Another Ranking: Sierra Club's 3rd Annual COOL SCHOOLS

College Search & Selection
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<p>....looking at schools with "green credentials".....</p>

<p>Cool</a> Schools - September/October 2009 - Sierra Magazine - Sierra Club</p>

<p>Top 25 on their list</p>

<ol>
<li>U Colorado Boulder</li>
<li>U Washington</li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>U Vermont</li>
<li>College of the Atlantic</li>
<li>Evergreen State</li>
<li>UC Santa Cruz</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Oberlin</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>U New Hampshire</li>
<li>Arizona State Tempe</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>UFlorida</li>
<li>Bates</li>
<li>Willamette
18 Warren Wilson</li>
<li>Dickinson</li>
<li>NYU</li>
<li>Georgia Tech</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>UC Davis</li>
<li>U Oregon</li>
</ol>

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<p>Isn’t that the club that sanctions the fire bombing of new SUV lots?</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.activistcash.com/news_detail.cfm?hid=2103[/url]”>http://www.activistcash.com/news_detail.cfm?hid=2103&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>But in April, the Sierra Club elected “Captain” Paul Watson – one of the fathers of environmental terrorism – to its Board of Directors. Watson’s methods of environmental and animal-rights activism include ramming fishing boats and firing shotguns at fisherman in a way that is “not defensive.” And he has hatched a plan to wrest control of the Sierra Club. At the Animal Rights 2003 conference in Los Angeles, Watson explained his strategy: </p>

<p>One of the reasons that I’m on the, um, the Sierra Club board of directors right now is to try and change it … we’re only three directors away from controlling that board. We control one-third of it right now. And, uh, once we get three more directors elected, the Sierra Club will not, no longer be pro-hunting and pro-trapping and we can use the resources of the $95-million-a-year budget to address some of these issues. And the heartening thing about it is that, in the last election, of the 750,000 members of the Sierra Club, only 8 percent of them voted. So, you know, a few hundred, or a few thousand people from the animal rights movement joining the Sierra Club – and making it a point to vote – will change the entire agenda of that organization. (click for video)
With a slate of directors under his control, will Watson stop once the Sierra Club comes out against fishing? Unlikely. At last year’s animal-rights conference, he argued “we should never feel like we’re going too far in breaking the law.” Watson also declared “there’s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win.” And, most chillingly, he stated: </p>

<p>If you do not intend to kill anybody, if you make every effort to not kill and injure anybody, that’s all you really can do. You can’t stop somebody from walking into a situation, and we really can’t be too overly preoccupied with this.
At the more recent Los Angeles convention, Watson said that he “owed no allegiance to humanity.” Instead: “I have done everything I can to fight for his kind [whales] not our kind.” (click for video) He noted that his niche is “ramming ships and ****ing people off.” (click for video) He called fishermen “the biggest bunch of sadistic bastards in the world.” (click for video) Finally, Watson suggested that it would be appropriate for environmentalists to “rise up and rip those loggers limb from limb.” (click here for video) </p>

<p>The Sierra Club has flirted with Watson-style radicalism before. The founder of the militant Earth First! group, Dave Foreman, hinted in the April 1990 issue of Smithsonian magazine that his organization may be “secretly controlled” by groups like the Sierra Club: </p>

<p>“We thought it would have been useful to have a group to take a tougher position than the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society,” Foreman remembers. “It could be sort of secretly controlled by the mainstream and trotted out at hearings to make the Sierra Club or Wilderness Society look moderate.”
Long-time Sierra Club executive director David Brower once argued that Earth First! helped the Sierra Club accomplish its goals:</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info.</p>

<p>Great recruitment info for the Sierra Club!!!</p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>The info cited above is a bit incomplete. It’s from September 2003 (six years ago) and does not include the followup to what subsequently happened.</p>

<p>It’s true that Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace, was elected to the Sierra Club board in 2003. As noted above, he “won” an election that had only 8% turnout. Nonprofit organizations of all stripes commonly have very low responses to their board elections, and so it is possible for a motivated minority to gain representation-- at least temporarily. That was exactly Watson’s strategy, as noted in the post above. </p>

<p>Did it work? The post above neglects to mention that Watson voluntarily [url=<a href=“http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-060417-1.html]resigned[/url”>http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-060417-1.html]resigned[/url</a>] from the Sierra Club Board in 2006, to protest its support of legal sport hunting.</p>

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<p>Interesting. Although a cynical could claim that this ranking could be renamed the "Sierra Club’s 3rd Annual COORS SCHOOLS.</p>

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<p>“Did it work? The post above neglects to mention that Watson voluntarily resigned from the Sierra Club Board in 2006, to protest its support of legal sport hunting”</p>

<p>He was there for 3 years and the members accepted him as their leader. that speaks volumes about the fringe-ness and radicalism of the Sierra club. Point made.</p>

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<p>"Thanks for the info.</p>

<p>Great recruitment info for the Sierra Club!!!</p>

<p>Kei"</p>

<p>How utterly unexpected of a response from you :)</p>

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<p>I actually like these rankings a lot. </p>

<p>We should all be more concerned about how environmentally-conscious LAC’S and Uni’s are, because they “control” a very large segment of the population, and thus its waste, pollution, and environmental impact. Also, increased effiency=decreased cost, something that the environmental movement encourages (heck, even Wal-Mart is picking it up).</p>

<p>So yeah, we should use these rankings more seriously, and I hope that in future years the Sierra Club does a list for ALL colleges, so that we all can make responsible decisions and avoid the “offenders” who in their own way are killing us all off and wasting our money doing it.</p>

<p>Kudos to the Sierra Club!!!</p>

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<p>

Looks like another correction is required. The “leader” of the Sierra Club is the President of the Board of Directors. Paul Watson was never President, and was never “their leader”. He campaigned for one of the 15 seats on the Board of Directors, won in a very low-turnout election, was unsuccessful in promoting his agenda, and resigned as his re-election date approached. </p>

<p>The Sierra Club accepted Watson’s election in 2003 – as a democratic institution, they were obliged to do so – but publicly [url=<a href=“http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2003-09-08.asp]renounced[/url”>http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2003-09-08.asp]renounced[/url</a>] Watson’s views at that time. He was an embarrassment to the Sierra Club, in much the same way that David Duke (a neo-Nazi who won election to the Lousiana state legistature) was an embarrassment to the Republican Party.</p>

<p>Anyone is free to agree or disagree with the Sierra Club’s positions, but it is misleading to imply that they are identical with Paul Watson’s. The Sierra Club has publicly disavowed Watson, and Watson (in his resignation letter) has publicly disavowed the Sierra Club.</p>

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<p>^^^
duely noted, he was “A” leader, not “the” leader. He was a leader who was elected, accepted for 3 years and resigned on his own. While he was there, he was fully accepted by the membership, or else he would have been out. Therefore, his view represented the member’s view, in aggregate. </p>

<p>Point still made.</p>

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<p>'slawsky said: “He was there for 3 years and the members accepted him as their leader. that speaks volumes about the fringe-ness and radicalism of the Sierra club. Point made.”</p>

<p>If your point is that you can tar any group for having fringe members, you are right.</p>

<p>Now, back to reality: were you deliberately leaving out information when you left out the date of the piece or were you just sloppy?</p>

<p>Look I got no problem with your ideology. But “fixing the facts” to make your point is a tad dishonest . . there’s enough real live TRUE information around to support your cause that you don’t have to make things up . . . do you?</p>

<p>So, like Palin said . . . </p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>“David Duke (a neo-Nazi who won election to the Lousiana state legistature) was an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”</p>

<p>Logical Distortion here- David duke was an embarresment to the party as a whole, yes. </p>

<p>The difference here is that David Duke wasn’t elected by the ENTIRE republican party. Republicans all over the US never had a chance to vote against Duke, else he would have lost. Watson was elected by the Siera club, as a whole. There wasn’t any group within the sierra club that COULDN’t vote against Watson, and he still won. </p>

<p>Therefore this Duke- Watson comparison is a completely illogical comparison.</p>

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<p>

Time for another correction. The Sierra Club Board, like most such boards, has no mechanism for impeachment. So he was not ejected from the board because his views were accepted, as you are trying to suggest. He was not ejected because there was no means for doing so.

Time for another correction. Watson’s personal views never represented the majority of the Sierra Club membership, or official Sierra Club policy, as you are trying to suggest. On the contrary, the rest of the Sierra Club leadership – including the President, Vice-President, and Director at that time – explicitly took the diametrically opposed [url=<a href=“http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2003-09-08.asp]view[/url”>http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2003-09-08.asp]view[/url</a>], in an official press release.

Time for another correction. Nonprofit organizations commonly hold elections for their Boards of Trustees, but people rarely give them much thought. That was the case with this election – which had approximately 8% turnout. </p>

<p>Watson was elected because no one was paying much attention to the election – not because he had majority support throughout the club, as you are trying to suggest. Obviously the electorate made a mistake, but you are reading too much into it.

Duke was duly elected by the Republican voters of the Lousiana 81st district. And the Republican Party of Louisiana did not eject him. </p>

<p>Duke was later the top Republican vote-getter in the Louisiana governor’s primary – a high-turnout election, in which Republicans statewide had a chance to vote against him. </p>

<p>Duke had far more support among the Republican Party of Louisiana than Watson had in the Sierra Club. But you can argue that Duke is really only an embarrassment to Republicans in Louisiana, if you like.</p>

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<p>Whatever, he was elected and if the members REALLY wanted him out, there would have been pressure to have him removed. </p>

<p>You can nuance the hell out of this, but if the sierra club wasn’t radical, he wouldn’t have been elected.</p>

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<p>Jeez 'Slawsky, I’m sure you have more of an intellect than you are letting on here.</p>

<p>C’mon, give us something with more heft than “he was elected, so the whole organziation is just like him.”</p>

<p>That wouldn’t even fly in 10th grade civics!!!</p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>Besides, my alma mater is on that list :-)</p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>

Not necessarily. Watson won in a low-turnout, 16-way election, where there were numerous mainstream candidates to split the mainstream vote. Since turnout was low and the number of candidates was high, not many votes were needed to succeed. Watson’s electoral total came to only 3.3 % of eligible Club voters. </p>

<p>That was still enough for fourth place, and the top five finishers reached the Board. But the results do not suggest that Watson had widespread support. On the contrary, a slate of like-minded candidates was crushed in the 2005 elections. Watson then resigned in 2006, without even attempting to run for re-election.</p>

<p>No need for nuance or omission, at least on my part. The facts are straightforward enough.</p>