While I’m pleased to see Michael wants to welcome Jane Hamsher and other progressives to the Sierra Club under his watch, I’m waiting for Michael to do what any good host does before he throws a housewarming party: clean the house.

Sierra Club loyalists were quick to defend the club, saying that the Sierra Club is a “grassroots organization” and that the article “insults those very volunteers and every Sierra Club member who has ever volunteered to help with an environmental cause.”

There was absolutely no insult meant towards those that donate their time and money to the Sierra Club’s efforts. Quite the opposite. I respect the work that committed grassroots environmentalists do, and believe it’s important to ask if there are other organizations out there more deserving of their support. I do not believe that the Sierra Club, which has aligned itself so tightly with political and corporate interests, is providing leadership worthy of those efforts.

The Sierra Club’s alliance with elite interests has turned it into the antithesis of a “grassroots” organization.