Sierra Club leader tries positive message

WASHINGTON -- Environmentalists howl about so many things.

Sierra Club President Jennifer Ferenstein wants to change that, stressing what the oldest and largest volunteer-driven environmental group is for rather than what it opposes.

The switch in attitude became more of a necessity than an option after the terror attacks, as President Bush's approval ratings soared and concern about his environmental record receded.

If switching to a positive voice was a good idea before the attacks, "it became a brilliant idea on Sept. 11 because after that people wanted to be united, and clearly what unites people is solutions," said Carl Pope, the club's executive director.

Ferenstein, whose organization has 740,000 members, believes most Americans care about a healthy environment -- and that her organization also speaks for them. Since its beginnings in 1892, the group has become hugely influential in political advocacy.

"My big goal is that we're a reliable source of information, that we're not hyperbolic and we don't exploit situations and people's fears for our own goals," said Ferenstein, who lives in Missoula, Mont., and is the first club president from the Northern Rockies.

The Sierra Club continues to blare out "anti" messages on drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, air pollution, global warming and other issues. But there are positive messages, too -- support for new automobile fuel economy requirements, campaign finance reform and restoring wild salmon to the Pacific Northwest.

Ferenstein was elected to the one-year post last year at age 36, a far cry from the white-haired image of the club's founder, John Muir, granddaddy of American conservationists.

She brings to the job a background spanning New West backpacking and Old West cattle ranching. Ferenstein grew up in Berkeley, Calif., but spent summers working on her grandparents' 6,000-acre cattle ranch in central Oregon. She backpacked 300 miles across Montana for a month in 1997 in support of federal legislation to preserve more pristine acreage in the Northern Rockies.