Under the leadership of a man named Michael Brune, the Sierra Club—once a pillar of the environmental movement—rushed headlong into the most anti-capitalist and hard-left causes imaginable.
The club widely touted the book Capitalism vs. the Climate, which declared “our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.” It told its staff that equity demanded they stop saying “Americans”, which excludes non-citizens, or “hardworking,” which reinforces racism. Most hilariously, it sued to block zero-emissions solar energy projects in Puerto Rico, calling panels on agricultural land “a serious attack on food security.”
Now, the man who made the Sierra Club into a caricature has, apparently, seen the light. Brune recently announced the launch of the Clean Break Fund, a market-based climate investment vehicle explicitly committed—in its own words—to “market-based and limited-government ideals.”
Whether it’s hypocrisy or a genuine road to Damascus moment, all I can say is “hallelujah!” The man who wanted to destroy the free market now apparently recognizes the truth that markets are the greatest force benefiting the environment on planet earth.
To understand how remarkable Brune’s conversion is, you have to understand what he built — and what he left behind.
For all its manifold flaws, the Sierra Club of the past was undoubtedly focused on environmental concerns. But under Brune’s leadership, the club adopted the ridiculous left-wing principle of ideological intersectionality, believing that one could not achieve “climate justice” or “environmental justice” (whatever those terms mean) without caring about racial justice, immigrant justice, or whatever else “the current thing” happened to be.
In short order, the group denounced its founder, John Muir, as a racist. At one point, the club redirected the equivalent of 108 full-time employees toward a “national equity investment” — leaving only two to work on the Trump administration’s Arctic policy. When a Colorado volunteer suggested the club lobby to protect wolves, a staff member stopped her: “What do wolves have to do with equity, justice, and inclusion?”
Good point: the Gray Wolves of the American West are ambiguously colored. Maybe if they were just black or just white, they would matter to the Sierra Club.
The members noticed the absurdity. In 2020, dues-paying members ranked climate change first among their priorities and racism dead last. More than half said they worried the club’s leftward drift “will detract from its core mission.” Nobody listened.
By the time Brune departed, the Sierra Club was staring at a $40 million projected budget deficit, hemorrhaging members, and falling into a far-left black hole. (Excuse the non-inclusive language.)
And yet here is Brune in 2026, running a fund that invests in private companies using innovation and capital markets to pull carbon from the atmosphere. Diversity, inclusion, protests, petitions, and anti-growth lawsuits are out. Free market funding is in.
Welcome to the party, Michael. The door was always open.
Brune’s conversion is shocking. It’s also the first time he’s been right about environmental policy. Real environmental results aren’t driven by NGO activism, but by the power of innovation and freedom.
Consider what markets have produced while the Sierra Club was busy writing language guides. Seventy-three percent of new American solar capacity installed in 2025 went up in states that voted for Donald Trump — not because of progressive activism, but because the economics worked. Solar manufacturing in the U.S. is up 37 percent since President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Eighty-five percent of clean energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act landed in Republican congressional districts, where companies found lower taxes and fewer regulations. Carbon removal — the exact space Brune is now investing in — isn’t happening because of government mandates, but thanks to private development.
The environmental left spent a generation treating capitalism as the enemy. Meanwhile, capitalism was busy building the clean energy economy they claimed to want.
I’m glad Brune finally recognizes the truth. But it’s still a tragedy that it took destroying a 134-year-old organization by allowing it to turn into a progressive grievance machine to realize what the evidence has shown all along.
Markets work. They worked before Brune figured it out, and they’ll keep working long after the Sierra Club stops imploding. The only question is how much time and how many institutions the environmental left has to burn through before the rest of them see the light.
Chris Johnson is the founder and president of the American Energy Leadership Institute.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
If Brune really cared about the environment, as opposed to green orthodoxy, he would favor nuclear power. Wind and solar will
never be adequate.
It ain’t carbon – periodic table of the elements #6 “C” – it’s CO2 he wants to pull, a trace gas in the atmosphere that is vital plant nutrient. We need more CO2 up there, not less. Not only is Brune not right on environmental police, it sure looks like the leader of the American Energy Leadership Institute is in dire need of extensive climate science education.
Still pissing $$$$s away on solar farms though.
Has anyone told him that they only deliver about 20% of what they’re built to deliver?
See, there’s this thing called night-time . . .
re: “Brune’s conversion is shocking.”
Reversion to the mean (the arithmetic average) in 3 … 2 … 1
conversion?
Compulsive liars don’t stop being compulsive liars, even when it’s to their advantage to tell the truth.
The only question is how much time and how many institutions the environmental left has to burn through before the rest of them see the light.
I can state quite categorically that the UK – in the light of the obvious need to exploit our own resources – is only interested in doubling down on the net zero fantasy. Not withstanding warm beer, or a pie that barely saw an oven. The government shifted green levies off of energy bills and onto taxation. Those subsidies have only changed in source, they haven’t magically disappeared, but…
Part of Labour’s challenge is that it dearly wants to claim credit for the £117-a-year cut to household utility bills that was a central theme in the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.
That reduction, paid for by shifting the cost of green schemes on to general taxation – Guardian
They really do assume we are all as thick as they are
So now he’s “running a fund that invests in private companies using innovation and capital markets to pull carbon from the atmosphere”. Sounds to me like he’s looking to profit on the government-funded Green Scam, at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers.
Some conversion.
It’ll be fun watching that fund go broke.
“to pull carbon from the atmosphere”
Sound like Direct Air Capture to me, one of the most thermodynamically idiotic technologies ever.
It seems to me this guy has just changed horses in the scramble to spend other people’s money on saving the planet from Carbon Dioxide. This is the kind of stuff he has always worked on.
Then there is this from Wikipedia: Following an essay by Brune condemning Sierra Club founder John Muir as a racist, a number of long-time members resigned from the Sierra Club and removed the organization from their estate plans.
Exactly. Follow the money. In reality, he’s a capitalist of the worst sort.
So Brune wants to use the right method to solve the wrong problem!
CO2 capture is not needed, as it is a wholly beneficial trace gas. Lots of companies have tried this and failed, not because it is impossible but because it is impossibly expensive. Lots of “green” money available to those who say “We can do it”, but every dollar will be wasted. Just the latest in a long line of scams.
Off Topic – but kind of relevant
Preston Byrne was the 4Chan lawyer who extracted the urine out of Ofcom[munism] by responding to a large ‘Ofcommunist’ fine with a picture of a hamster dressed as Godzilla….
Britain Needs a Free Speech Bill. Here’s What it Should Look Like
So, Republicans suck pork better by throwing up fewer obstacles to waste, and the S Club scammer figured it out.
I am waiting for the flame wrriors to come in and say, “See, I told you so.”
At last, your long & lonely wait is over …
“See, I told you so.” (:-))
Humor – a difficult concept.
— Lt. Saavik
Just trying to remember when “renewable energy” officially was renamed “clean energy.”
All energy is clean. It is how the energy is produced and distributed that plays into the definition. Simplified for common consumption, obviously.
CO2 is not dirty..
WTGs, SV, and batteries are the dirties of all given real pollution and toxic waste.
“but because the economics worked”
No. The economics did not work, especially without all the tax payer cashed handed out.
It is true the economics (taxes and regulations) were less burdensome, but the real reason was to try to turn red states purple.
Progressives like to rename things. The clean energy came at about the time the global warming was replaced by a climate change.
Maybe Brune took a clue from Musk?
and maybe they both took a clue from Marx.
(Groucho, that is –
“these are my principles, but if you don’t like them, I have others . . . )
Carbon sequestration is no less a scam than the ******* justice (insert your favorite identity category here) ‘movements.’ Giving Brune credit for changing tactics is misplaced recognition. It seems far more likely that he recognized the loss of supporters (read “dollars”) due to the growing awareness of the illogical nature of identity politics, and decided to try a different scam.
At the Mauna Loa Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is currently 429 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,290 g and contains a mere 0.84 g of CO2 at STP. The reasons there is such a low amount of CO2 in the air is due to Mother Nature’s carbon capture and storage systems. These are:
Since the pH of ocean water is about 8.1, a large amount of CO2 is converted bicarbonate and carbonate anions. These are used by corals and shellfish to form calcium carbonate which is structural material of their shells.
CO2 is fairly soluble in 100 ml of ice cold water can hold up to 171 mls of CO2. There is no need to capture CO2 the air.
So, the threat to shell fish is not ocean “acidification” dissolving the shells, but a Net Zero lack of CO2 need for the chemistry the shell fish need for their shells.
I want my reparations from him and that group for all the damages they caused.
In what sense are you claiming that “capitalism” built the clean energy economy? Solar and wind were built by government fiat, not by market forces.
Anytime I hear the other side talking about using markets to fight global warming I grab my wallet and go the other way. There is nothing holy about markets. Yes a lightly regulated free market is superior to other economies. Markets can be used for good or bad. Almost all of the markets most of us are exposed to are a good thing. Free markets in dangerous drugs is probably not a good thing and depending on your values the same goes for pornography, human trafficking, some arms and on and on. The problem here is that the other side’s idea of market values isn’t the same as mine. Artificially raising the price of fuel and energy by way of government taxes or fees to make energy or EVs seem like a good buy is not a good use of markets. Artificially lowering the cost of wind, solar and EVs by way of subsidies or grants to make them appear to be a good buy is not a good use of markets. The best use of markets is to prohibit interference and let people buy and use what they want and need.
In breaking news I know many of you here will be shocked to hear of the US brain drain-
US scientists are ‘escaping Trump’s anti-climate agenda’ to Norway
Poor Norway. They will find that “scientists” that are upset with “Trump’s anti-climate agenda” aren’t worth the powder it would take to dispose of them. Hardly a “brain drain” and likely a cleanup of many fields.
“Scientists are attracted to Norway, Ms Aasland said, because of the oil-rich country’s well-funded institutions, high quality of life and its position on the “front line” of the climate crisis, with around 35 per cent of its landmass lying north of the Arctic Circle.”
An oil rich country on the frontlines of the climate crisis?
Oh the irony of it.
““Climate change is an enormous threat to life and well-being,” she said. “Therefore, we need to better understand it so that we can mitigate it as effectively as possible.””
Climate change is a threat but we need to better understand it.
Declare something you do not understand is a threat?
Oh the irony.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
As to fleeing? An alternative not mentioned is there was grant money there and it is like nectar to a bee.
Article produced by the Gates funded “Rethinking Global Aid” organization.
MSM republished the article first published in the Independent.
Hoax is intended to fool people. Scam is intended to fool people out of their money. This was always a scam.
The article doesn’t mention this point:
I would be happy if the Sierra Club stopped funding Canadian NGO’s to hire professional protesters to disrupt pipelines. It’s none of their business.
We have enough foreign interference without Russian and Soros money via Bermudian trusts) funneled to the SC causing chaos and injuries in Canada without the SC piling on their craziness.
Once infiltrators takes hold, there is no end to the nonsense. The Premier of BC once asked, “Why is it that all over the province at every “protest” it is always the same faces?” One NGO in Vancouver admitted in a CBC interview that they were paid $17,000 per week by American agencies to fund protests.
Here’s an example:
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/coastal-gaslink-site-in-b-c-left-with-millions-in-damage-after-violent-attack-by-masked-assailants-wielding-axes