Foundation News

Last year, I participated in the People’s Climate March in New York City, where Sierra Club marched under a “We Have Solutions” banner. Before marchers took off down the street, four hundred thousand people held their hands in the air solemnly connected for one minute by deep silence. Then came the whistle, the primal scream of coordinated action, and the forward movement as we collectively walked to show the world that we, the people, intend to take on the gargantuan task of solving the climate crisis. It was powerful, empowering, energizing, uplifting, joyful, and deeply moving.

In 2015, The Sierra Club Foundation continues to support mass mobilization events that tie activists around the country into one movement with an overarching message: we demand strong and just climate action.

August 29 of this year marks the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a storm exacerbated by climate change that devastated the gulf coast. With support from Sierra Club Foundation donors, the Sierra Club commemorates one of the most tragic natural disasters in U.S. history by supporting local communities to stage a historic event in New Orleans, Katrina 10 Year Commemoration: Rebuild, Resist, Renew. Since the storm hit, Sierra Club organizers have been on the ground working with those very communities hit hardest by the storm – whether it be working with community members to remove toxic formaldehyde from their FEMA trailers or to continue the critical work of cleaning up and restoring Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Sauvage or working with residents of the Lower Ninth Ward to rebuild their homes with solar power to benefit their community economically and environmentally. Now, in the Lower Ninth Ward, residents are 500% more likely to have solar than other residents of New Orleans because the community supports clean energy and energy efficiency.

Following the New Orleans event, on October 3 in Detroit, the Sierra Club, alongside other social justice partners, is organizing a "March for Justice" in support of a common vision for our future that connects environmental justice, worker justice, racial justice, water justice, food justice, human rights, and access to democracy.  Sierra Club has spent years fighting to clean up the River Rouge coal plant, downriver from Detroit, which spews up to 85% of the sulphur dioxide pollution into the surrounding Wayne County. River Rouge pollution affects mostly low-income communities of color, a pattern that exists all across America.

In order to grow this movement, it is incredibly important for local activists to know they have the support of like-minded people outside of their communities too. That is why we will be weaving through all of these events the global message that clean energy is necessary for strong and just climate action. Should you join us at one of these events or are supporting them from afar, know that you are helping build momentum for everything else that is happening to solve the climate crisis – from future mass mobilization events demonstrating people power to achieving a successful global climate action plan at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris later this year to eventually achieving a 100 percent clean energy vision in the U.S.

-- Shirley Weese Young, Officer-at-Large, Board of Directors, The Sierra Club Foundation