Grassroots Movement: The Sierra Club

What really caused the sudden upsurge in concern for preserving America’s environment at the beginning of the twentieth century? To what extent was this concern motivated by nostalgia for an older America, and to what extent by a desire to preserve nature and natural resources for future generations?

Sierra Club: Would use mass mobilization and try to sway public opinion by garnering media coverage. It also does campaign contributions to. Environmental Protection Agency, Council on Environmental Equality, and Bureau of Land Management are three major national level policymaking institutions that the Sierra Club targets.

Grassroots activism is activism that begins at the lowest level of the political pyramid: the local level. Grassroots activism can be described as an attempt to “weld the community into one bond of reason and emotion (3)” in the effort to achieve a common goal. Rather than trying to bring issues directly to the government, grassroots activism relies on pressuring the upper levels of the political pyramid (the regional, national and international level) into cooperation through the overwhelming force of mass protest, through strategies such as, organizing meetings, fundraising, and persuading voters to elect officials who represent the desired policies of the activists. A great majority of the Civil Rights Movements can be described as grassroots activism; numerous civil rights organizations were founded at the time such as the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian

In A Primer on Social Movements, David A. Snow and Sarah A. Soule identify five conditions for a social movement to be considered as such. First, a social movement has to challenge existing systems of authority, or defend existing structures (Snow, D. A., & Soule, 2010). Idle No More meets this criterion in that the movement was born in response to changes in laws by the Canadian federal government that were to jeopardize the protection of rivers, lakes and the lands (“9 Questions,” 2013). For the First Nation members of the group, their motivation to advocate resulted from personal troubles, or in other words, feeling their personal values to be threatened. But when it is something as elementary as nature that is in danger, it goes beyond

1. Karl Jacoby book brings the remarkable accounting of the negative aspects of conservation movement to the sunlight. Jacoby uses the early years of Adirondack Park, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon Forest Preserve to demonstrate his theme of the locals’ reactions to the creation of the park and the actions from the conservationists. And the fantasies the early conservationists’ promulgated of the locals of being satanic rapists of the environment are dispelled (193).

The New Deal and the Great Society had the common goal to preserve America’s natural beauty. The New Deal program established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was a youth program that worked to enhance the environment by doing jobs like clearing swamps, planting trees, and other conservation efforts (Catapano 1). The Great Society’s Highway Beautification Act was signed in 1965 to fund projects that helped to clean the nation’s highways and clear damage and litter (“Great Society”

The Progressive Era was a period of social activism and political reform that grew from the 1890s to the 1920s. Social reformers and journalists, like Jane Addams, Jacob Riis, and Ida Tarbell were some of the powerful voices for progressivism. “They concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant.” Many progressive reformers wanted to end corruption in the government, regulate business practices, address health hazards, and improve working conditions. It was also an era of conservationists. Conservationists are people who protect and preserve the environment and wildlife. Throughout the Progressive Era, there were many conservationists who wrote and described nature, but the most well-known figure in conservation was John Muir. John Muir worked to protect Earth’s beauty by traveling and exploring nature, co-founding the Sierra Club, and by influencing others through his writings and by showing some of the most important people how the wildlife was magnificent.

The 1970’s represent a pivotal point in history that rewrote how America viewed its environmental policies- both on a policymaker and citizen scientist standpoint. As the public became more aware of environmental issues, concern about pollution, improper disposal, dwindling resources, radiation and poisoning enraptured a growing number of supporters. These supporters made it so that unlike the Progressive Era’s conservation movement (1890’s-1920’s), which was mainly elitists, this modern movement was pushed by “the common man.” It was an era that celebrated leaders such as John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson. One of those leaders in the forefront of these radical changes was Congressman Morris K.

The Sierra Club's influence on modern environmentalism The Sierra Club is the nation's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization(Sierra Club 1). The Sierra Club was founded by conservationist John Muir in 1892(Sierra Club 1). The Sierra Club had lots of people, with about 2.4 members, so they had enough resources to make a big impact in things like uranium mining, and habitat protection.

The mission of the Sierra Club is environmental preservation and protection. It does this by taking on a variety of roles. Representation is a key role. The Sierra Club represents the environment and avid supporters of environmental protection before the government. The Club lobbyists provide a voice for ecological concerns (Janda 174).

Have you ever caught yourself criticizing a littered area of your favorite park? Or cringed at the bitter taste of an apple’s skin, due to heavy pesticides? Like you, many Americans began to socially denounce the mistreatment of their natural world, thus sweeping an environmental movement across the United States. The modern environmentalist ideas that help safe guard the nature in our everyday world have grown into a hugely adopted cultural movement through decades of research and persuasion. Its influence on America and other parts of the world vastly differs from society to society, however, the fundamental ideas seem to remain concrete through time.

I found it interesting that David Brower was forced out of the Sierra Club after all of his achievements with the group. His views, such as the Earth National park campaign were a bit too extreme. He was videotaped saying “Consider the needs of the earth and let society drop dead.” I was saddened to hear that the United States would resort to threatening a group. Even though the Sierra Club unknowingly sacrificed Glenn Canyon they made great strides in the battle against dams and for National Parks.

Hunting and hunters are the biggest advocates for conservation. They also provide for the most finical aid of any other organization that says they sponsor the environment and wildlife. (SDGFP)(2). Such organizations are PETA and SEIRRA. These clubs think they help the animals and the environment because they do not kill them, but they actually do more damage. Their goal is to save the animals and keep the woods from being touched. They hardly give any money to the conservation groups. The reason the ecosystems have to use conservation is because we have to much human interaction with the environment, as Roger Holmes touches on in his article. Like in small communities there is a lot more wildlife human interaction because the expanding nation. The PETA and SEIRRA clubs have also done nothing for the growth of the animal populations. The hunters have given new life to many species such as; White-Tailed Deer, Canadian goose, Rocky Mountain Elk, Wild Turkey, Pronghorn Antelope, and many others.

Social movements a collection group of ordinary people working get noticed by the public,media and government officials. They gather to resist,promote, or undo social change. Social movements are made up of people that have the same belief or feeling about a topic, unconventional and disruptive tactics are more commonly used by social movements because it helps gain attention. In the united states there are many different social movements in the united states some of the more important movements are The abolitionist movement, the gay and lesbian movements,the women's right movement, and the environmental movement. The abolitionist movement's main objective was to end slavery in the United States, the abolitionist movement was most active

The Twentieth Century conservationists like John Muir and Gifford Pinchot always argued that it was important for the government of the day to strike a balance between the two conflicting goals of economic development and environmental conservation. According to Menzel (2007; 3- 4), other environmental movements in the USA had been in constant conflict with industrial enterprises. The major root cause of conflict being the fact that industrial enterprises had ignored the fact their activities were hurting the environment through