FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCT 16, 2025
MEDIA CONTACT: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Urges Sierra Club to Address U.S. Military's Environmental Impact
OAKLAND – CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans and Bay Area CODEPINK volunteers delivered a letter to Sierra Club leadership on Thursday to the organization's headquarters in Oakland, urging the environmental group to acknowledge and address the U.S. military's significant role in the climate crisis.
The letter emphasizes the intersection between anti-war and environmental movements, highlighting that U.S. military operations are major contributors to environmental degradation. The Pentagon is recognized as the world's largest institutional polluter, with ongoing military activities and a growing number of U.S. military bases across the globe that lead to substantial greenhouse gas emissions and ecological harm.
No one at Sierra Club answered the doorbell, so CODEPINK slid the letter under the door.
CODEPINK points out that the Sierra Club, with its 3.8 million members, estimated $195 million in revenue, and substantial influence, is well-positioned to create large-scale impacts in the environmental movement and philanthropic landscape, to bring attention to the environmental consequences of militarism– a topic avoided by much of the climate space due to political redlines, like those around the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The organization urges the Sierra Club to include anti-war activism in its advocacy efforts, aiming to build a unified movement addressing both environmental preservation and peace.
This is the first step in CODEPINK’s latest Elephant in the Room campaign aimed at advocating to “Big Green” climate justice organizations with annual revenue estimated at around $4 billion a year. The campaign aims to create substantial impacts in grassroots organizing and advocacy by not only acknowledging the role of militarism and war in the ever-growing climate crisis, but also working with the peace and justice movement to advocate for cutting the Pentagon, closing U.S. bases, and actively speaking out against wars and genocides the United States is directly or indirectly involved in across the world.
For more information about the campaign, please contact Aaron at [email protected]
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