Carl Pope

Carl Pope

Carl Pope is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club. Pope is co-author with Paul Rauber of Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress. He also wrote Sahib, an American Misadventure in India (1971) and Hazardous Waste in America (1981).

He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1967. He spent two years as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Barhi, Bihar, India.

SDS activism

Carl Pope was involved in Students for a Democratic Society activism while at Harvard in the 1960s.

In November 1966 as the war in Vietnam was heating up, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was invited to Harvard University to speak to a small group of students. The local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society demanded McNamara participate in a public debate on the war. The University ignored them. So when the Secretary arrived, they were waiting. Nearly 1,000 demonstrators surrounded the building where McNamara was speaking in an attempt to compel him to discuss the war. When McNamara made a break for his car, Carl Pope was one of several students who lay down in front of it, blocking his escape.

Merger with BlueGreen Alliance

From The Hill dated May 26, 2011:

Foster will stay on as executive director of the new organization, which will continue to be called the BlueGreen Alliance.

United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope will continue on as co-chairs of the organization. Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides, and two other Apollo officials, will join the BlueGreen Alliance board.

The Apollo Alliance, — which is made up of environmental, labor and business groups — has called for a wide-ranging push to move toward a “clean energy economy” on the scale of President Kennedy’s call to land a man on the moon in the ’60s.

“We are thrilled that two great organizations will become one effort to build a stronger, renewed movement to create the good jobs of the 21st century economy – the jobs that will help us to move to a clean, renewable energy economy, reduce pollution and break our country’s dependence on foreign oil,” Pope said in a statement.

The newly formed organization endorsed Thursday a bill introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) that outlines a series of rules aimed at ensuring the purchase of American-made goods and services for the development of the country’s transportation infrastructure.

“Today, with this collaboration and our support for Senator Brown’s SMART Act, we are sending a powerful message that our highest priority must be to build an economy of good jobs and broadly shared prosperity in place of the financial speculation and recklessness that brought our economy to its knees,” Angelides said in a statement.

Sierra Club/environmental activism

Carl Pope was appointed Executive Director of the Sierra Club in 1992, an organization he has served for nearly thirty years. During Pope’s tenure as Executive Director, Sierra Club added 150,000 new members, growing to 700,000 of your friends and neighbors.

In addition to his work with the Sierra Club, Pope has served on the Boards of the California League of Conservation Voters, Public Voice, National Clean Air Coalition, California Common Cause, Public Interest Economics, Inc and Zero Population Growth. Carl Pope was also Executive Director of the California League of Conservation Voters and the Political Director of Zero Population Growth.

In his 16 years as executive director of the Sierra Club, the Club has helped preserve almost 10 million acres of wilderness and 150,000 new members (for a total of 700,000) have signed up to defend still more. Pope was one of the principal authors of California's pioneering Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water & Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, which allowed citizens to sue polluters if they failed to comply with the law. In its efforts to prevent roads from encroaching on the areas of our national forests which remain relatively untouched, the Sierra Club collected the most public comments in history on a single regulatory issue: more than a million.

Working with Van Jones

Carl Pope and Van Jones

IPS connection

In September 14-16, 2007 the International forum on Globalization and the Institute for Policy Studies presented a "teach in" at the The George Washington University Lisner Auditorium.

Co-sponsors were The Nation Institute, Global Project on Economic Transitions, Progressive Student Union at GWU, Sierra Club, Greenpeace.

Confronting the Global Triple Crisis-Climate Change * Peak Oil * Global Resource Resource Depletion and Extinction.

Speakers at the Ingredients of systemic change workshop were;

• Martin Khor (Malaysia), director, Third World Network
• Wes Jackson, president, the Land Institute; author, New Roots for Agriculture
• Frances Moore Lappe, author, Diet for a Small Planet and Hope’s Edge
• Jack Santa Barbara (Canada), Sustainable Scale Project
• Carl Pope, executive director, Sierra Club
• Susan George (France), chair, Transnational Institute; author, Fate Worse Than Debt
• Smitu Kothari (India), director, Intercultural Resources, India; professor, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
• Tom Butler, editor, Wild Earth
• Wolfgang Sachs (Germany), research director, Wuppertal Institute; author, Greening the Northand Fair Future

American Rights at Work

In 2008 Carl Pope served on the board of directors of American Rights at Work.

ProgressNow

From:michael@progressnowaction.org To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2008-04-29 18:29

Subject: Do you want to discuss any of these states?

Dear Board, Investors and Progressive Partner Organizations,

Great news! We are proud to announce our newest advisors below. I've also included the most recent successes in each of our state partner organizations.

Please let me know if you'd like to discuss any ProgressNow partner states: California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Washington or Wisconsin.

I'd also like your advice on any of these states: Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon or Pennsylvania.

Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mike (303) 931-4547 cell

P.S. Let me know if you wish to discuss our plans around the August convention in Denver (the Pepsi Center is four blocks from our office).

P.P.S. Below is an updated list of our advisors (if you would like to be added let me know)

National Board of Directors: Wes Boyd, Martin Collier, Rob McKay, Doug Phelps, Jared Polis, Deborah Rappaport, Bill Roberts, Jeff Rusnak, Anne Summers, Ted Trimpa (Chair) and Joe Zimlich (We recently lost one of our cherished board members-- Adam Solomon-- who went out of his way to help so many of us and so many progressive causes. Our deepest condolences to his entire family. Adam's passing is a true loss and we will miss him.)

Advisors Include: Alexandra Acker, Karen Ackerman, Jennifer Ancona, Adam Bink, Kafi Blumenfield, Bill Budinger, Marc Buell, Anne Bartley, Patricia Bauman, Jeff Blum, Heather Booth, Robert Borosage, David Brock, Anna Burger, Steve Cobble, Noey Congdon, David Donnelly, Cathy Duvall, Christian Ettinger, Patricia Evert, Kirstin Falk, Ricki Feller, David Friedman, Meg Gage, Beth Ganz, Chris Gates, James Golin, Ellen Golumbek, Ken Grossinger, Jill Hanauer, Honorable Gary Hart, Jerry Hauser, Bracken Hendricks, Norton Kalishman, Craig Kaplan, Paul Lhevine, Paul Loeb, Mark Lotwis, John Luongo, Mike Lux, Awilda Marquez, Matt MacWilliams, Tony Masarro, Peter Murray, Sandy Newman, Eli Pariser, Steve Phillips, Drummond Pike, John Podesta, Michael Podhorzer, Zach Pollet, Carl Pope, Rachel Pritzker, Andrew Rasiej, Cecile Richards, Will Robinson, Robin Rorapaugh, Donald Ross, Ron Rowell, Catalina Ruiz-Healy, Laura Quinn, Marsha Scott, Steve Silberstein, David Sirota, Frank Smith, Greg Speed, Steve Shapiro, Rob Stein, John Stocks, Valerie Tarico, Betsy Taylor, Roy Temple, Lisa Turner, Michael Vachon, Phil Villers, Antha Williams, Al Yates, Jon Youngdahl, David Zwick.

ProgressNow affiliate organizations have already launched in nine states and we hope to expand to twenty-five states by 2012.

Apollo Alliance

Carl Pope serves on the board of the Apollo Alliance.

In 2006, Carl Pope, served on the National Advisory Board of the Apollo Alliance.