Sierra Club

rdf:langString Sierra Club

rdf:langString Sierra Club

rdf:langString Logo of Sierra Club

rdf:langString Ramón Cruz

rdf:langString Dan Chu

rdf:langString President

rdf:langString Acting Exec. Dir.

rdf:langString over 750,000 nationally

rdf:langString Explore, enjoy, and protect the planet.

rdf:langString To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth, practice & promote responsible use of the earth's ecosystems & resources, educate & enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural & human environment, use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.

rdf:langString Approximately 600

rdf:langString Social welfare organization

rdf:langString The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who became the first president as well as the longest-serving president, at approximately 20 years in this leadership position. The Sierra Club operates only in the United States and holds the legal status of 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organization. Sierra Club Canada is a separate entity. Traditionally associated with the progressive movement, the club was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world, and currently engages in lobbying politicians to promote environmentalist policies. Recent focuses of the club include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposition to the use of coal, hydropower and nuclear power. The club is known for its political endorsements, which are often sought after by candidates in local elections; it generally supports liberal and progressive candidates in elections. The Sierra Club is organized on both a national and state level with chapters named for the 50 states and two U.S. territories (Puerto Rico and Washington D.C.) California is the lone state to have numerous chapters named for California counties. The club chapters allow for regional groups and committees, some of which have many thousands of members. These chapters further allow for special interest sections (ex. Camera, Outings), committees (conservation and political), and task forces on a single issue with some kind of geography involved. While much activity is coordinated at a local level, the club is a unified organization; decisions made at the national level take precedence, including the removal and creation of Chapters, as well as recruiting and removing members. In addition to political advocacy, the Sierra Club organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the United States. Members of the Sierra Club pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing, and were responsible for a substantial amount of the early development of climbing. Much of this activity occurred in the group's namesake Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Club does not set standards for or regulate alpinism, but it organizes wilderness courses, hikes, and occasional alpine expeditions for members. In California, the club, through its outdoor recreation groups, is usually considered the state's analogue to other state mountaineering clubs such as Mazamas, The Mountaineers, or the Colorado Mountain Club.