Chad Hanson: A Candidate Platform for the Sierra Club

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Chad Hanson is a candidate who is running by petition in order to change the current direction of the Board majority on a number of key issues.

Americans Who Tell the Truth: John Muir's Legacy and the Future of Conservation

His platform aims to restore key principles for which the Sierra Club has historically stood.

Core Principles of the Platform

  • Wildlands Protection: Prioritizing the preservation of natural habitats.
  • Grassroots Empowerment: Strengthening local chapters and groups.
  • Support for Outings: Including Inspiring Connections Outdoors (ICO) and chapter-level activities.
  • Transparency: Eliminating secrecy in Board of Directors decisions.

Several grassroots volunteers have raised specific objections to the current Board of Directors leadership.

Key Objections to Current Leadership

  1. Wresting Control from Chapters: Shifting decision-making and funding away from local chapters through staff takeovers.
  2. Demanding "Ideological Conformity": Requiring lockstep loyalty to the Board and branding dissenters as "not a team player".
  3. Alienating Legacy Donors: Causing long-term revenue loss due to dissatisfaction among long-time volunteer activists.

Specific Issues and Proposed Solutions

Hanson's platform addresses several critical issues within the Sierra Club, proposing specific solutions to realign the organization with its core values.

  • Chapter Executive Committees: The current majority on the Sierra Club Board voted to eliminate the longstanding rights of elected chapter Executive Committees regarding hiring and overall employment decisions for chapter staff. This needs to be reversed.
  • Transparency in Meetings: Lately, the current Board majority has been conducting most of its meetings in closed sessions, where no records are kept, which undermines the transparency that we need in a volunteer-led Sierra Club.
  • Funding Allocation: The Sierra Club is raising tens of millions of dollars every year for wildlands protection, including natural climate solutions (protecting forests, wetlands, and other habitats so they can absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere), but is only spending a minor fraction of these funds on these issues. Solicitations regarding imperiled wildlife, such as wolves, mention hunting laws but often fail to address habitat destruction from logging and other resource extraction activities. We need to greatly increase our funding allocation for these issues so we can protect biodiversity and advance natural climate solutions, including our 30x30 goals (protecting at least 30% of US wildlands by 2030), while increasing access to nature for communities.
  • Environmental Rollbacks: The current Sierra Club leadership has made some troubling compromises recently that undermine our stated goals and values and exacerbate climate change and pollution impacts to communities, including the promotion of the Infrastructure bill, which included numerous environmental rollbacks (e.g., elimination of environmental analysis for new oil/gas pipelines across most federal lands, and elimination of environmental analysis for many new commercial logging projects on federal lands) and enormous subsidies for the fossil fuel, forest biomass, and logging industries. The Sierra Club must advocate for our values, and promote protection for wild places and major funding for expansion of community and rooftop solar, not provide green cover for environmental rollbacks that undermine climate solutions and billions in subsidies for polluting industries that compete with solar and harm the environment and communities.
  • John Muir's Legacy: The current Board majority promoted inaccurate and misleading attacks on the Sierra Club's founder, John Muir. These attacks should be rescinded. Also, the behavior of Board members around this topic (particularly aimed at those Board members and volunteers seeking to set the record straight) has been very public and alarming to many of our Chapter and Group volunteers. This behavior must stop as well.
  • Support for Outings: We need more support for outings, including Inspiring Connections Outdoors (ICO) and promoting/advocating outings for all people. In particular, we need to support volunteer-led chapter outings, without undue interference from national Sierra Club. Outings are central to the Sierra Club’s mission but have not been properly supported in recent years.
  • Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity: The Sierra Club must “walk the talk”. The current Board majority often talks about equity, inclusion, and diversity, and the importance of grassroots volunteer leaders. However, in practice, the current direction of the Board has too often undermined these important goals and values.

Endorsements and Support

Chad Hanson's platform has garnered support from various Sierra Club members and activists who believe in his vision for the organization.

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Katherine T. “Kathy” Egland: I’m enthusiastically endorsing their candidacy for the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club because I feel they possess the principles, virtues, values, expertise and fortitude to return and keep the Sierra Club on a path to stability and prosperity, while building a diverse membership capacity.

Becky English: Colorado Sierra Club chapter activist since 2006.

Jenny Blaker: As a life member of the Sierra Club since 1995, I wholeheartedly support the Grassroots Choice (Petition) candidates for the Sierra Club - Chad Hanson, Nancy Muse and Maya Khosla.

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