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Sierra Club

85 Second Street, Second Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone 415-977-5500 | Fax 415-977-5799 | Email information@sierraclub.org


Connections

Adbusters Adbusters
If an effort to boost its "anti-consumption" campaign, the Sierra Club promotes Adbusters' magazine and materials on their website. The Sierra Club's Missouri and Alabama chapter encourages people to observe Adbusters' anti-consumer "Buy Nothing Day." The November/December 2001 issue of Sierra magazine beckoned readers to download anti-globalization radio and television ads from Adbusters' website. The Sierra Club's Sustainable Consumption Task Force recommends subscribing to the Adbusters' quarterly magazine.


Logo not available American Corn Growers Association
The Sierra Club and the American Corn Growers Association are both members of the "Bolinas Group." The Bolinas Group is a consortium of environmental and anti-technology groups, working together to cripple food technology by lobbying governments for "warning" labels designed to scare consumers. Bolinas group members also have access to millions in funding via members of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.


Center for Food Safety Center for Food Safety
The Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (the Sierra Club's legal arm) and the Center for Food Safety have joined forces to agitate against biotech foods. In 2003, the two groups collaborated with Greenpeace to petition the Food and Drug Administration to ban the sale of harmless, bio-engineered pet fish. In 2000, the Sierra Club endorsed a scare campaign run by the Center for Food Safety and other anti-biotech groups designed to incite fear over biotech foods. The campaign included protesters dressed as Monarch butterflies, falsely claiming that biotech corn is harmful to the insects. In the same year, the two groups joined Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Environmental Defense Fund to formally petition the Food and Drug Administration to stop approving genetically engineered crops.


Logo not available Center for Science in the Public Interest
The Sierra Club joined the Center for Science in the Public Interest and other food scare organizations in the "Keep Antibiotics Working" (KAW) coalition. KAW, in reality a project of a slick Washington PR firm, seeks to frighten people away from the conventional meat supply with claims that the use of antibiotics in livestock leads to antibiotic resistance in people. There is a strong scientific consensus that KAW's claims are overblown.


Chefs Collaborative Chefs Collaborative
The Sierra Club and Chefs Collaborative are both members of "Genetically Engineered Food Alert," a PR campaign dedicated to demonizing genetically enhanced food products. In 2002 the two groups also co-hosted an event in Colorado called "Reinventing the Meal: Ecological Food Choices for the 21st Century." Attendees were urged to only "grow and buy organic food," shun food from large, modern farms, and avoid foods produced through biotechnology.


Dakota Resource Council Dakota Resource Council
North Dakota Sierra Club chairman Todd Leake also sits on the Dakota Resource Council's board and serves as that group's chief anti-biotech spokesman.


Dakota Rural Action Dakota Rural Action
In 1998, Dakota Rural Action (DRA) spearheaded a disinformation campaign resulting in the passage of "Amendment E" to South Dakota's constitution, which "banned corporate farming" in the state. When the South Dakota Farm Bureau and the South Dakota Sheep Growers petitioned to have their arguments heard, DRA hired the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (the Sierra Club's legal arm). Earthjustice filed a motion to silence the Farm Bureau and the Sheep Growers, arguing that they lacked the "standing" to be heard. A judge dismissed the motion, thwarting Earthjustice's attempt to muzzle Amendment E's victims. Amendment E was ruled unconstitutional in 2003 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.


Earth First! Earth First!
In his landmark book Trashing the Economy, Ron Arnold writes: "Defectors from the environmental movement have told us that Earth First! founder Dave Foreman was approached by the Sierra Club and his employer, the Wilderness Society, in 1979 with an offer to fund a new extremist point group for the movement. It would serve the function of making their own demands look more reasonable … Defectors say that Foreman made the deal by himself in a comfortable Wilderness Society office, and accepted the offer on the condition that funding would be steady and adequate, and that his participation was a limited 10-year deal."

Foreman offers evidence for this story's veracity in a quote he provided to Smithsonian magazine: "We thought it would have been useful to have a group to take a tougher position than the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. It could be sort of secretly controlled by the mainstream and trotted out at hearings to make the Sierra Club or Wilderness Society look moderate."

The intermingling between Earth First!ers and the Sierra Club are significant. One example is Jim Flynn, who serves as editor of the Oregon Sierra Club's Conifer newsletter. He is also the sole officer of Daily Planet Publishing, which produces the Earth First! Journal. Mick Garvin, a self-described "long-time Earth First!er," has chaired a local Sierra Club chapter in Oregon and currently serves as Oregon Chapter Executive Committee Delegate.


EarthSave International EarthSave International
The New York chapter of the Sierra Club promotes Earthsave International's "VegPledge" on its website. VegPledge is a campaign designed to scare people into adopting vegetarian and vegan diets. The VegPledge demonizes fishing, fish farms, large-scale livestock farms, and ranching - advising people not to eat any meat at all to "give a break to wild animals."


Environmental Media Services Environmental Media Services
Environmental Media Services (EMS) is the green arm of Fenton Communications, a Washington, DC public relations firm known for perpetrating the 1989 "Alar on apples" food-scare hoax, and for representing the Marxist governments of Nicaragua and Angola. Former Sierra Club media relations director, Daniel Silverman, is now Senior Vice President of Fenton Communications. Not surprisingly, Fenton lists Sierra Club as one of its many green clients. EMS puts the media spin on Sierra Club's issues.


Environmental Working Group Environmental Working Group
Sierra Club president and As You Sow executive director Larry Fahn collaborated with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to pressure and sue manufacturers of portable classrooms under California's Proposition 65 law. The mobile classroom walls contained benzene -- a chemical commonly found in most plastics. The Club's magazine Sierra has also promoted EWG scare campaigns, including the baseless 1995 "pesticide contamination of baby food" hoax.


Logo not available Farm Sanctuary
In 2002 the New York chapter of the Sierra Club cosponsored an event with People for Animal Rights dubbed "Behind Closed Doors," which featured Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Bauston. The purpose of the gathering was to vilify livestock operations.


Logo not available Foundation on Economic Trends
The Sierra Club and the Foundation on Economic Trends are both institutional sponsors of the "Genetically Engineered Food Alert" campaign, a Fenton Communications project designed to scare people away from foods produced through biotechnology.


Logo not available Greenpeace
Greepeace co-founder Paul Watson sits on the Sierra Club's board of directors. The two groups are also frequent partners in litigation. In 2003 the Siera Club and Greenpeace sued to obstruct timber harvesting in Southeast Alaska. In 1999 they teamed with organic food activists to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of genetically enhanced food crops. And when Greenpeace activists illegally boarded a ship transporting timber in 2002, the Sierra Club publicly came to their defense.


Humane Society of the United States Humane Society of the United States
Sierra Club activists have collaborated with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to agitate against modern livestock farms. In 2002, Sierra Club members in Florida teamed with HSUS to pass a ballot initiative that extends constitutional rights to pregnant pigs. In 1998, the two groups successfully campaigned in California for Proposition 4, which bars ranchers from using traps to protect their livestock from mountain lions, coyotes and other predators. The edict has hurt California farmers, who have seen a steep increase in predator attacks on their herds. The Sierra Club and HSUS are also both members of the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition, a PR campaign that frightens Americans away from the conventional meat supply with scientifically baseless claims about livestock antibiotics.


Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
In 2002, the Sierra Club and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy cooperated on a study, designed to cultivate unwarranted fear about antibiotics used by livestock farmers, claiming (without anything resembling good science) that Minneapolis and Des Moines consumers were "at risk" from "bacteria on poultry." Both groups are members of the scaremongering "Keep Antibiotics Working" coalition, a PR campaign that needlessly frightens Americans away from conventional beef, pork, and poultry with wrong-headed claims about livestock antibiotics. The Sierra Club Midwest and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy are also members of the "National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture," which rails against today's modern farms.


Institute for Social Ecology Institute for Social Ecology
In 1999 the Sierra Club and the Institute for Social Ecology teamed up with other anti-biotech groups to demand that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration require warning labels on all genetically enhanced food products.


Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving
In 2003 the Sierra Club and Mothers Against Drunk Driving joined trial lawyers in unsuccessfully opposing Proposition 12 in Texas, which brought sanity to fiscal awards from medical-malpractice and other lawsuits.


Mothers for Natural Law Mothers for Natural Law
In 1999 the Sierra Club and Mothers for Natural Law teamed up with other anti-biotech activists to petition the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require labels on all genetically enhanced food products.


Natural Resources Defense Council Natural Resources Defense Council
The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have allied on numerous occasions to combat modern livestock farms, most notably joining with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance in 2003 to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for increased restrictions on pork farmers. The Sierra Club also promoted NRDC's notorious Alar on apples" food scare. The two groups have collaborated multiple times to lobby the U.S. government against biotech foods, and are members of the Keep Antibiotics Working campaign, a slick PR project that frightens Americans away from the conventional meat supply with reckless claims about the use of antibiotics in livestock.


Organic Consumers Association Organic Consumers Association
Former Sierra Club forest committee coordinator, Victor Menotti, is now a policy board member with the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). The Sierra Club and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) have joined forces on several occasions to lobby against genetically modified food. In 1999 the two groups joined Greenpeace to hold demonstrations outside Food and Drug Administration meetings on genetically enhanced food. In 2000 Sierra and OCA petitioned FDA to put "warning" labels on genetically enhanced food products and even remove them from grocery shelves.


People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Sierra Club board member Paul Watson's violent activist group, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has received funding from PETA. In a 2002, the Broward Sierra News promoted "a vegetarian lifestyle as a way to counter the alleged abuse animals endure to feed a hungry and growing global population." The newsletter openly plugged PETA and their mantra that meat-eating in general, and livestock operations in particular, are a cause of world hunger and animal abuse. In 2002, Sierra Club activists in Florida teamed with PETA to pass a ballot initiative that extends constitutional rights to pregnant pigs.


Logo not available Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Sierra Club chapters in New York and Michigan actively promote the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's "Vegetarian Starter Kit" as a way to fight back against "factory farms" and "corporate greed."


Powder River Basin Resource Council Powder River Basin Resource Council
In 1998 Powder River Basin Council co-director Steve McConnel and Sierra Club lobbyist Steve Jones co-wrote a letter to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. In the letter the two proclaimed: "The brave talk of property rights … is mere rhetoric." The two groups have a collaborative history that dates back to 1984, when they joined to lobby against timber harvesting in Wyoming's National Forests.


Ruckus Society Ruckus Society
In 2001 the Sierra Club's national magazine, Sierra, promoted the Ruckus Society's "Global Justice Action Camps" encouraging activists to learn "skills ranging from scaling buildings to hanging from billboards." The plug encouraged readers to take "a look at the wilder side of anti-globalization, try www.ruckus.org." The Ruckus Society is generally credited with training violent protesters who vandalized and looted Seattle storefronts during the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings.


Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) founder Paul Watson sits on the Sierra Club's board of directors, a perch from which he has openly called for an animal-rights-friendly slate of new board members to gain control of the organization. Sea Shepherd board member Ben Zuckerman is also a Sierra Club director. Watson has declared: "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write the history." Sea Shepherd's main purpose is to sail the high seas in search of fishing boats to terrorize, ram, and sink. The group has sunk at least ten boats to date. Watson has also served as mentor to some of the nastiest animal-rights radicals around, including convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado, and militant Animal Liberation Front activist Josh Harper.


Tides Foundation & Tides Center Tides Foundation & Tides Center
The Tides Foundation regularly funnels money to the Sierra Club Foundation.


Union of Concerned Scientists Union of Concerned Scientists
In 1999 the Sierra Club teamed with Union of Concerned Scientists to petition the EPA for strict regulation of an innovative new biotech corn that produced its own insecticide. Using a single piece of junk science, the groups initiated a scare campaign, spreading the rumor that the corn posed risks to Monarch butterfly populations -- a claim which was later proven to be untrue. The two groups are also members of the misnamed "Consumer's Choice Council," a who's-who of radical green organizations seeking to derail the progress of biotechnology. In 2002 the Sierra Club produced a report intended to scare the public about the supposed "dangers" of administering antibiotics to chickens, heavily citing flawed statistics and misinformation produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists.


Waterkeeper Alliance Waterkeeper Alliance
The Sierra Club and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2003, seeking to enact crushing new regulations on modern livestock farmers. In 2001, Waterkeeper enlisted the Sierra Club's full support for its wide-ranging legal assault against the pork industry. The same year Sierra announced it was joining Waterkeeper as a "full partner in litigation" against major pork farmers. The Sierra Club also heavily promotes the activities of the Waterkeeper Alliance on its website.


Western Organization of Resource Councils Western Organization of Resource Councils
The Sierra Club promotes the Western Organization of Resource Councils as an authority on pollution and "responsible trade" policy on its website. The two groups teamed up in 1984 to lobby against federal coal-mining leases.




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