NYT: Sierra Club Is Collapsing Due to DEI

Who knew that George Floyd wasn't relevant to wilderness preservation?

As I wrote in 2022:

Environmental Organizations Are Being Looted by Their Diversity Hires

Steve Sailer • June 20, 2022 • 1,200 Words • 190 Comments

… So, while I’m sardonic about environmental organizations, I’m also aware that they’ve sometimes done good things for me. So, I’m concerned that lately environmental NGOs have lost interest in the, you know, environment.

Environmental organizations in the U.S. have always reflected white elite preoccupations. Back when Madison Grant saved the redwoods, those included eugenics and immigration restriction.

Now they are diversity, inclusion, and equity, which don’t actually have anything to do with the environment. But green NGOs aren’t just being hypocritical anymore during the Great Reset, they are living out their ideals, with predictably disastrous results:

Now in 2025, from the New York Times news section:

The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.

The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.

By David A. Fahrenthold and Claire Brown

David A. Fahrenthold covers nonprofit organizations. Claire Brown covers climate change.

Nov. 7, 2025

The Sierra Club calls itself the “largest and most influential grass roots environmental organization in the country.” But it is in the middle of an implosion — left weakened, distracted and divided just as environmental protections are under assault by the Trump administration. …

The Sierra Club’s count of supporters has fallen to less than half of what it was in 2019, while its expenses significantly outpaced donations in 2022 and 2023.

“Sierra Club is in a downward spiral,” a group of managers wrote in a letter reviewed by The New York Times to the club’s leadership in June.

That spiral helps Mr. Trump. But it was not his doing. The Sierra Club did this to itself.

During Mr. Trump’s first term, when the Sierra Club was flush with donations, its leaders sought to expand far beyond environmentalism, embracing other progressive causes. Those included racial justice, labor rights, gay rights, immigrant rights and more. They stand by that shift today.

“As long as climate change and environmental protection are viewed as just being concerns for a limited group of elites, we lose,” Loren Blackford, the group’s new executive director, said in a statement. “We only win by building a powerful, diverse movement.” …

By 2022, the club had exhausted its finances and splintered its coalition. …

The club hired Mr. Jealous, its first Black executive director, that year to stop that slide, but his tenure accelerated it as accusations of sexual harassment, bullying, and overspending piled up.

The club became one in a string of “resistance” groups from Mr. Trump’s first administration that arrived at his second already exhausted from liberal infighting. …

In 2016, the club was at the height of its success, leading what many in the green movement consider the most successful environmental campaign put on by anyone in the 21st century: “Beyond Coal.”

Its secret was focus, according to activists involved. The club put its energy behind the single, measurable goal of closing all of the country’s 500-plus carbon-spewing, coal-fired power plants.

That seems pretty technical for the racial reckoning era.

Armed with more than $120 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg,

Isn’t Mayor Bloomberg a Bad Guy? Can somebody bring me up to date on this?

they used lawsuits, petitions and protests to convince regulators and utilities that coal plants were too dirty and expensive to keep operating.

By 2017, half of the plants were slated to close, the result of this intense activism, plus tighter regulations and an influx of cheap natural gas flooding the energy sector.

“The game plan was clear, and it was working,” said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, which also took part.

Then Mr. Trump was elected. Fund-raising jumped by $2 million in the two weeks after Election Day.

As more money flooded in, The Diverse wanted their cut.

The number of volunteers surged. By 2019, the club’s internal records counted 4 million “champions” — a group that included dues-paying members as well as supporters who had donated, signed petitions or participated in events.

As Mr. Trump sought to roll back a broad range of progressive victories, the club’s leaders decided their old strategy was too small for the moment.

“We can’t defend the environment by shutting ourselves up in a big, green box labeled ‘environmental issues,’” the group’s executive director, Michael Brune, wrote to members in 2017.

By broadening the mission, they also hoped to recruit more young people, who they thought cared as much about social justice as coal plants.

What was the average IQ of a Sierra Club member in 2017?

Paywall here.