SPECIAL EDITION: The Ouroboros of the Left

How the environmental movement devoured itself in the name of progress.

The founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir, trekked through glaciers and survived encounters with grizzlies to protect the American wilderness he loved. Now his successors can barely survive a staff meeting.

What was once a movement of conviction now collapses beneath the weight of its own contradiction. Its leaders have traded hiking boots for HR manuals and find themselves lost in a wilderness they alone built. Today, the Sierra Club serves as just another bloated nonprofit empire obsessed with moral grandstanding instead of actual stewardship.

Their downfall follows a broader trend on the left where organizations such as the Sunrise Movement, a youth group that once centered climate action, have become captured by a far-left ideology and declared themselves broad political movements. There is no focus. The only true conservation is based on fundamental principles, free from the bonds of the left’s embarrassing ideological scope creep and total loss of focus.

It turns out losing focus is expensive. According to the New York Times, the Sierra Club has lost a staggering 60 percent of its supporters since 2019 and now faces a forty-million-dollar deficit. This collapse is an unforced error, the natural consequence of an organization that forgot the mission for which it stood.

Instead of fighting for clean air or responsible land use, the Sierra Club began fighting over pronouns. Its leadership issued an “equity language guide” cautioning staff against using words such as “vibrant,” “hardworking,” and even “Americans,” arguing that these terms could reinforce bias. This is what happens when mission drift becomes doctrine. The Sierra Club’s problem is not a lack of funding or volunteers, attacks from the right, or towering environmental challenges. No, these are merely symptoms of the larger issue at play: a lack of focus and a new reverence for the purity doctrine of the left.

Both the Sunrise Movement and Sierra Club should serve as a cautionary tale: this drift away from conservation and toward social justice is not in step with Americans. Defunding the police, canceling student debt, and promoting an ever-expanding list of progressive causes has only an imagined connection to environmental protection. Every single time these groups dilute their purpose with unrelated ideological agendas, they lose credibility, coherence, and public support. Their volunteers look around, confused, and ask, “What are we doing here again?” The environmental left has become distracted by cultural activism at the expense of actually stewarding our planet. They are ultimately a victim of their own rigidity, however; the entire political left has made it clear that if you can’t pass the ever-expanding and draconian ideological purity tests, you’re an unwelcome pariah.

The tragedy is how far the Sierra Club has drifted from its own legacy. John Muir and his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, built a movement nodding to their own wonder, grit, and common sense. Their partnership created our national parks and defined conservation as a patriotic duty shared by all. The Sierra Club has, sadly, abandoned this heritage. Its leaders now condemn their founder, John Muir, for 19th-century language while ignoring 21st-century challenges such as permitting reform, wildfire management, and nuclear development. Look no further than the quote in the recent Times article where a Sierra Club biologist was scolded for saying they should lobby Colorado’s legislature for more protections for wolves and was met with “That’s fine…but what do wolves have to do with equity, justice and inclusion?” That single exchange explains the fall of the Sierra Club. When saving wolves becomes secondary to virtue signaling, you’ve lost the plot, alienating key allies in rural America, business, and the innovation sector along the way. Those serious about conservation know these communities are essential in achieving any serious environmental goal.

The Sierra Club’s self-immolation should serve as a warning. When an organization trades forests for focus groups, it loses both. When it confuses moral posturing with true purpose, it becomes irrelevant. John Muir risked his life to protect the wild. His successors cannot risk offending a committee. Until environmental groups on the left return to the clarity of that original mission, they will continue to fade, overshadowed by a new generation of conservationists who understand that saving the planet requires courage, competence, and conviction.

We’re not in struggle sessions.

We’re in the arena.

Danielle Franz is the CEO of the American Conservation Coalition. Follow her on X @DanielleBFranz.