Larry Fahn
Environmental Advocate, Attorney, and Activist.
Sierra Club
UC Davis Magazine. Volume 21, Number 2, Winter 2004.
Unbridled Activist
An interview with Sierra Club president and UC Davis alumnus Larry Fahn ’76.
Larry Fahn is the 50th president of the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. A Sacramento native, Fahn joined the Sierra Club while an undergraduate at UC Davis, and for more than 25 years has held various local, regional and statewide posts with that organization, working on dozens of regional and statewide initiatives and referenda affecting a wide range of environmental policy issues. First elected to the Sierra Club’s national board of directors in 1999, he was re-elected in 2002. That same spring Fahn was elected by his fellow board members to serve as the national vice president for conservation; in May 2003 the board elected him president.
Q: You’ve been a member of the Sierra Club since age 19. What sparked your passion for the environment, and what has kept it burning for three decades?
A: Issues! In college I got involved in the effort to halt the spread of offshore oil drilling along the California coast. That was spurred by the huge spill off Santa Barbara, which despoiled the beaches and killed thousands of birds and other wildlife. I also saw the threats from the proliferation of nuclear power plants in California and worked on a successful citizens’ initiative to stop more plants from being constructed in the early ’70s.
I’d long been troubled by the travesty of clear-cut logging that I observed during backpacking trips into the Sierra. Those three issues were the motivation for my early activism.
Since then, new issues have constantly come up; for example, the proliferation of toxic chemicals from a wide variety of sources. Global warming has become increasingly important. Many if not most of the glaciers in the Sierra have retreated and are gone. Experts tell us that in another 10 to 20 years Glacier National Park in northern Montana will be without any glaciers at all. Exploitation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—America’s Serengeti—by oil and gas drilling has been an issue for two decades now, and the risk, from the Bush administration, is greater than it’s ever been. I want the next generation to be able to have the same pristine wilderness and wildlife adventures that we have had the good fortune to experience.
Q: In what ways has the environment improved over recent decades?
A: For more than 30 years, we’ve made real progress cleaning up America’s air and water and toxic sites, but the Bush administration is taking us back in time—when polluters could just dump toxic wastes into our waterways, when rivers caught fire and when toxic pesticides were killing bald eagles. That was before we really understood what lead was doing to our kids, what mercury does to pregnant women and what DDT does to wildlife. What we’ve learned since then is that if you want to protect people’s health and safety, you’ve got to protect the natural environment and that we all must take responsibility—individuals, corporations and government—local, state and national.
We believe there’s no reason we should still be living with polluted air, water and land. We know there’s a better way—and that’s to use modern technology to upgrade power plants and make more fuel-efficient cars, to enforce and strengthen the laws that protect our air and water and wildlife so as to preserve what’s still wild in America as our children’s legacy.
Q: What do you say to someone who recognizes the problems but feels ineffectual?
A: Join the Sierra Club and get involved. We’re a network of 750,000 of your friends and neighbors working together to protect local communities and the planet. We offer strength in numbers and a sense of community. And we provide a broad range of opportunities for people to make a difference, from writing a letter to going on a service outing (cleaning up streams, parks, coastlines and trails) to attending a town meeting. We also let people know how the choices they make as consumers can help protect the environment—buying and driving a hybrid or other fuel-efficient car, for instance, or installing a home solar energy system. There’s something for the person who has only a few minutes a week and for the person who has substantial time to give. It all helps.
Q: What one thing would you like to accomplish during your term as Sierra Club president?
A: To help convince the American public of the importance of electing a pro-environment Congress and president in 2004. And it shouldn’t be a partisan thing. I would very much like to see Republicans find their way back into embracing environmental protection. They are, after all, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, one of our nation’s greatest conservationists, who was a friend of the Sierra Club’s founder and first president, John Muir. President Nixon, during his term, established the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act. Conservative and conservation are words that share the same root.
But we need to inspire Americans of all political stripes—Greens, Independents, students, Libertarians and the disaffected—who care about environmental issues and emphasize that voting can make a difference. The closeness of the 2000 election should be a wake-up call to us all, and with a strong grassroots mobilization effort, the Sierra Club plans to help turn things around in 2004.
Q: You attended the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Cancun this September. Why?
A: We were there to educate the trade delegates, the press and the public about how, under their current form, these multilateral trade agreements, including the WTO and the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), represent a threat to environmental protection efforts here at home and around the world. While promoting the interests of multinational corporations and business interests, they undermine local laws and regulations that protect the health and safety of Americans. Most of these trade rules are developed and enforced behind closed doors, without the benefit of public comment and scrutiny. We held press conferences and spoke at delegation events to point out how misguided this approach to international trade really is.
Q: You are the executive director of As You Sow, the nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting corporate responsibility. Is holding corporations accountable for their impact on the environment now the most viable way to ensure some measure of success in solving the problems we face?
A: It’s one of the ways we must try. Today some of the largest economies in the world are in the hands of multinational corporations, which too often place short-term profits ahead of the public good. The Sierra Club is taking a two-pronged approach to the issue of corporate accountability. We have launched our own family of mutual funds (www.sierraclubfunds.com) that meticulously screens companies’ environmental and social records before investing, to make sure that the companies are good environmental stewards. We think that the recent spate of corporate scandals will result in a huge increase in socially and environmentally responsible investing by consumers, pensions plans, retirement plans, etc. Sierra Club’s mutual funds, which have the toughest environmental screens in the socially responsible investing business, should be a major beneficiary of that increase.
In addition we are purchasing shares of other publicly traded companies that might need some behavior modification. As shareholders we can dialogue with corporate management to help improve their environmental performance and use the tool of shareholder resolutions in proxy statements and at the annual meetings to help encourage positive change. Shareholder activism is a growing trend, and the Sierra Club, with its hundreds of thousands of members—many of whom have mutual funds, retirement plans and other stock investments—is poised to be a leading player in that effort.
Q: Does the president of the Sierra Club ever get to go hiking? How do you recharge your commitment?
A: You bet. The greatest part of my job is traveling around the country meeting like-minded environmentalists who are activists in Sierra Club chapters and local groups. They often take me to their favorite spots for a hike. Last year I saw grizzly bears in the wild—even saw a pair of wolves chase off a grizzly from a kill—in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone. This past summer a few Florida chapter leaders took me on a hike at a state park near St. Petersburg, where we happened upon a family of manatees browsing on marsh weeds no farther than 20 yards from the shore where we were hiking. These kinds of experiences make the stress and the wear and tear of my hectic travel schedule more than worth it.
March for Women's Lives
A Fahn Tribute:
Tribute from Larry's board colleagues after being termed out in May 2014
In 1998, when Larry Fahn agreed to run for the Sierra Club Board at the urging of his longtime friend and mentor Ed Wayburn, he felt his chances for getting elected were slim. Although a successful trial lawyer and a seasoned activist, Fahn was after all, an little-known white guy from northern California who's name was NOT Wayburn or Brower. But soon thereafter he had lunch with the legendary David Brower, who, after grilling him on political strategy, forestry policy and similar things, pledged to support Larry. This proved very helpful. In short order former President Phil Berry announced that "anyone who can garner the support of both the genteel Wayburn, and the firebrand Brower deserves my vote!".
Larry ran on the promise of bringing people together during tough times. He pledged to try and duplicate the tremendous success of the Sierra Club California political program that he had led for most of the 90's. Larry cruised to victory.
Thats the way he was and is--bringing factions together while remaining true to his strong environmental convictions and passion for conservation.
Some in this room – if not at this table – may recall that Larry had a heart attack during his first term on the Board in 2000--just before the May retreat. Nonetheless, campaigning from his hospital bed via speaker phone, he was elected Fifth Officer of the Board of Directors. The next day, in violation of doctors' orders, Larry appeared at the Board meeting in person to introduce the Sierra Club's new Corporate Accountability Committee, who's formation he had spearheaded, and give its initial report to the Board.
The following year Larry was elected Vice President for Conservation where for two years he chaired the Conservation Governance Committee and was a strong advocate for Environmental Justice, Endangered Species Act strengthening--especially when it came to grizzly bears and the entire suite of International Programs--responsible trade, human rights and population stabilization. He also helped plan and develop the Sierra Club Mutual Fund, which was an environmentally-screened investment vehicle, appearing on CNBC to unveil it during its launch week.
In 2003 Larry became the 50th President of the Sierra Club. For the next two years he was the most prolific, visible and forceful public voice of any Club President. Giving more than 300 speeches across the US and beyond, he carried the Club's message to groups small and large, some extraordinarily large! The range from small gatherings of Sierra Club group and chapter activists, donors, newspaper editorial boards and town-hall meetings to public crowds of 50,000 at the free-trade rally in Miami's Bayfront Stadium, and over one million people, mostly women, at the March For Women's Lives in Washington DC in Spring of 2004.
It was a proud moment for the Sierra Club as its President addressed more than a million people crowded onto the National Mall. The crowd for the March For Women's Lives, most watching on dozens of huge "jumbo-tron" screens that lined the Mall from the steps of the Capitol to the edge of the Washington Monument. He gave an impassioned and eloquent three minute plea for international human rights and environmental protection, saying:
"Protecting the planet means providing better education, family planning and neo-natal health care to women across the globe! And here at home, protecting the planet means electing more women to local, state and national office" he proclaimed as the crowd roared. The next speaker, Senator Hillary Clinton was good, but not quite as inspiring.
Larry travelled extensively in his 2 years as President--from the quadrennial gathering of the Gwich'in peoples above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, to meetings and a parade in south Louisiana with shrimp workers, people of faith, chemical workers and restaurant owners who made up the colorful GUMBO Alliance. He traveled to 26 other states in between; then to mountains and rainforests of Equador with volunteers and staff of the population program, and to the Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Larry presided over a Board meeting for the founding of the Sierra Club's newest chapter, the Puerto Rico Chapter.
During the 2004 US Presidential election, Larry went on a whirlwind tour of both parties' conventions, representing the Club in dozens of radio, TV and print interviews and serving on panels with national political, civil rights, and labor leaders. Then he went into overdrive, hitting 10 of twelve "battleground" states to speak, oversee phone banks, and wear out shoe leather walking precincts. He recalls gaining 15 pounds or so on all that pizza....in Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida (3 times), Nevada, New Mexico again, Ohio, Wisconsin and back to Nevada. When he ran into our endorsed candidate John Kerry, Kerry remarked, "the Sierra Club is everywhere!"
Certainly Larry was virtually everywhere, from World Trade Organization ministerials in Seattle ('99) and Cancun ('01), to speaking appearances with SEIU President Andy Stern and AFL-CIO leader John Sweeny in Miami, and huge America Votes rallies with Emily's List President Ellen Malcolm.
During that same time period, Larry was working tirelessly behind the scenes to combat the infamous attempt by anti-immigration factions to takeover the Club to make us a voice against immigration. In Larry’s San Francisco office, an informal group of Club leaders hatched Groundswell Sierra to defend the Club from the insurgents that included luminaries such as former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm. Larry penned a special notice to members on the back of the Club ballot about the threat posed by the attempted takeover. The result: the insurgents were soundly defeated in a record voter turnout.
After that threat was turned back, Larry and the Club were sued by Governor Lamm and others for due process and first and fourth amendment violations. The case was ultimately dropped, but the controversy garnered headlines and attention around the US and across the globe. During the election, the New York Times editorialized that "Sierra Club members need to do more than pay their dues....they need to pay attention." Afterwards, the French newspaper Liberation did a profile of the Club and an interview with Larry.
He welcomed folks like Wendell Berry, James Hansen, Joan Blades and Marshall Ganz to speak at Board meetings as part of a "big thinkers" series.
Then, as Past President, Larry toured the Pacific Northwest and Ohio with United Steelworkers leader Dave Foster promoting "clean trade" and renewable energy in town hall and editorial board meetings, and labor and environmental rallies. His close relationship with the Steelworkers helped cement the formation and success of the Blue Green Alliance. He invited Al Gore to keynote the Club's Sierra Summit in 2005, and helped secure Robert Kennedy Jr. and Arianna Huffington as additional speakers.
More recently Larry has been a Club delegate to UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban. Just last month, he represented the Club at an event in Muir Woods, sponsored by the government of Scotland, honoring our founder and native born Scot, John Muir. Two new redwood trees were planted in commemoration of the event. The same day he spoke for the Board to a gathering of Sierra Club International Outings leaders from around the county.
As a board member Larry has never wavered in his passion and convictions for the strongest policy positions. As you heard yesterday, he's pushed the board to advance a comprehensive ban on fracking. Similarly, he pushed for stronger renewable energy portfolio standards and a long needed loosening of our prohibition against civil disobedience.
In sum, Larry Fahn has given his heart and soul to the Sierra Club and its mission for more than 30 years. He's never missed a board meeting over his twelve years of service. He's led us with unselfishness, principle and passion...staying the course, fighting the good fight. And, not incidentally, whenever someone needed a ride from Headquarters to the Board retreat, he was Johnny-on-the Spot with his green Prius.
Larry Fahn has set a very high standard. We thank him profoundly for his service.
Although he's leaving the board for a second time, we can be sure he's not leaving the Sierra Club. And there’s good reason to speculate that we may seem him again at this table in the not-too distant future.
With Director Michael Dorsey at Sierra Club Booth at Climate Talks in Durban South Africa.
At UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen with friendly polar bear.
Blending pomegranate margaritas via pedal power at Sierra Club's 2014 Trailblazer's Ball in San Francisco.
With indigenous farmers protesting UN inaction on climate, near Cancun Mexico.
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With Director Michael Dorsey at the Sierra Club Booth at the UN Climate Talks in Durban South Africa 2011.
Larry attends the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen as a Sierra Club Delegate. He met up with a friendly polar bear on the Conference floor. On the big screen in the background President Obama is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. He arrived in Copenhagen the next day.