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The Delta Chapter is the Sierra Club in the State of Louisiana.
If you think it's difficult to convince people that environmental degredation is real now, just wait until this happens:The following links take you to the Delta Chapter blog posts regarding the bill recently passed by the Louisiana Legislature that allows the teaching of creationism and any manner of other un-scientifically provable "theories" in our public schools. Why is this an environmental issue? Because it is hard enough to convince certain people that environmental issues are real, even when faced with literal mountains of evidence, think global warming. Imagine how much more difficult it will be to educate and convince citizens of Louisiana that an environmental issue is real, when they can be taught in our public schools nearly anything that anyone with any agenda can dream up. Not exactly a scary environmental issue - but scary nonetheless More "Louisiana is doomed" blog posts from badastronomy.com The Louisiana Environmental Briefing Book is now available.The Louisiana Environmental Briefing Book has just been released. It was produced to educate Louisiana legislators on environmental issues in our state that affect us all. Even if you are not in the Louisiana legislature, it is worth reading because it is chock full of timely information about environmental issues in our state that every concerned citizen needs to be aware of. The Environmental Briefing book was produced by:
Read the Louisiana Environmental Briefing Book at the Louisiana Environmental Briefing Book Website: http://labriefingbook.org/ or download the large PDF file (2.89 Mb). It's a huge file but well worth the download time, only a couple of seconds on a broadband connection. Get your Delta Sierran newsletters here:You can also find back issues of the Delta Sierran, the Delta
Chapter's newsletter on our Publications
page. SIERRA Magazine's Annual Paddlesport Contest is underway...Enter to win great prizes! June 30 is the deadline for entries in Sierra's 2nd Annual Paddlesport contest. There are only a few weeks left to win a Bell canoe, a Necky kayak, or a paddling trip to beautiful Southwest Florida. Go here to enter: action.sierraclub.org/paddlecontest Louisiana's Mulch MadnessCypress forests are the state's best defense against hurricanes. So why are loggers clear-cutting the last trees? Dean Wilson slams forward the throttle on his 18-foot aluminum bateau—a flat-bottom skiff that he welded together himself—and catapults us downriver. It's April and I'm in the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest swamp—1.4 million acres (roughly 10 times the size of Chicago) wedged between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico in southern Louisiana... Read More>> So begins an article featured in the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/03/louisianas-mulch-madness.htmlGot You Tube?The Sierra Club does. Check out the Club's You Tube page. You might even learn a thing or two; like how to install a programmable thermostat, or a low flow shower head or how to compost in your own backyard. Good stuff just in time for Earth Day. The Save Our Cypress Coalition website has a whole new look!
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the website and to all who are part of the Save Our Cypress campaign. The Save Our Cypress Coalition is comprised of over 160 conservation groups, religious organizations, businesses, gardening clubs, and civic organizations. The Delta Chapter is a proud member of the coalition. Act now to help expand Jean Lafitte National ParkRead this fact sheet and contact our U. S. Senators as well as Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts to ask them to support the expansion of Jean Lafitte National Park. Thank you. Welcome to our new Senior Regional RepresentativeSierra Club Friends – On behalf of the staff of the Sierra Club’s Southeast Office, I would like to welcome Jill Mastrototaro as our new Senior Regional Representative – Manager (Northern Gulf Coast). Jill will manage the delivery of our programs within the states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. She will begin her service to the Sierra Club effective March 10 and will be based in New Orleans, LA. Our office in Baton Rouge, LA will then be closed. A native of Connecticut, Jill has also spent the past decade residing in the New Orleans, LA area. Over the past eight and a half years Jill has led advocacy and outreach efforts for the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation in southeast Louisiana’s 10,000-square mile watershed. Jill’s experience includes monitoring and lobbying state and federal laws including the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, spearheading a coalition to protect cypress forests, launching a campaign on sprawl using multiple media outlets, leading the state’s first effort to quantify wetland loss from unplanned development, and creating and implementing regional strategic conservation plans. Her successes include leading a broadly based coalition in getting Wal-Mart to stop the purchase and sale of cypress mulch harvested or manufactured in Louisiana, thwarting proposals such as cell towers, subdivisions, or a 10,000-acre airport in ecologically sensitive areas, protecting already stressed waterways from receiving millions of gallons of wastewater effluent, and mobilizing hundreds of volunteers to protect natural resources. Jill has authored a myriad of resources such as, A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting Wetlands in the Pontchartrain Basin, and more recently, Growing Smarter: Guidelines for Low Impact Development in the Pontchartrain Basin, which have engaged and trained thousands of citizens. Jill is the founding Vice-President of the Land Trust for Southeast Louisiana, the only grassroots-based, land conservation group active in the state, and she chairs the Land Committee, negotiating land acquisitions and to-date securing $100,000 in endowment funds. She also is working to create a regional Gulf Coast network of land conservation groups. Jill serves on the board of Smart Growth for Louisiana, a non-profit working to encourage responsible land use throughout the state. She holds a Masters Degree in Environmental Policy from the State University of New York – College of Environmental Science and Forestry (Syracuse, NY) and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Environmental Science from the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY). We hope that you will join us in welcoming Jill to the Sierra Club family. Thanks! Regards – Jim Price, Southeast Staff Director, Sierra Club National Club Election held this SpringThe annual election for the Club's Board of Directors is now history. Check out whether your candidate won and all of the election results at the Club's election website: http://www.sierraclub.org/bod/2008election. The Lower Ninth Battles BackThe word "will" comes up constantly in the Lower Ninth Ward now; We Will Rebuild is spray-painted onto empty houses; "it will happen," one organizer told me. Will itself may achieve the ambitious objective of bringing this destroyed neighborhood back to life, and for many New Orleanians a ferocious determination seems the only alternative to being overwhelmed and becalmed. Read the rest of this article from The Nation at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070910/solnit NWF is looking for volunteers and volunteer groupsNWF is looking for volunteers and volunteer groups to help with the restoration of wildlife habitat in 2008 on hurricane-damaged state and federal lands in Louisiana. Volunteers are needed to help with the following:
We will be working in Louisiana through Spring 2008. For more information, please contact LouisianaProject@nwf.org or call Rebecca or Jenny at 225-346-6945. The website is nearly ready so please visit us soon at: www.nwf.org/louisiana
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To
learn more about sustainable alternatives to cypress mulch, to see the
complete list of coalition members, to ask Lowe's, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart
to stop selling cypress mulch, and much more, visit www.saveourcypress.org.
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