Like many people, I came to the Sierra Club originally through camping trips and visits to national parks. My parents took me to to Yosemite and I fell in love with it. I remember reading John Muir's “The Yosemite” as a boy, thrilled by stories of storms and moon-rainbows at Yosemite Falls, and mourning the loss of Hetch Hetchy. I wanted to be part of the organization that fought to protect Yosemite and places like it.
Of course, since Muir's day a lot has been learned about natural places and how they work. In early days in Yosemite and other protected wildlands, the natural processes of fire and flood were suppressed. People thought they were protecting those places, but actually they were interfering with the ecosystems that made them special. And in general, the focus of today’s environmentalism has shifted away from setting aside a few special places for preservation, in favor of a broader perspective on protecting the natural environment of the whole planet.
The role of the Northern Alameda County Group of the Sierra Club is to work locally to protect the natural environment, and I believe, to carry that broader perspective to our cities as well.
I think the same impulse that causes people to fall in love with Yosemite and other special wild places also causes people to fall in love with special urban places like the cities of Northern Alameda County. Unfortunately, in many cases people have made the same mistake with cities that they did with natural places. In trying to protect our cities from destructive forces, they’ve ended up freezing the normal progress and regeneration of our urban areas, making it impossible to promote the kind of low-impact, sustainable urban living that is the only way of reducing human impact on the natural environment and mitigating climate change.
I believe the Northern Alameda County Group of the Sierra Club can and should be a voice for promoting not preservation of our cities as they are but improvement of our cities to make them better places for people and the planet. I want to work toward making this happen, and I ask for your vote. Thank you.
It is not news to that climate change is the defining issue of our time, and the Northern Alameda County Group has done much on this -- opposing the shipment of coal, supporting institutions devoted to sustainable energy production, and fighting to limit the emissions from oil refineries.
I believe that, in addition, the Sierra Club also needs to take an active role in promoting redirection of development away from wild and rural land around the edges of the Bay Area and toward infill development in Northern Alameda County's urban centers. This includes promoting the development, in our downtowns and transit corridors of, housing of all income levels and commercial projects that would discourage further sprawl.
While as environmental advocates it's tempting to hold out for more and more to try to make each project as perfect as possible, this just encourages developers to sprawl outward. We must oppose sprawl development and also take positive steps toward realizing the more livable, sustainable urban communities that Northern Alameda County cities must become if we are to avoid contributing to climate change and its catastrophic impacts.
Finding the balance between unattainable perfection and compromised values isn't always easy, but it's important that we try, and that we do our best to make as much difference in the real world as we can. That's what I've tried to do in my years as a Sierra Club leader. I believe I can do more to make this real, and I ask for your vote. Visit club.priven.com for more info.
Thank you for your support.
Email: aaron@priven.com
Twitter: @aaronpriven
Home page: www.priven.com/aaron