The spirit of Sierra Club founder John Muir - shown here awarding the Maine Sierra Club Chapter his Rubber Duck Award for "Quack Environmentalism"- joined our band of grassroots activists last week outside the Maine governor's mansion in Augusta. (photos here).Inside, Governor Baldacci, Sierra Club and assorted hangers-on were receiving the 2009 Down East Environmental Award from the publisher of a local magazinethat is funded largely by real estate developers.
Muir loudly dressed down (short mp3) the present day Maine Sierra Club Chapter and its henchpersons: Islesboro Island land Trust, Maine Coast Heritage Trust and a handful of astroturn green groups for colluding with Big Government, Big Green and Big Trade in an attack on Sears Island, located at the top of Penobscot Bay in Midcoast Maine.
This latest skirmish brought to the state capital our fight to keep the western third of 940 acre wild Sears island from being turned into railyard and container port, and our estuary's nursery shoals from being blasted and dredged to let container ships come close to the island.
Did you know the difference between the old "New England Sierra Club chapter" that protected Sears Island through state and federal courts in the 1980s and early 90s, and the present day "Maine Sierra Club Chapter" that received an award for signing off on the dismemberment plan? As late as early 2008, Sierra Club Maine supported protecting ALL of Sears Island
So we go to Augusta on a hot May 22nd to challenge the Governor's Sears Island "environmental award" ceremony! Nature was on our side: way too hot to close the mansion's windows. Attendees at the Governor's Sears Island whackers award ceremony could hear our power bullhorned taunts and imprecations, and could see the coffined Rachel Carson speaking from the grave and the ghost, too of Sierra club founder John Muir, who gave Sierra Club a Rubber Duck award for "quack environmentalism".
The Kennebec Journal covered our protest as did WBZ TV. In addition, Maine Public Radio included us in their coverage of the award event,
Sierra Club should be explaining why they agree that it's completely plausible to industrialize the largest remaining non-inhabited island on the East Coast to provide facilities for WalMart et al to save money by shipping from Searsport to Chicago...whose agenda are they forwarding? Certainly conservation has nothing to do with the formula. Ever walk through South Portland or Trenton NJ and thought the adjacent land would make a wonderful wildlife sanctuary?
ReplyDeletePerhaps a colorful visit to Islesboro to ask Steve Miller's constituency why his outfit would trade off for Walmart, too.
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