When Two Worlds Collide
In the ‘70s we were advised to buy jackets; global cooling was on the way. In the ‘80s global warming was going to fry the planet. In the ‘90s we were told climate change was what we had to worry about. All over the planet there was climate change. Who knew?
Environmentalists love that stuff. It boosts their movement. They can proclaim the end is near. “You must give us money so we can do our part to stop you from melting and killing all the polar bears.” Al Gore wrote his book back then – “An Inconvenient Truth” –, which became the environmental propaganda bible: Death is on the way for Mother Earth. We’re doomed.
One of the larger organizations smothering common sense and selling Chicken Little books was the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club was created in 1892; that’s a long time ago for an environmental movement. Its purpose: protect the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. A noble and worthy cause. I love the Sierras and have hiked all over those hills and photographed the beauty of those mountains many times. I’m grateful they remain pristine.
Over time, the Sierra Club got too big for its hiking shorts. It expanded its reach into places like the Grand Canyon and other national parks. And it didn’t stop there. They hated coal as much as California hated oil. The Sierra Club launched a massive assault against “Big Coal,” and by 2017 managed to get half the coal plants in the country closed. They had a generous amount of help from Michael Bloomberg to the tune of $120 million.
Here’s where things go south for an organization that should have remained a club focused on environmental interests. Like so many who lean sharply to the left, they were inflicted with TDS, aka Donald Trump. So much so that they used funds received from their donator “champions” to save the environment and spent $3.6 million to try and defeat Trump in 2020.
After 45 took office, two million greenbacks poured into the coffers of the Sierra Club in one month. They had found one of their unlikeliest biggest and most successful fundraisers. The club grew to four million “save the environment” activists, and they were stoked.
But they counted their chickens a little early. Feeling cocky, they decided to expand into the world of wokeness.
One of their new efforts to spread their social wings was to establish an “equity language guide.” The title alone gives me a gag reflex. Words like vibrant and hardworking were considered racist and shouldn’t be used. Lame was offensive. And of course, the word Americans just couldn’t be tolerated. It wasn’t all inclusive toward people who weren’t American citizens.
Makes sense… to them.
Then they really stepped into the sticky muck of social justice and called for defunding the police. While they were at it, why not reparations for slavery? Quite a far cry from saving a trout lake at 12,000 feet.
It’s when their membership began stepping up and saying they had signed up to protect the environment, not promote social causes, that things began to crack. DEI took center stage; climate change and pine trees became a side bar.
In 2021 membership began taking a dive.
After sticking its nose into the quagmire of Israel and Hamas, the Sierra Club – to keep everybody happy – became wishy washy on its Israeli positions. Suddenly 130,000 members took a walk in one month. The Sierra Club went on to adopt the Biden agenda by going after those who were outspoken about the direction the club was headed, by making unsubstantiated accusations. They were eating their own. They learned from the Democrat’s “mastery of misinformation” technique on how to destroy someone’s life that you didn’t like.
Then all internal hell broke loose. The water cooler became the hot spot.
As of August 2025, an incredible 1.5 million members had spread their spotted owl wings and flew the nest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/us/politics/sierra-club-social-justice.html.
It became even more evident that money had gotten tight when nothing was given to the Kamala Harris campaign.
Corruption exists everywhere. When it’s not your money, it’s so easy to spend. Just as all the corruption DOGE uncovered. Back in 2022, the Sierra Club could count just two people making $300,000 a year; one year later there were 10. That’s spending some big bucks on developing an equity language list.
The moral of this story is, see, I told you so.
We’ve been bombarded for years about climate change. That if you’re a climate change denier you hate the planet and don’t care about human life. Take the shot or you’re not a patriot. Wear the mask. Do as you’re told. Don’t question anything.
Fortunately, a lot of people are smarter than the government or what environmental groups take us for.
We’ve all witnessed the silent majority make its presence known when a company or individual embraces left-wing causes: “Go woke; Go broke,” Budweiser got stupid with its now no-longer popular “Bud Light” brand, and Target lost its way with “Tuck the Package” clothing for transsexuals. Gillette lost a lot of men due to its stupid attacks on “toxic masculinity.” Even California Governor Gavin Newsom admits that putting men down was a dumb thing to do. Colin Kaepernick and Nike didn’t fare too well either. Leave politics out of foot ware. Aunt Jemima syrup? What the heck was wrong with the Quaker Oats Company when it decided to remove a minority woman from its packaging?
Thank goodness wokeness has gone to sleep.
Let it rest in peace.
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Good article, Henry. What a shame that helping people and the earth have become so corrupted. Santa Barbara is rife with non profits and it is getting harder and harder to figure out which are the noble causes and which are not. Unfortunately I think the latter are more prevalent.
So many fine businesses and organizations have be infiltrated and captured (corrupted) by the uber left. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Disneyland to name a few.
While we were raising a family and working the control freak busybodies were busy rearranging our culture.