Highlights: Eighteen years as the Chairman and Executive Director of the Sierra Club; overall Sierra Club service of 36 years. Also served as Associate Conservation
Director, Political Director, and Conservation Director. Former Executive Director, California League of Conservation Voters. Former Chair, the Green Group.

During tenure, Club conducted twenty year campaign for improved auto fuel efficiency and emissions standards which culminated in the 2007 Congressional compromise fuel efficiency act and then led to the Obama Administration’s ground-breaking requirement that vehicle efficiency and performance double by 2035.

Launched and carried out the “Beyond Coal” campaign which led to the defeat or withdrawal of 150 proposed new coal-fired power plants, and began the process of retirement or replacement of outmoded existing facilities.

Club helped protect nearly 10 million acres of wilderness, including such highlights as the California Desert, Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument.

Brought the litigation challenging the right of Vice-President Cheney’s Energy Task Force to conduct its policy-making in secret negotiations with major energy interests.

Led the campaign to collect more than a million comments—the most
public comments on a single regulatory issue in history at that time—
in support of protecting the remaining roadless areas in America’s National Forests.

Co-author and campaign director, Proposition 65, California’s Toxic Enforcement Act of 1989. Co-convener and founder of both the Apollo Alliance and the Blue-Green Alliance, now merged as America’s largest progressive coalition with labor union and environmental organizations with a total of over 11 million members. Also a Board member of American Rights at Work

2002-2006, served in a variety of progressive electoral roles:
Founder and Treasurer, America Coming Together
Founder and Chairman, America Votes
Founder and President, American Families United

Follow him @CarlPope

Books

Strategic Ignorance – Why the Bush Administration is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress (2003)

Hazardous Waste in America (1981)

Sahib, an American Misadventure in India (1971)

Currently

Convener, American Manufacturing Dialogue
Advisor, Skoll Global Threats Foundation Climate Learning Initiative
Advisory Board, America India Foundation
Advisory Board, Yale Climate and Energy Institute
Board of Directors, As You Sow