The future of energy has a surprising 'big problem,' environmentalist Carl Pope reveals
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- Carl Pope is a world-renowned environmentalist that led the Sierra Club for eighteen years.
- In the first 30 years of his work the big issues were pollution, public health, and protecting natural areas and ecosystems.
- "When we got into climate, I realized there were already too many bad things in the world to protect the climate -- we needed to make good things happen," says the environmental leader.
If you work in or follow the environmental sector, then you likely know Carl Pope. A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Pope served for eighteen years as the Executive Director and Chairman of the Sierra Club.

With his leadership, the organization’s membership and budget doubled, and it took the lead in setting aside more than 50 million acres of wild areas within the National Forest System. During that time, the Sierra Club also established a pioneering program to help support environmental champions in the electoral arena, and in 2002 launched “Beyond Coal”, a ground-breaking campaign that blocked more than 80 percent of proposed new coal-fired power plants, and secured the retirement of more than 200 existing U.S. coal-burning power plants. Pope also was one of the co-authors of California’s pioneering Proposition 65, which requires businesses to provide warnings about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.