What makes a city “cool”? When it makes a commitment to curb global warming pollution and set a positive example for others. The Sierra Club highlighted solutions-minded places across the country this fall by releasing a new national guide called “Cool Cities: Solving Global Warming One City at a Time.” The guide is available at http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/coolcities. Volunteers then generated dozens of events around the Midwest, New England and the Southeast. Read more...

In the past four years, Sierra Club hybrid vehicle events in Missouri and all over the country have proven to be an amazingly effective grassroots tool for generating interest in and support for the Sierra Club’s national and local clean cars campaigns, a major part of the Global Warming and Energy Program. Read more...

Legislative Bill filing begins December In preparation for the 2006 Legislative Session the Ozark Chapter Legislative Committee has discussed issues we feel will become priorities this session. After reviewing the results of the 2005 bills and considering the current political climate, we set the following areas as initial priorities for the Ozark Chapter... Read more...

Sleepwalking into the future We are walking off a cliff into “an abyss of economic and political disorder on a scale that no one has ever seen before.” James Howard Kunstler shows us a future of sharply decreasing supplies of oil and gas where everyday things we take as normal will cease to be part of our lives. As we are reaching peak oil in this decade, the point at which we will have used up half the available oil on Earth, we are starting a downward slide toward a life Americans are unprepared for. Kunstler shows convincingly that it is not just a matter of exploring for more oil, as the world has been extensively mapped for oil, and no more major oil fields are to be found. Read more...

We have a National Sierra Club Award winner living right here in Missouri!! Student Sierra Club leader Charlie Fredrick was awarded the Joseph Barbosa Earth Fund Award at the 2005 Sierra Summit. This award recognizes a Sierra Club member under the age of 30 for environmental activism and leadership. Charlie has helped to organize a network of environmental activists in the Midwest for the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), the student run arm of the Sierra Club. Read more...

Most folks who are concerned about the future, live cautiously and prudently. They do not easily or without serious thought for the potential consequences, risk squandering either what they have, or the future for themselves or their children and grandchildren. Maybe you think parachuting out of aircraft just for the fun of it is crazy because there’s always a chance that the parachute will not open; maybe you avoid bungee jumping from bridges into the deep yet picturesque valleys below lest the chord break. If so, you are living the Precautionary Principle. This principle argues that if the consequences of a course of action may be catastrophic, it is better to avoid that course of action even if you lack absolute certainty that the worst will happen but merely suspect that it is possible. In everyday terms, it can best be stated in terms of the well-known phrase: “I’d rather be safe than sorry!” Read more...

The plan actually expands our reach and effectiveness in Missouri so that we can continue our work to safeguard Missouri’s natural heritage for generations to come. It identifies aggressive conservation priorities and legislative goals, and provides for a new long-range sustainable fund-raising plan that will enable us to achieve our expanded vision. Read more...

Many Sierra Club members as well as its detractors forget that the Club was founded a century ago from the deep wellspring of rural values of its progenitof — John Muir. Born in Dunbar, Scotland in 1838 and the son of a preacher/farmer, John Muir once recalled: “When I was a boy in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I’ve been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness…with red blooded playmates, wild as myself, I loved to wander in the fields, to hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low.” Read more...

Memories of growing up on the family farm will always be among my most precious. I loved being outdoors, driving the tractor in from the hayfield, playing hide and seek in the hayloft and working in the garden. My Dad taught us the importance being good stewards, caring for the land and the animals and being a good neighbor. It was hard work and long hours but he loved farming almost as much as he loved his family. We had great neighbors that were always there to help out when needed. It was common practice to loan out farm equipment to your neighbor, help get in a crop and share extra bounty from each others gardens. Read more...

The Facts about CAFOs and Health Ordinances
by Carla Klein, Ozark Chapter Program Director
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are operations with over one thousand “animal units” concentrated at one place at one time. Read more...

It once was that hogs were the fall back for cash poor times. If the mortgage on the farm was due, a farmer would sell a few hogs, make the loan payment, and have some money left. That’s no longer the case. The number of Missouri family farmers raising their own hogs to sell can be counted on one hand, and the number of hogs produced in this state has decreased commensurately. In fact, there were several million more hogs raised in 1975 than there are today in 2005. Read more...

Family Farm Stewardship
by Terry Spence
The roots of most American rural communities over the decades have been structured and grown around sustainable family farm operations. With the growth of the factory farm type of agriculture in America, agriculturally dependent rural communities have withered away and some have died out. Large corporate hog farms in Missouri alone have depleted over 60 percent of the independent family hog farmers over the last six years. With the loss of these hog farms there has been a significant loss of family farms, farm families, loss of support to local schools, churches, public institutions and farm-related retail businesses in areas where they operate as well as social impacts. Read more...

The Missouri Farm Bureau Federation — an organization to which all Farm Bureau Insurance policyholders belong and provide funding (whether they know it or not) — has taken some curious positions. The positions are far to the right of the American electorate. While endorsed candidates may not subscribe to all these positions, it is worth noting that the Farm Bureau gives its stamp of approval to those politicians who most closely adhere to the values of the organization. Read more...

Missouri Energy Costs to Jump This Winter:
Energy and Money Saving Tips for Consumers

• Household Energy
  Almost half of Missourians’ energy bill goes to heat their homes.
•  The average energy bills for Missouri homes heated with natural gas will increase by about $400. Average energy bills for homes heated with heating oil will go up about $230. Propane-heated homes will see their bills rise by about $300, while electric-heating costs will rise by about $15.
•  Missouri gasoline prices are currently about 11% higher than one year ago. At today’s prices, Missouri households would pay about $2,900 annually for gasoline.
  Reducing Home Heating Costs Read more...

Clean Air and Energy Campaign
Sierra Club’s national Global Warming & Energy Program and Missouri Sierra Club’s Clean Air and Energy Campaign work cooperatively to promote clean energy solutions for Missouri, joining forces throughout the year to hold public events, develop community partnerships, and support each others’ priorities. Read more...