Margaret Pennington
Redwood Chapter Chair

Sierra Summit Inspires

I have just returned from the Sierra Summit - the Club's first ever national convention - held nearby in San Francisco. I hope many of you had a chance to visit the summit for a day or two. For me, and everyone I spoke with in our Redwood Chapter "delegation", it was an inspiring and energizing experience. About 700 delegates spent the first day in a facilitated direction setting process. Our reward for participating in that somewhat painful endeavor was a surprise visit and opening keynote speech delivered by former Vice-President Al Gore (or as he described himself, the "former next President of the United States").

Mr. Gore explained his somewhat impromptu appearance at the Summit this way: "When I received the invitation that you generously extended for me to come and speak to you, I did not at first accept, because I was trying to resolve a scheduling conflict. The Fifty State Insurance Commissioners were meeting in New Orleans, and asked me to speak about global warming and hurricanes. I was supposed to be there today and tomorrow morning." The irony in that was, as you can imagine, not lost on the Sierra Club audience.

Mr. Gore expressed his sadness at the suffering and losses endured by those impacted by hurricane Katrina - sentiments certainly shared by everyone at the convention, and I'm sure by all of you. He went on to point out a worrisome pattern demonstrated by the current Administration in Washington: failure to heed a warning memo about Al Quaeda's plans to attack in summer 2001, failure to heed warnings about the damage a class 5 hurricane could have on levees around New Orleans, and failure to heed scientific warnings of "another on-rushing catastrophe": global warming.

He continued: "We were warned of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda; we didn't respond. We were warned the levees would break in New Orleans; we didn't respond. Now, the scientific community is warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get stronger because of global warming. A scientist at MIT has published a study well before this tragedy showing that since the 1970s, hurricanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific have increased in duration, and in intensity, by about 50%. The newscasters told us after Hurricane Katrina went over the southern tip of Florida that there was a particular danger for the Gulf Coast of the hurricanes becoming much stronger because it was passing over unusually warm waters in the gulf. The waters in the gulf have been unusually warm. The oceans generally have been getting warmer. And the pattern is exactly consistent with what scientists have predicted for twenty years.

Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming. It is important to learn the lessons of what happens when scientific evidence and clear authoritative warnings are ignored in order to induce our leaders not to do it again and not to ignore the scientists again and not to leave us unprotected in the face of those threats that are facing us right now."

global warming your priority. I would urge you to focus on a unified theme. I would urge you to work with other groups in ways that have not been done in the past, even though there have been Herculean efforts on your part and the part of others. I would urge you to make this a moral moment. To make this a moral cause."

You can read the entire text of Mr. Gore's speech at www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/gorespeech/.

With these rousing words, the Sierra Summit was launched. Other highlights were full-session speakers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Ariana Huffington. Some of my favorite sessions featured "Cradle to Cradle" author and eco-designer William McDonough; George Lakoff, University of CA professor and writer, speaking on Hurricane Katrina, a Defining Moment; organizer and Harvard professor Marshall Ganz speaking on grassroots effectiveness. You can read summaries of many of the sessions at: www.sierraclub.org/sierrasummit/.

At the close of the day on Sunday, after Ariana Huffington's pronouncement that we could be the wind that blows in a much needed change, and Sierra Club President Lisa Renstrom's sincere thank you's to all, I recall the palpable energy in the room. We had indeed climbed the Summit. Al Gore's message, borrowed from the Bible, was still floating in the air: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." From the height of the Summit we now had such a compelling vision of what the future could be.

I looked around the table at other Redwood Chapter delegates ­ all of us volunteers, all of us filled with this shared excitement, smiling, energized ­ ready to take on the world. Now, all we need is YOU. Please join us - help us be the wind. Please read the newsletter. Vote for the environment on November 8th. Help out with a campaign. Check out our volunteer ads. Contact someone on your group or the chapter leader list to find out more about what we're doing and how you can get involved. A quick and easy action to take is this: join the virtual march on Washington to Stop Global Warming. Sign up at www.stopglobalwarming.org/.

As always, thank you!

Thank you, congratulations and good luck to Peter Ashcroft