Statement in Support of "Grassroots Choice" Candidates
Dr. Chad Hanson endorses the four petition candidates for Sierra Club Board:
"As a Sierra Club leader of more than 30 years, and four-term member of the Sierra Club Board (1997-2003, 2018-present), I strongly endorse the four petition candidates running for Board, Aaron Mair, Kathryn Bartholomew, Michael Dorsey, and Maya Khosla.
"There is currently a deeply troubling trend in the Sierra Club that is putting the future of volunteer leadership at risk. Mair, Bartholomew, Dorsey, and Khosla will steadfastly support and uphold volunteer leaders, both conservation and outings. They will respect and support chapter-led outings and work to remove unnecessary burdens that have recently been placed on outings leaders and participants—burdens that are causing many to leave the Sierra Club. And, they will restore due process and transparency, which have recently been eroded by the current Board majority. The four petition candidates will support increased funding for wildlands and wildlife protection work. The current Sierra Club Board majority has often looked the other way on the damage to wildlife habitat, our climate, and communities caused by the logging, forest biomass, and wood pellet industries, providing political cover for some powerful centrist Democrats whose campaigns are often heavily funded by these industries. Mair, Bartholomew, Dorsey, and Khosla will put the Sierra Club’s environmental mission first, and will work to elevate important connections between conservation and environmental justice that are being ignored by the current Board majority.
I urge members to please vote for the petition candidates."
"As a Sierra Club leader of more than 30 years, and four-term member of the Sierra Club Board (1997-2003, 2018-present), I strongly endorse the four petition candidates running for Board, Aaron Mair, Kathryn Bartholomew, Michael Dorsey, and Maya Khosla.
"There is currently a deeply troubling trend in the Sierra Club that is putting the future of volunteer leadership at risk. Mair, Bartholomew, Dorsey, and Khosla will steadfastly support and uphold volunteer leaders, both conservation and outings. They will respect and support chapter-led outings and work to remove unnecessary burdens that have recently been placed on outings leaders and participants—burdens that are causing many to leave the Sierra Club. And, they will restore due process and transparency, which have recently been eroded by the current Board majority. The four petition candidates will support increased funding for wildlands and wildlife protection work. The current Sierra Club Board majority has often looked the other way on the damage to wildlife habitat, our climate, and communities caused by the logging, forest biomass, and wood pellet industries, providing political cover for some powerful centrist Democrats whose campaigns are often heavily funded by these industries. Mair, Bartholomew, Dorsey, and Khosla will put the Sierra Club’s environmental mission first, and will work to elevate important connections between conservation and environmental justice that are being ignored by the current Board majority.
I urge members to please vote for the petition candidates."
Bio
Chad Hanson is a current member of the Sierra Club’s national Board of Directors, and a forest ecologist with the John Muir Project, located in Big Bear City, California. Dr. Hanson co-authored the book, The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix (Elsevier, Inc.) as well as the new book, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate, and has published dozens of scientific studies and articles in peer-reviewed journals pertaining to forests, wildland fire, and climate change mitigation.
He joined the Sierra Club after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 1989 with his older brother, and seeing firsthand the devastation caused by commercial logging on our National Forests. The New York Times (August 6, 2017) described Dr. Hanson as being on “the cutting edge of ecological research”.
He is the author, with Aaron Mair and Mary Ann Nelson, of Who was John Muir, Really? (Earth Island Journal, August 11, 2021), correcting the record regarding some recent inaccurate attacks on Muir. Mair, Nelson, and Hanson spent an entire year doing extensive historical research on Muir for their article. Despite the fact that these authors complied with all the directives they were given by the Board, including making it clear they were speaking on behalf of themselves and not the Sierra Club, they were nonetheless "admonished" by the Board for speaking the truth. On November 12, 2021, the national Sierra Club Board of Directors approved the Board Accountability motions against Directors Chad Hanson and Aaron Mair (Voting Yes: Bernstein, Cruz, Fuller, Gomez, Harris, Heaton, Klaus, Lucas, Macfarlane, Murphy, O’Brien, Sahli-Wells, Scott. Voting No: Hanson, Mair).
He joined the Sierra Club after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 1989 with his older brother, and seeing firsthand the devastation caused by commercial logging on our National Forests. The New York Times (August 6, 2017) described Dr. Hanson as being on “the cutting edge of ecological research”.
He is the author, with Aaron Mair and Mary Ann Nelson, of Who was John Muir, Really? (Earth Island Journal, August 11, 2021), correcting the record regarding some recent inaccurate attacks on Muir. Mair, Nelson, and Hanson spent an entire year doing extensive historical research on Muir for their article. Despite the fact that these authors complied with all the directives they were given by the Board, including making it clear they were speaking on behalf of themselves and not the Sierra Club, they were nonetheless "admonished" by the Board for speaking the truth. On November 12, 2021, the national Sierra Club Board of Directors approved the Board Accountability motions against Directors Chad Hanson and Aaron Mair (Voting Yes: Bernstein, Cruz, Fuller, Gomez, Harris, Heaton, Klaus, Lucas, Macfarlane, Murphy, O’Brien, Sahli-Wells, Scott. Voting No: Hanson, Mair).