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C00002 00002	sierra[f85,jmc]		Comments on the Sierra Club
C00006 00003	I didn't say or suggest that the fanaticism came from outside the Club
C00008 00004		I have no special information.  I suppose the fanaticism,
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sierra[f85,jmc]		Comments on the Sierra Club

su-bboards,henning@sierra/cc
More on the Sierra Club

	When I characterized the Sierra Club as a ``blind opponent of
progress'' I was aware of their slogan to the contrary.  It seems to me that
before 1975 the slogan may have been mostly accurate even though I
disagreed with their judgment about some issues.  Since then fanaticism
has become more and more dominant as its membership and financial
supporters increased mainly among people who were interested in its
political activities rather than its outdoor activities per se.

	Take nuclear power.  In my view, our failure to develop nuclear
power adequately will cause another energy crisis.  There has never been a
plausible ``alternative energy'' scenario, and after 12 years of
world-wide attempts, the situation hasn't improved.  This energy crisis
will generate the political will for crash programs that may break many
environmental eggs.  Somewhat less likely, a CO2 crisis may hit us first.

	The Sierra Club in its publications propagates many lies about
nuclear power including the one about waste disposal being an unsolved
problem.  It may be, as Albert Henning says, that the official Sierra Club
position doesn't actually oppose nuclear power in principle, but only
refuses to accept evidence that its basic environmental problems are small
and long since solved.  However, so much of its political energy comes
from anti-nuclear and anti-corporate fanaticism that I would doubt that
even the most hedged statement that nuclear power would be ok if X, Y and
Z were done could be issued by the Club.  The fanatics would try to tear
the organization apart before they would permit even a small intellectual
concession to the ``enemy'', and those people in the leadership who would
privately claim to be rational on the issue prize their political unity
and alliances and their financial support more than anything else.  It is
much more intellectually and emotionally salient than the welfare of the
country.

	I see Sierra Club publications mainly in doctors' offices, and I
haven't been sick lately.  However, I would be surprised if objective and
critical discussion of the positions the Club has taken are ever
published.
I didn't say or suggest that the fanaticism came from outside the Club
itself.  My primary source has been the magazine Sierra, which I
read as extremely self-righteous and not including in articles any
critical discussion of positions the Club has taken.  I also read
somewhere (or someone told me) that no chapter may take a position on an
issue that differs from that of the Club.  As I mentioned in a BBOARD
statement that evidently crossed yours, I went to the library today and
looked at the five issues on the shelf.  Several of the articles were very
factual, but they were lawyer-factual rather than scientist-factual, i.e.
collecting those facts that support a pre-determined position.  Before
1975 I had some information about several leaders of the Sierra Club who
took the position that nuclear energy was the best way to avoid
environmental damage.  However, when the Club took the opposite position
early in that year, they went along like good soldiers.

My late second wife was active as chairman of the Rock Climbing Section
and later got out its newsletter.  She told me the rock climbers were
mostly interested in that and left the politics to those for whom
that was the main interest.  Some agreed and some disagreed.

	I have no special information.  I suppose the fanaticism,
anti-corporate attitudes and self-righteousness express
the beliefs of the politically active part of the Sierra Club
membership.  I am well aware that many members are primarily
interested in the outdoor activities.  My late second wife
was for a while chairman of the Rock Climbing Section and
edited its newsletter for several years.

dialog with Nick Clinch

Here are the comments on the Sierra Club I promised you.  They were
delayed by other matters, so you may no longer be interested.

1. I think the role of the Sierra Club and the environmental movement
generally has been harmful to the country on the whole.  This opinion
is supported in the points that follow.

2. The environmental harm that was being done by previous procedures
was not so bad as to justify the extreme propaganda.

3. I have seen nothing in the environmentalist literature evaluating
the costs to society they have imposed.  Therefore, I suppose there
is very little such evaluation.

4. For example, the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter was the main
cause of the 10 or more year delay in making a freeway of U.S. 101
south of San Jose.  During that period many people were killed in
"Blood Alley" as it came to be called.  Was there ever any evaluation
of the expected number when the Sierra Club took a position against
the freeway?

5. The Sierra Club opposition to nuclear power has helped kill
thousands per year in the U.S. according to information about the effects of
burning coal.