>>1537617The Gelbaum Bribe is the worst tragedy to ever befall an American environmental organization. It effectively castrated the Sierra Club.
For background, everyone should read John McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid," a book-length profile of former Sierra Club director David Brower. Published in 1971, it reflects what the Sierra Club used to be: combative, opposed to economic expansion, and fiercely anti-immigration. Brower wanted to cut the population of the US down to 100 million. Though a controversial figure for his outspokenness, his proposed policies were roundly supported by Club members. Their mantra: "Population equals pollution."
By their logic, the more you import third worlders into the First World, the more resources those Third Worlders will consume. Rather than encourage economic migration, as it does now, the pre-Gelbaum Sierra Club lobbied to shut U.S. borders to all newcomers. They regularly fought big corporate interests that lobbied for higher immigration to raise the labor supply and stagnate wages.
Guess who won in the end?
Until they recognize and challenge the tactics used by capitalists to flood the country and destroy its wilderness, the "environmental industry" is just another arm of the same neoliberal force that's ruining the nation.
NEVER give money to those people.
