Email: lindagailbrown@earthlink.net

Phone: 707-254-1001

Executive Committee: Secretary

For the past 25 years, I have worked as a partner to build a business providing third-party certification, auditing, and testing services to verify outstanding public and private sector achievements in the areas of environmental protection, social responsibility, and food safety and quality. Through this enterprise, I have had the good fortune to become engaged in a variety of issues — food safety, sustainable agriculture practices, green building, environmental impacts from power generation, fair labor practices, climate change mitigation, and life-cycle impact assessment. These experiences, together with my training in journalism, have taught me that there are very few black and white issues with simple answers, and that there are often unexpected consequences to choices made. The best-informed decisions require careful consideration from many perspectives, and a willingness to forego conventional wisdom to dig deeper for the truth.

Since moving to Napa 10 years ago, I have volunteered alongside many extraordinary, dedicated people in support of open space, alternatives to militarism, and education through documentary film presentations. Together with the executive board of the Peace Table, I helped to garner the support the city of Napa to formally recognize the Earth Charter, an international declaration of human and environmental rights and responsibilities.

The rigid polarization and zero-sum thinking that has come to characterize our politics is not only counterproductive, but is also a serious distraction from the tasks ahead. Species are dying off at an alarming rate, climate change is accelerating at a pace few want to acknowledge, and our options are becoming ever more limited. Yet we are incredibly innovative, and truly have the capacity to tackle these problems and leave our children with a world in which they can not only survive, but thrive.

I am very excited about the opportunity to work with the Sierra Club to foster a better understanding of these issues, and to identify local actions we can take to protect our vulnerable Napa Valley resources while simultaneously contributing innovative solutions to the regional, national and global scale challenges at hand.