Carl Pope

Executive Director, The Sierra Club

Carl Pope is Executive Director of the Sierra Club. Since Pope’s appointment in 1992, Sierra Club has added 150,000 new members, bringing the total membership to 700,000. Pope has a distinguished record of environmental activism and leadership.

Prior to his work with the Sierra Club, Pope served on the Boards of the California League of Conservation Voters, Public Voice, National Clean Air Coalition, California Common Cause and Public Interest Economics, Inc. He is the co-author of Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress, and other books including Hazardous Waste in America and Sahib, an American Misadventure in India. Pope was educated at Harvard University and spent two years in the Peace Corps in India on graduation.

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What forces have shaped humanity most?

We should start acting like we live here, Pope says.

Now that environmentalism is hip, who is and is not advancing the cause?

This is a period to watch closely, listen carefully, and learn very, very fast, says Pope.

How is technology changing the environmental movement?

Increasing access to information is a significant new development.

How do you contribute?

Pope says the Sierra Club has accomplished a lot, but has a long way to go.

What is the biggest misconception about environmentalism?

A lot of Americans share the Sierra Club’s beliefs, but don’t like the Club very much, says Pope.

Lobbying and the American Political System

“Lobbying,” says Pope, is a word that describes two very different phenomena.

Is the environment a human rights issue?

Carl Pope sometimes has to remind people that, in the Old West, if you poisoned the well, you’d be strung up.

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