Climate change: Sierra Club's 100 days of action

WASHINGTON, DC -- On April 30, the six-month anniversary of the week Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, the Sierra Club celebrated the culmination of its successful 100-day campaign -- from Inauguration Day through Earth Day -- to push President Obama to take bold action that would avert the climate crisis. More than 1 million Americans from across the country attended large-scale rallies and local events, signed petitions, sent letters to decision-makers and used social media to engage friends and neighbors in fighting climate disruption.

“In his inaugural address and again during the State of the Union, President Obama invited a national climate conversation. Over the past 100 days, more than 1 million Americans responded to that invitation with a demand for bold action on climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “The past 100 days have seen major climate victories -- from President Obama’s designating five new national monuments that will protect our wild places from fossil-fuel drilling and mining, to the Mayor of Los Angeles announcing that the city will be coal-free by 2025. Now we’re looking to the president to follow through with his climate commitments and secure his legacy with bold climate solutions like rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.”

The 100 Days of Action to Fight Climate Disruption campaign launched on January 14, just before President Obama’s second inauguration, and provided a framework of administrative steps the President can take to help curb climate disruption.

In February the Sierra Club, 350.org, and dozens of other allies held the Forward on Climate Rally in Washington, D.C, the country’s largest-ever climate rally. Close to 50,000 volunteers, supporters and activists from across the country marched to the White House, demanding that President Obama reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and address climate disruption. Seventeen solidarity rallies across the country showed that, from coast to coast, Americans wanted the president to take bold administrative action to fight climate disruption. In February, the Sierra Club also held more than a dozen in-district meetings with U.S. senators, asking them to call on President Obama to take executive action on climate.

Residents turned out in March and April for more than two dozen Climate Legacy Town Hall meetings and grassroots events, sharing stories about dirty fuels’ threats to their communities.. For example, in April the Sierra Club, the Blue Green Alliance and labor unions discussed climate disruption and the changing workforce in Pittsburgh. And in New Orleans the local Sierra Club and the Tulane Green Club hosted a forum about climate disruption and threats to Southern Louisiana.

Today, the Sierra Club concluded its 100 Days of Action campaign by releasing a powerful video that highlights the growing movement across the country demanding action on climate disruption. The video features pictures and footage from grassroots actions during the past one hundred days and sets a climate roadmap for what the Sierra Club and its activists want from the President moving forward. To date, 1,170,233 Americans have pledged their support for and demanded action from the President.

“With President Obama well into his second term, the next few months and years will be pivotal in the fight to address climate disruption and move America toward clean energy,” Brune said. “Over the past one hundred days, the American people have shown that they are ready and willing to join the President in this fight that is not only winnable, but one in which we are already beginning to succeed. Working together, the President and the American people can fight the climate crisis, reenergize the American economy, create millions of jobs, and give our children the type of future they deserve.”