Brewster

Your observation is well known by and not lost on me!

I find it highly informative that the elder of the two groups highlighted chose to stick with a corporate oriented leadership change while the younger group pretends to revert to an old school grass roots change of leadership.

The shell game continues!!!

[kf6zpl]

While a lot of speculation has been tossed around, one critical point missing is the changing environment within the federal administrative process.

When you examine the federal administrative process, you will see a shift towards collaboration and adaptive management processes.

That is a fundamental shift in attitude by the federal agencies that dictates that non-government "partners" adapt or fade into obscurity.

The groups maintaining a militant approach to land management planning are taking themselves out of relevance with the approach they are adopting or maintaining.

The game is changing. Adapt to the new paradigm or fade into obscurity.

[Mad Machinist]

King,

Sorry to drag this thread up from the dead, but here is part of the reason the groups are falling apart. People are waking up.

Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years

By David Rose UK Daily Mail 29th January 2012



The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.



The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.



Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.



Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.



Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak. We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.



Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.



According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.



However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.



© Mail on Sunday



‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’





CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.



© Mail on Sunday

Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.



‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.



He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said.



Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.



‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.



She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.



‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .



Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.



The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.

‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’



Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.



‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’



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