Environmental and Humanitarian Organizations

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In a letter to members, President Denny Shaffer says, "The Sierra Club is truly a unique organization, combining environmental lobbying, litigation, outings, book publishing, and—most important—grass-roots activism. The club's work is accomplished, in large part, through the unpaid, volunteer activities of its members. In the past two years, our membership has doubled. making the Sierra Club the fastest-growing conservation group in the world. This tremendous growth is a testament not only to the club's 92-year tradition of conservation effectiveness but also to the increased need for a strong Sierra Club: The Reagan administration has challenged virtually every program designed to protect our environment, wilderness areas, and public health."

A complete list of the Sierra Club's achievements would fill many more pages than we have available here. Its current legislative priorities include the reauthorization of the Clear Air and Clean Water acts, increasing the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency monitoring minerals leasing on public lands, and pushing through the largest number of wilderness bills (30) since the Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964.

Sierra Club membership is $29 per year and includes a subscription to the excellent Sierra magazine, plus a variety of special mailers and "action alerts," which are published as needed.

If you'd like to add your voice to the club's, efforts, write to the Sierra Club, 530 Bush St., San Francisco, CA 94108.

ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

There are nearly 4.8 billion people crowding the world today. That figure represents a doubling since World War II. At the current rate of growth, the global population will double again within 40 years (it's increased nearly 85 million in the last year alone).

Sound like a problem? Overpopulation is, in fact, the problem of our time ...and the cause of a majority of the world's other, lesser-by-comparison, troubles and threats. Someone should do something about it.

And someone is trying to. Zero Population Growth (ZPG) is now in its sixteenth year of struggling for reproductive sanity in the world. In 1968 when population biologist and writer Dr. Paul Erlich and a handful of other concerned people formed ZPG, the U.S. fertility rate (the average number of children per childbearing woman) was 2.5-or .5 above '`replacement level." By the early 1980's, the fertility rate had fallen to 1.8 ...and ZPG played a large role in bringing about that reduction. But today the preponderance of teenage girls and older "baby boom" women having children is combining with a high immigration rate to reverse the trendmeaning that the U.S., contrary to popular belief, is not even close to reaching ZPG. It is, in fact, among the fastest-growing of industrialized nations.

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