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[https://www.sierraclub.org/library/oral-histories by SIERRA CLUB] | [https://www.sierraclub.org/library/oral-histories by SIERRA CLUB] | ||
Oral history is a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. These first-person accounts are by some of the many outstanding people associated with the Sierra Club. | Oral history is a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. These first-person accounts are by some of the many outstanding people associated with the Sierra Club. | ||
=====The History of Earth Day===== | |||
[https://www.treehugger.com/earth-day-1140756 by Jenn Savedge 20/4/23 Treehugger] | |||
Every year, people all around the world come together to celebrate Earth Day. This annual event is marked by lots of different activities, from parades to festivals to film festivals to running races. Earth Day events typically have one theme in common: the desire to show support for environmental issues and teach future generations about the need to protect our planet. | |||
Revision as of 09:16, 30 September 2025
Wilderness Forever: The Wilderness Act 50th Anniversary
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, the Sierra Club and the Smithsonian collaborated on a short film primer at the entrance to The Smithsonian Institution Museum’s Wilderness Forever exhibit opening Sept. 3rd
6 Good Things Richard Nixon Did for the Environment
by Shea Gunther 14/8/24 Treehugger
When most people think of President Richard Nixon, the term "environmentalist" isn't the word that immediately leaps to mind. The 37th president, who resigned from office in 1973 after the Watergate scandal, left a surprisingly strong environmental legacy, giving our nation new legislation governing protection of the air, water and wilderness.
Theodore Roosevelt
Despite his unabashed taste for hunting, Theodore Roosevelt was undeniably a lover of nature, and perhaps our first environmentalist president. Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt used executive action like no other president before him to reach his conservationist goals. Roosevelt ensured that Yellowstone National Park could not be exploited for commercial goals and established over 50 national bird refuges through executive action. He would go on to found the U.S. Forest Service and create the
first 18 National Monuments, including Muir Woods, Grand Canyon, and Devils Tower.
Is Environmental Protection Possible?
by Evaggelos Vallianatos 23/8/19 COUNTERPUNCH
I joined the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1979. It happened by accident. A friend in Alexandria, Virginia, was working for the personnel office of EPA. We talked and I expressed interest in EPA. I said to him something to the effect the EPA was a great and necessary institution in late twentieth century America. You could not hide from pollution. Millions of cars harmed our health and defiled the atmosphere daily.
How America solved its first air pollution crisis — and why solving the next one will be harder
The history of American air pollution, explained.
EPA Would Shrink to 1970 Staffing Levels—‘When the Skies Were Dark With Smog’—Under Proposed Plan
by Marianne Lavelle 26/2/25 Inside Climate News
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would slash 65 percent of its workforce under plans that its administrator, Lee Zeldin, has discussed with the White House, President Donald Trump said Wednesday at his first cabinet meeting.
The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s
In 2007, when the court ruled that the Clean Air Act of 1970 gave the Environmental Protection Agency the flexibility to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, former Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “When Congress enacted these provisions, the study of climate change was in its infancy.” Writing a dissent in a 2022 case looking at similar questions, Justice Elena Kagan argued that back in 1970 when Congress created the act, legislators gave the EPA the flexibility to keep up with the times, tackling problems (i.e., climate change) that couldn’t be anticipated.
A look at EPA administrators since the agency’s founding
by Jonathan Hiskes & Sara Barz 20/12/08 Grist
As government titles go, “administrator” doesn’t have the same ring as “secretary,” “czar,” or “ambassador.” But it’s an accurate moniker for the top job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the president’s appointee is charged with running an agency of 17,000 employees organized around 10 regional offices, with an overall annual budget of more than $7 billion.
This landmark law saved millions of lives and trillions of dollars
by Beth Gardiner 29/12/20 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Fifty years ago, a group of Democratic and Republican senators spent months working together in Washington, D.C. to tackle a danger they all agreed was harming Americans’ health and lives. Huddled in committee rooms for hours on end, they listened to one another’s ideas, traded jokes across party lines and, in the end, produced a bill that won unanimous Senate approval and passed the House of Representatives with just one “no” vote.
Better days ahead for flagship regulator.
If John Wayne were to stroll down certain Main Streets at noon today, he would not just risk being arrested for jay-walking and carrying an exposed weapon; he might also face charges for smoking tobacco in the saloon the previous evening, or lighting a bonfire in his own back garden. And quite right, too. Sensible regulation has become an integral part of the American way of life.
The History of Environmental Justice in the United States
by Sharmon Lebby 12/10/21 Treehugger
A web search of Robert Bullard brings up photos of a perpetually smiling man. His appearance is avuncular or perhaps that of a distant relative that you can picture handing out sweets when the parents aren’t looking. However, behind his jovial smile is the author of 18 books and over 13 dozen articles. All of the published works cover a topic for which he has received multiple awards and is considered "the father" of—that is, environmental justice.
Unheralded Environmentalist: Jimmy Carter’s Green Legacy
by Kai Bird 29/3/23 YaleEnvironment360
The angry Alaskans gathered in Fairbanks to burn the president’s effigy. It was early December 1978 and President Jimmy Carter was that unpopular in Alaska. A few days earlier Carter had issued an unusual executive order, designating 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness as a national monument. He did so unilaterally, using a little known 1906 Antiquities Act that ostensibly gave the president the executive power to designate buildings or small plots of historical sites on federal land as national monuments. No previous president had ever used the obscure act to create a vast wilderness area. But Congress was refusing to pass the necessary legislation, so Carter decided to act alone.
Lessons for the Next Resistance
by Ruth Greenspan Bell DEMOCRACY
A week or so after the brutal shock of the 2016 election, I ran into someone I will call Frank. It was a chance meeting in the lively Washington plaza shared by the EPA headquarters, where Frank was a career employee, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where I work on climate issues. I knew Frank from my stint at EPA years before. It wasn’t long before we began commiserating about the election.
No Comment
by Rachel Ramirez 9/3/20 Grist
Yvette Arellano has fought for years against the oil, gas, and petrochemical infrastructure that has inundated her home state of Texas. For her, the fight is personal.
The Clean Water Act at 50: Big Successes, More to Be Done
by Andrew S. Lewis 13/10/22 YaleEnvironment360
When Steve Meserve’s great-grandfather, Bill Lewis, started the Lewis Fishery in 1888, it was one of dozens of commercial outfits scattered up and down the Delaware River that seined for American shad during the spring spawn. At the time, the Delaware’s shad fishery hauled 3 to 4 million of the hard-fighting fish from the river and its tributaries every year. But, soon enough, Lewis discovered that he had gotten into the business just as the river — along with the species it supported — was entering a period of catastrophic decline.
CEQA Anyone?
On a sunny Saturday morning earlier in March, members of the Angeles Chapter gathered to learn about CEQA. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was passed in 1970, with the purpose of requiring state and local agencies to identify the environmental impacts their projects may cause, and what they’ll do to mitigate those impacts. It was meant to buffer the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), passed the year prior, as NEPA only applies to projects that receive federal funding, while CEQA applies to projects receiving state or local approval.
Trump Administration Is the Greatest Threat the EPA Has Ever Faced
by Heather Smith 26/6/17 Sierra
The Trump administration is the greatest threat the EPA has ever faced. That’s the conclusion of a report compiled by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), an international network of academics and nonprofits best known for spearheading the movement to archive public environmental data before Trump took office.
NATURE VOL 227 AUGUST 15 1970
but more what company chairmen invariably describe
to stockholders as "cautious optimism"-in other words, a feeling that matters do not necessarily have to progress from bad to worse. What the Council's recommendations boil down to is first and foremost that
Breaking: The Republican attack on clean air isn’t popular
Make no mistake about it: The Clean Air Act is under attack from Congress. Indeed, in the U.S. Senate voting is imminent on several amendments to a non-related small business bill that would ditch, delay, or dilute the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to update and enforce air pollution standards.
Historical Accomplishments
Note: We are revising this section of our website, which presents the Sierra Club's history in an insensitive and exclusionary way. We are committed to engaging more critically with our past and reckoning with the ways racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression have shaped our organization. Please check back soon for an updated page.
History
The Sierra Club was founded by John Muir, in California in 1892. The stated goals were to explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them; and to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and government in preserving the forest and other natural resources of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Sierra Club Founders
For the first part of its existence, the Sierra Club was an exclusive social outings club established to explore, enjoy, and protect the Sierra Nevadas. Membership was often denied to people of color. The Sierra Club acknowledges the harm such discrimination created.
History & Archives
Founded in 1892, the Sierra Club has grown and evolved dramatically during its more than 125 years of existence. During that time, many gifted and dedicated men and women have helped to shape the organization's direction, while the Sierra Club itself has played an important role in influencing conservation policy and environmental history. Although the Sierra Club's official archives have been housed at the University of California's Bancroft Library since the latter part of the 20th century, the William E. Colby Memorial Library continues to serve as a resource for those who are interested in the Sierra Club's history.
History of the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center
The Sierra Club has had a long and intimate history with Yosemite National Park, of which the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center (formerly LeConte Memorial Lodge) is one important part.
The Sierra Club's 125-Year History Has Been a Story of Evolution
by Rebecca Solnit 17/4/17 Sierra
A writer and longtime Club member reflects on the organization's history
Key Figures in Sierra Club History
by William E. Colby SIERRA CLUB
Pulling Down Our Monuments
by Michael Brune 22/7/20 SIERRA CLUB
The Sierra Club is a 128-year-old organization with a complex history, some of which has caused significant and immeasurable harm. As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.
History of The Sierra Club in the Pacific Northwest
The Sierra Club and John Muir’s relationship with the Pacific Northwest (PNW) is longstanding. Muir (1838 – 1914) founded the Sierra Club and was America’s pioneer conservationist and outspoken advocate for the protection of forests, parks and wilderness. His interest in the forests and glaciers of the PNW Cascades began in 1879 with a brief stopover in Port Townsend on his way to Alaska. Upon his return, he gave three public lectures in Portland. Speaking to standing room only crowds about his Alaskan trip, he “talked of the youth of the world, the present morning of creation and the beginning of the work of the infinite.”
Chapter History Intro
The Angeles Chapter was founded in 1911, starting first as the Southern California Section of the Sierra Club, then as the Southern California Chapter, and finally, as the Angeles Chapter. Our members have explored almost every nook and cranny of our region, both on their own and in tens of thousands of chapter-sponsored outings. Through these pages we recognize some of the achievements of our members and share the glorious past of the Angeles Chapter.
Sierra Club Presidents
Addressing Racism in the Sierra Club Past and Present
In acknowledgment of the recent blog (en español) penned by Sierra Club Executive Director, Michael Brune, and subsequent stories from the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times on racism in the history of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations, the Angeles Chapter reaffirms its commitment to examine and learn from our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.
Oral Histories
Oral history is a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. These first-person accounts are by some of the many outstanding people associated with the Sierra Club.
The History of Earth Day
by Jenn Savedge 20/4/23 Treehugger
Every year, people all around the world come together to celebrate Earth Day. This annual event is marked by lots of different activities, from parades to festivals to film festivals to running races. Earth Day events typically have one theme in common: the desire to show support for environmental issues and teach future generations about the need to protect our planet.
