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Carl Pope relishes the role of environmental watchdog.
“As executive director, my job is to enable the Sierra Club to get done what its volunteer leaders want it to get done,” he said. “We want to hold American institutions accountable to the environmental values of the American people.”
Pope, who spoke at a Hearst Foundation interview at the Palace Hotel, believes that task is especially critical now. He says President George W. Bush’s administration is out of touch with the American people on the environment and energy policy.
Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, his removal of lower limits on acceptable arsenic levels in groundwater and other environmental decisions have not played well with the public, Pope said.
Europeans have criticized Bush vehemently, and a recent ABC News-Washington Post poll showed that Bush’s approval rating had dropped by about 10 points, in part because of distrust about his energy and environmental policies.
Pope says the time to act is now. He rails against those who are skeptical about global warming—those who say, as he puts it, “that we shouldn’t buy fire insurance until the house is burning down.”
In these circumstances, it is a great time to “shine a spotlight” on environmental issues, Pope said.
Pope, who has been active in the environmental movement for nearly 30 years, has been executive director of the Sierra Club since 1992.
Of all his accomplishments, he is especially proud of California Proposition 65, The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic initiative. He co-authored the proposal, which passed in 1986.
Those who work with Pope say he is an unselfish leader with a steely determination to achieve environmental progress.
Megan Fowler, field media coordinator for the Sierra Club, said she was most impressed by Pope’s intellect and vision.
When he appears on shows like CNN’s “Crossfire,” Pope occasionally calls his staff just an hour before airtime asking for a set of statistics. In that short time, Fowler said, he can memorize all of them to use on the show.
More importantly, Fowler said, “he has led us back to our roots.” By focusing on the local impact of environmental policy, Pope has helped attract an all-time high of 700,000 members.
During the December 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization’s conference in Seattle, Pope had his first prolonged discussions with President Bill Clinton.
But Fowler said Pope was more pleased by the enthusiasm of the people in the street.
“He was excited and really energized by what happened in
Seattle,” she said. “He felt it was a new world,
a new dawn of people coming together—environmentalists, labor
and all others who were concerned about globalization.”
But ideological foes say Pope does not hesitate to play hardball in
the political arena.
Jerry Taylor, director of natural resources studies for the Cato Institute in Washington, frequently debates Pope on television shows such as “Crossfire.”
“My impression is that he is a generally well-read, well-informed fellow who, however, is more than capable of throwing whatever punches are necessary to advance his argument, fair or foul.” He said.
Taylor cited Pope’s treatment of a recent book that was critical of the environmental movement.
When the book came out, Pope wrote a letter to Sierra Club members warning that it would be used to discredit environmental groups. Taylor said Pope’s letter misrepresented the book’s arguments.
Sometimes Pope and Taylor come down on the same side. For example, both were critical recently of President Bush’s energy plan, especially its call for expanded nuclear power.
Pope’s passion for the environment comes from a few seminal experiences early in his life.
He served on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission in Arkansas during the Civil Rights movement. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1967, he spent two years with the Peace Corps in Barhi Barhi, India.
“I came out of the ‘60s,” he said.
During his time abroad, he learned that different cultures see the world quite differently.
“Americans are very provincial, parochial, and smug about the way we view the rest of the world,” he said. “When you go abroad, you get the understanding that there’s more than one way to look at things.”
The experience helped him grow and led him into his next endeavor.
Pope “just sort of wandered into” the environmental movement, he said.
Originally he signed onto the Sierra Club as a one-year consultant, but as his responsibilities grew he became more enchanted by environmentalism.
“I was intrigued by the potential of environmental issues to bring Americans together,” he said. “We all breathe the same air and drink the same water.”
Decades later, Pope is at the pinnacle of the environmental movement. As animated as he is about Bush’s environmental policies, he is just as passionate about ways Americans can conserve resources on their own.
Pope drives a Ford Aspire that gets 41 miles to the gallon – “the only car,” he says, “that Ford never spent a dollar advertising.” He also recycles and uses compact fluorescent light bulbs.
He believes the country is teeming with ideas for conserving resources and protecting the environment.
If, for example, the government taxed the purchases of sport-utility vehicles or corporations responsible for excessive greenhouse gas emissions, a golden age of innovation in alterative energy would follow.
Hybrid cars, windmills, cleaner-burning fuels and more fuel-efficient vehicles would come into vogue with a little encouragement, he said. In the long run, he said, they would not cost much more.
As the world’s sole superpower, he said, the United States has a responsibility to lead those efforts.
“If we start driving hybrid cars, the rest of the world will follow,” he said.
Pope confesses one environmentally unfriendly weakness. He loves to eat shrimp, but he has tried to cut down since he learned about the environmental impacts of shrimp fishing.
Although Pope plans to take it easy on shrimp, he will do no such thing for politicians and corporations whose environmental positions are unacceptable to him.
“We believe we are in a unique position to help hold institutions accountable for their positions on the environment.”
