From embarrassment. Obama, it turns out, may not just herald a sunnier horizon for the environment, he may, as the subtext of this story suggests, be the last, best hope for mainstream environmental groups to diversify their memberships. Among the many reasons why this has yet to happen, Carl Pope bizarrely focuses on "cultural barriers," and offers this example:
If you go to a Sierra Club meeting, the people are mostly white, largely over 40, almost all college-educated, whose style is to argue with each other. That may not be a welcoming environment.
Hilarious. Carl, keep up the good work but here's a news flash: black and brown people don't show up because of what white environmentalists mostly talk about at these meetings. BTW, catchy slogans, such as "Connecting People with Nature"--which I'm intimately familar with--don't seem to gain much traction with non-whites either, and probably won't until all those new urban nature centers help provide inner-city residents with jobs and cleaner air. Providing more than a token seat or two on the board wouldn't hurt either.
