It is not enough to be outraged at industry’s
abuse of our soil, water and air, writes Mike McCloskey in his
autobiography, In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra
Club. We have to harness our rage and wage savvy
campaigns in the courtroom and Congress.
McCloskey joined
the Sierra Club in 1960 as an environmental lawyer, just as the
group began its transition from an outdoor club to a powerful
advocate for the environment. He retired as its chairman in 1999.
His chronicle of those critical years is as much about media
campaigns, lawyerly maneuvers and lobbying as it is about the
issues that gave rise to the movement in the first place.
Unfortunately, the book covers so much ground that the gritty
details of the battles over the redwoods, the Wilderness Act, and
more fade into the background, giving readers a view that’s
far above the fray.
As well, McCloskey’s delicately
worded, careful account of the Sierra Club’s internal
conflicts — as luminaries like David Brower, Ansel Adams and
others struggled to define the organization’s role and
strategy — leaves one wondering what really went on in the
thick of those legendary dust-ups.
Readers may find the
book somewhat wonkish. But McCloskey reminds us that building sound
environmental policy is a tedious, difficult task requiring
lifetimes of effort by large numbers of people, each with a
different role to play; that our national environmental policy is
set, not by protesters chained to trees, but by lawyers, lobbyists
and congressional aides in wood-paneled conference rooms; and that
grassroots effort is only the first step on the long road to
legislation that will ensure good practices on the ground.
In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra
Club
Michael McCloskey
399 pages,
hardcover: $29.95.
Island Press, 2005.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Four decades of the Sierra Club.
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