Sierra Club

Founded in 1892 by conservationist, explorer, and naturalist John Muir, the Sierra Club has become one of the most prominent environmental organizations in the United States with more than 700,000 members. It also has affiliations in Canada (Sierra Club of Canada, founded in 1963) and a Sierra Club Student Coalition (founded in 1991). The U.S. Sierra Club organization consists of a nationally run chapter, chapters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as well as hundreds of local and regional groups.

The Sierra Club organizes two main programs: The first promotes the use of political action to protect wilderness areas and the natural environment; the second encourages and facilitates outdoor activities, such as hiking and camping. Since its creation in the late 19th century, the national Sierra Club organization has engaged in a growing number of political campaigns related to the environment, including its current initiatives of increasing the nation's alternative energy sources to address the concerns of global warming and air pollution, promoting safe and healthy communities through the attainment of cleaner air and water, and protecting the nation's wildlife and natural landscapes.

Local Sierra Club groups also take on other specific environmental and social campaigns that are more closely related to local political, economic, and development concerns. In 2002, for example, the Central Ohio Group launched an aggressive campaign to stop sewer overflows that release untreated sewage into local rivers in Columbus, Ohio.

Strategies employed by the Sierra Club include litigation to enforce environmental regulations (such as the Clean Water Act), lobbying Congress, letter writing, public protests, political rallies, and community outreach and education. The Sierra Club and its tactics are generally considered to be more mainstream approaches to environmental activism, as opposed to extreme or violent methods of political action utilized by other environmental groups.