Cockburn’s Attack on Sierra Club

As president of the Sierra Club, I feel compelled to respond to Alexander Cockburn’s latest work of fiction disguised as journalism, “A Big Green Bomb Aimed at Immigration” (Column Left, Oct. 2). Sadly, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Through a combination of innuendo and flagrant misstatements of fact, Cockburn creates the impression that the Sierra Club has embraced an anti-immigration policy. This is not true and Cockburn knows it. The current policy--adopted unanimously by the board of directors--states that the club will take no position on immigration levels or policies governing immigration to the United States.

Unhappy with the current policy, about 2,000 of our 550,000 members recently signed a petition for a ballot initiative which--if approved by the entire membership--would alter it. As Cockburn surely knows, the board has voted to oppose the proposition and remain neutral on immigration. The board’s position was overwhelmingly endorsed by Sierra Club chapters all over the country.

For the record, the individuals he cites as spearheading the initiative, Dave Foreman and Anne Ehrlich, did no such thing. The man he cites as a former Sierra Club executive director, John Tanton, held no such position. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The board has placed on the April ballot a reaffirmation of the existing policy as an alternative to the initiative Cockburn so splenetically opposes. The board’s proposal focuses our efforts on “the root causes of migration by encouraging sustainability, economic security, human rights and environmentally responsible consumption.”

ADAM WERBACH

San Francisco

In his column attacking the Sierra Club, Cockburn cynically compares immigration restriction to Nazi eugenics and Klan rallies. He goes on to portray corporations and wealthy consumers as environmental villains who try to pin the blame on immigrants. Is the argument that simple?

Anyone who lives on the outskirts of a metropolitan area knows that population growth and the inevitable increase in consumption and waste are the real bad guys. Cars choke highways and air quality, garbage leaks into the ground water, open space is paved and national parks are overrun. The culprits? Americans. All Americans. The question is: Do we need more people, or do we need a deeper appreciation for our natural resources?

DANIEL SULLIVAN

San Diego