The Dirty Hands of Carl Zichella
How National SIERRA CLUB sold out it's membership (and their children)

by Mauro Oliveira

In a nutshell Sierra Club national and several other well known “environmental” organizations, sold out the forests of California, possibly the entire world.

The state of California uses these large corporate run environmental organizations (Sierra Club) to sometimes write and recommend protocols for resource extraction industries, like timber companies. The Sierra Club relationship to timber industry wishes though, is unmistakable.

Then one day comes along and the California Air Resource Board asks the Sierra Club expert, Carl Zichella if they should adopt state timber protocols that include clearcutting. Of course Carl would say no, he has spoken passionately against it. Certainly Sierra Club members are against clearcutting...or at least a VAST, VAST MAJORITY of them.

But it didn't go that way.

CARL VOTED YES.

That was felt in the Souls of desperate activists up and down the state. Too many know too well the depth of the betrayal.

Clearcutting is the complete removal of all vegetation within a specified area, usually 20-30 acres but in California up to 40. Clearcutting is ALSO the death of everything on those trees, in the canopies of those trees and under those trees. Clearcutters spray TONS of lethal herbicides onto the forest floor and uproot and deep till the entire site in preparation for a tree plantation. Billions of organisms from birds and gophers to mycelium and bacteria are destroyed in each cut. Wildlife like deer, bear, game birds…most all wildlife, avoid the cuts, moving their forest routes to ever decreasing patches of natural woodland. Long after a plantation has established, herbicides and lack of diversity detour wildlife.

Hard fighting on the ground activists have been getting tripped up and betrayed by these large corporate Sierra Club style “environmental” organizations. Now, the end of the Sierra Nevada forests are in sight. Two large timber barons and smaller companies plan to clearcut over 2 million acres in an already waning Sierras. They have been given the green light by the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and the state of California.

Years ago I found out that most people in California think that clearcutting is ALREADY illegal. This is especially true in the big cities, even among people who regularly donate to groups like the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund.

In their 2001 report, the IPCC, and (Carl Zichella) knew that clearcutting and all other forms of deforestation release tremendous amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Yet , for foggy reasons, scientists left the door open to clearcutting and bio-mass despite the clear science available. Besides that…there is common sense.

Steven Hamburg was one of the land use authors for the IPCC. Recently in a journal Science interview, entitled Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error, Steve Hamburg reveals the massive snowballing disaster he helped create:

Science interviewer:
Under the Kyoto Protocol....one of the ways country’s can meet their targets for reducing greenhouse gas is through market based mechanisms including emissions trading, otherwise known as the carbon market... Steve Hamburg [EDF] and colleagues argue that the accounting needed for such a market--and used for assessing compliance with carbon limits in the Kyoto Protocol-- contains a fixable but critical error that will undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals...The effect of the accounting error means, for example, the clearing of long established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emission despite causing large releases of carbon.
 
Interviewer:
“So the [accounting] flaw itself has spread from the Kyoto Protocol to other countries....”
 
Hamburg:
“Right...and [the accounting error has also spread to] the current climate bill in the House.”
 
Interviewer:
“Why did it take so long to identify this flaw?”
 
Hamburg:
“Well, it’s one of those things, that I was a member of the IPPC special report on land use change and forestry that was published in 2000.  I was a lead author....and as we were thinking about the implications of land use and forestry....as it relates to the Kyoto Protocol, on a very long time frame one can think of these things as in balance, so if we cut that forest down, the carbon will be replaced over the rotation length, the problem is the time interval that it takes, so it’s gonna take 80 or 100 years to get that balance, which is a very long time when we think about carbon budgets...so we sort of made a sweep of the hand....it was just one of those things, we just...nobody did the critical thinking, we all said it’s roughly right. The problem is, it’s NOT....and these things happen....it was momentum...”.
 
Interviewer:
“Would the whole [global climate science] community agree with you?”
 
Hamburg:  
“[Yes, they would agree because]...there’s only one way to look at the amount of carbon...it’s a physical science problem, not a political problem…”


What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this revelation is that Steve Hamburg is currently the Environmental Defense Fund’s  (EDF) science chief, and EDF, while voicing concerns against clearcutting, stood side by side with Zichella and voted to include clearcutting in California’s timber harvest rules (The actual EDF guy was_____________).

The record shows too that Zichella and the other consultants to the California Air Resources Board (who approve timber harvest rules) are bragging that these rules will likely become a NATIONAL even INTERNATIONAL standard. All while knowing that the IPCC was in error and that clearcutting releases tremendous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere that cannot be recovered for a century or more….if at all (this has yet to even be proven).

Even more amazing, AFTER the CARB vote Zichella and the others admitted they did not understand the carbon in the soil issue and Zachella himself admitted (on the record) that although the protocols were not perfect they had to adopt them because they (hang on to your hats….) “a commitment to adopt”. Meeting the schedule meant more than getting it right. But then again, getting it right isn't’t part of his job.

Of course this all flies in the face of Dr. James Hanson (GISS/NASA) and thousands of scientists around the world as Hamburg himself states in the interview. Even the majority of radically driven geo-engineering scientists agree that land-based carbon sequestration is the most important approach to stopping runaway climate change. Zichella acts typically human, unaware of his surroundings...the context of his existence.


The cautionary principal.
(but to use the precautionary principal you have to have some principal)

By the year 2000, principals couldn't’t be found in Zichella’s Sierra Club. Paul Mason, SC’s boy in Sacramento, never lifted a finger to save the Sierra’s or back those sincere activists who both live and fight in the range. You can really literally count them on fingers and toes. On September _______ and now, a shock wave …rolling thru Sierra Club membership.

Carl Doolittle, 64, reacted angrily.

“My wife and I have supported the Sierra Club all of our lives, trusting they would hold the line for our children…for the planet. This is like learning about Jim and Tammy Faye  Baker. The white board, the lack of knowledge and concern. We are done with them”

The white board Doolittle referenced is the large chalk board style board at the CAR meeting where Zichella and the other consultants to the California Air Resource Board convene. On that board, an easy target for on-the-ground activists in the room, were the words “understand soil carbon".

According to Professor Olga Kankrina, most likely Russia’s top forestry scientist, as much as ½ of a forest’s carbon is sequestered in the soil.

The coup had adopted a protocol without understanding the science or the implications of the protocol. And admittedly, because they had a schedule to keep, not because it had to be or even should be right. Is it possible that Zichella and the other corporate environmentalists who voted for clearcutting didn't know anything about the soil? If Kankrina is correct then Zichella and the Sierra Club have no business doing the business for the timber industry, or any other state matter. He either doesnt know the science or he doesn't care about the science (which is the truth of the matter because the science and criticism has been in his face since). Behind the scenes he is telling activists that the problem will be fixed, a well worn political strategy... promise "change" but do nothing, or worse, approve clearcutting.

In Sacramento these days its really hard to tell industry from state. Paper trails through the California Department of Forestry reveal timber and state have already merged, at least politically. This kind of "environment" is where Zichella and the timber industry thrive while future's light dims.

Adding catastrophe to catastrophe, the Sierra Nevada range, where most of California's timber harvesting is coming from, is suffering years of draught and the recent full scale invasion of the western pine beetle. Already as much as 50% or more of some Sierra forest pine stands are now dying off. They can go at speeds that are amazing landowners, sometimes “flashing out” in just several days.

The region’s oaks have also been under attack...again by the timber industry. Entire oak forests, ridge lines and valley floors have been poisoned. The familiar hatchet marks are have become widespread, four or more per tree, where poison is injected. Soon the tree is dead, the leaves have fallen to the ground and killed everything around the tree. The acorns are poisoned. This has infuriated hunters, off-roaders and wildlife advocates. Years ago timber would have cared about the opinion of hunters and outdoor recreationists. Nowadays, thousands of timber company gates have been erected across the Sierras, blocking access, and witness to the wholesale devastation in the woods.

The corruption in the Sierra Club runs deep. Goggle Carl Pope (The Executive Director) and “betray”. There are hundreds of layers of acussations by dedicated activists published on the internet. For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal,

"in Liverpool New York, after energy companies began preparations to drill for natural gas, the local Sierra Club quickly organized against them. The group's New York chapter demanded studies on the environmental risks, pushed for stricter regulations and called for a statewide ban on most gas drilling. The drilling hasn't begun as the state works to develop regulations. The trouble is the national Sierra Club is one of natural gas's biggest boosters. Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, has traveled the country promoting natural gas's environmental benefits, sometimes alongside Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the biggest U.S. gas companies by production. The national group's pro-gas stance has angered on-the-ground environmentalists in several states who say their concerns are being marginalized."

Sierra Club is also now maneuvering to dismantle its chapter base. The corporation that was Sierra Club may never have really fought with the passion necessary to give our decedents a fighting chance. But for sure, now they are the opposition, the lobbyist and yes men to the corporations they extract natural resources.

Any money people give to Sierra Club now goes to promoting clearcutting and the wholesale destruction of wildlife and the atmosphere, the increase of greenhouse gases and the uncertainty of the future. This is Carl Zichella's legacy. This is Zichella's Sierra Club. Sierra Club politics today means drilling for gas and oil in sensitive places, it also means clorox is a great environmental product. And as we shall see in our NEXT report on Carl Zichella, it means further oppression of native americans and sacred sites. The Pit River, Wintu and many other northern California tribes have good reason to detest his name and the name Sierra Club.

It shouldn't be a surprise. A corporation had a corporate take over. Carl Zichella IS a corporate man.

This isn’t the first time, not nearly, that the Sierra Club has slept with corporate money.

People who have the financial means to fight the good fight, should donate to those who “get it”….our children are screwed unless we turn things around. Everyone I know is dedicated to peace while we fight. But lets face it, if we leave the train unchecked, the next generation will struggle with that choice.

The true fight in the Sierras is being fought by people who donate hundreds of hours a year on their own dime. Websites, videos, presentations, trips to the capital, all at their own expense.  People who want every penny to fight the on the ground hold the line determination to save certain forests, should donate directly to those doing that. All of them are on the internet and believe me, we all know each other. Email around, talk to us. We will tell you where the fire is NOW.

Its that simple. There are good people in the fight to save the planet and there are industry puppets….BAD GUYS…imposters, that specialize in selling the future by selling out Life.  Meet Carl Zichella.

RELATED:

3-9-10 The Nation Magazine publishes story about Sierra Club and other corporate enviornmental organizations that are betraying their trust of their membership and going against thier missions of saving Earth.

Democracy now transcript from 3-9-10 The Real Climategate: Conservation Groups Align with World’s Worst Polluters