Portrait of an activist: Gordon LaBedz spreads the gospel of grassroots activism

The time has come to bid aloha to Angeles Chapter leader Gordon LaBedz, who next month will be moving to Hawaii.

Departing leader LaBedz

LaBedz, 58, has served as Chapter chair and Conservation Committee chair. He also served on the executive committee of Sierra Club California. He will continue to be active in the National Sustainable Consumption Committee, and plans to get involved in Sierra Club Hawaii.

He and his wife, Long Beach environmental activist Diana Mann, are moving to join LaBedz's 85-year-old mother in Kauai. LaBedz, who was a doctor at Kaiser's East L.A. branch, will continue to work as a substitute doctor for Kaiser on the Hawaiian Islands.

LaBedz has been active in the environmental movement since attending the very first Earth Day in 1970 in his native New York. He is a lifelong surfer who co-founded the Surfrider Foundation. He describes himself as 'messianic' about the power of grassroots activism to change the world.

When did you get involved in the Sierra Club?

I got recruited by a group of people who were interested in reforming the Club in the late '90s. Part of my reason was as an activist in Surfrider every time I turned around the Sierra Club was in the way of what we wanted to do.

How do you mean?

They were conciliatory. They never wanted to offend elected officials no matter how reactionary they might be toward environmental issues. To a large degree that attitude still is prevalent in the Club, especially at the higher levels of leadership. But things have changed. And I think I've been part of process.

How do you think things have changed?

We've started to focus on grassroots activism. I think the Kerry campaign was a real wake-up call for the national leadership of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Summit [a gathering of Sierra Club leadership and members in September 2005] basically said, let's forget Washington DC.

Is the thinking that even though we might have an anti-environment president we can still get things done on a local level?

When you think of how the anti-environmental right took over, that's what they did. They organized their churches and their communities and their PTAs. Well, we've got to do same thing.

What would you say have been the biggest accomplishments of the Angeles Chapter since you've been involved?

Orange County. In the late '90s there was very little Sierra Club in Orange County. Most everything there I had a hand in organizing. We have a huge group of activists fighting urban sprawl, including the National Sierra Club which is supporting our Chapter's work against the toll road in the foothills.

The other thing is the San Gabriel River Campaign led by Jeff Yann. That campaign has really been a breakthrough for us in terms of reaching out to people we don't normally. We tend to be white, upper-class, older people. Eastside L.A. is much more typical Angeleno-Latino.

I'm very proud of the Political Committee. I didn't have much of a hand in it, but we've got a good government now in L.A. We got rid of Hahn, we have Villaraigosa. So now we're focusing our conservation work on central L.A.

We're starting to spend our money more on conservation. We used to be just an outings club. Now our outings are linked up with our conservation work, and our conservation work is linked up to some degree with our political work. We've recruited a lot of new leaders. I'm really confident that when I walk away all the empty spots will be filled by people equally competent as me.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for the Chapter?

Unfortunately our Chapter is not interested in what the biggest challenge is. We had a number of long months of priority discussions and no matter how articulate I've been, [there's been] deaf ears on population and consumption. If you look at the key problems with Southern California, those are it. If we continue to grow 1,000 new people everyday, and if we continue to live in the lifestyle we do-driving cars, eating red meat, buying gazingus pins-we're just going to crash.

Our Chapter doesn't really deal with those issues. The True Cost of Food Campaign is the first time we've stepped into the consumption realm, with organic, locally grown, plant-based foods. But population has been something that, because of the controversy over immigration, we've just steered away from.

The overwhelming majority of growth in Southern California does not come from immigration, it comes from internal growth. It's a fertility problem.

Besides education what do you think the Sierra Club can do about this 'fertility problem'?

There's a lot of political subsidies for fertility-welfare, aid to dependent children, free education, free college education. All these educational benefits that we give are subsidies to having children. If you're a person who chooses to be childless, you still pay taxes for all those education benefits. OK, you benefit from an educated society, but we have to start thinking about tax deductions for kids, we have to start thinking about isn't it cheaper to offer free sterilizations to welfare moms if they want it than to continually pay for more and more babies? Doesn't it make sense to teach sex education in schools so we don't have so many teenage pregnancies? These are social policy decisions.

We're not [talking about] forced sterilizations or stop at one kid or go to jail. There are subtle ways we could encourage people having one child politically. The Club doesn't want to go there because people are offended by the sensibilities.

That could easily be construed as anti-poor people. You're talking about offering sterilizations to welfare moms, not to women who make plenty of money.

What we know about overpopulation is that when women are educated and when they have available birth control, they choose not to have a lot of kids. The immigrants who come to this country get a crappy education, and they're not empowered. They don't have access to medical care and birth control. If we were just to fix those two things, educating young women and offering them birth control, we would have an enormous impact. Most of the people who have a lot of kids are immigrants. I work in East L.A. I know these folks. That's part of their culture they bring here is to have a lot of kids, but also they don't want to have a lot of kids. It just happens. They don't want to have abortions.

Isn't it also true that poor people consume less than rich people? The population-consumption connection isn't necessarily direct.

You bet. And that's why I'm interested in consumption. It's a bigger issue. Look at the urban sprawl taking place in Orange County. Two or three people in a family, they have a 4,000-square-foot house with a great big yard and two SUVs and all kinds of silly stuff they don't need. Every immigrant comes here aspiring to that. If they come here and have six kids, all six kids will wind up living in San Clemente someday in one of those sprawl houses. They're hoping to get that.

You're talking about assaulting the American Dream. You're probably going to make people angry when you ask them to give up these things.

Absolutely. One of the tacks we've taken with Sustainable Consumption is to say look at how many hours a week you work to earn the money to get all that stuff. Maybe working less you could live on less and be happier; have more time with family and friends, and get involved in the community. We're asking people to look at the world in a different way. That's a lot different than trying to save a forest. Everyone agrees the forest is beautiful and ought to be preserved. But when you say, God, what do you need a Hummer for, you're offending people.

How many hours do you spend on your volunteer work?

I work 40 hours a week as a doctor, and I work about 30 hours week as environmentalist. Sometimes more, rarely less.

How do you manage that?

It's my social life. There was a time I had a social life separate from the environmental movement, but I don't any more.

Are you just a very type A personality?

Being an activist is fun. It's rewarding, it's social. And when you go to bed at night you have a real good feeling that you've done something good. Yeah, I'm really organized, but that's not the key. The key is the people you hang around with are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

If you're not active in the community you may not think it's fun. You may think it's work. But there's nothing more important to your inner psychic being than service. It's part of life. If that part of life is cut off, if all you do is watch TV, you're going to be dead before know it. You're going to look back and ask, what did I do? Made widgets? Punched a computer? Service is being part of community. It's not work.