The Sacramento Bee profiles the new executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, who comes on board the country’s largest environmental organization on March 15. Citing Brune’s prior leadership at the radical, fond-of-disruption Rain Forest Action Network, the Bee’s story is headlined, “New leader looks to fire up Sierra Club.”

By powering down the United States.

At the heart of that struggle, Brune says, lies America’s continued dependence on coal-fired electricity plants – plants which currently provide an estimated 45 percent of the nation’s energy but which are a major sources of greenhouse gas emissions…[snip]

“We must replace dirty coal in this country,” Brune said. “We must continue this fight until we convince our political and industry leaders that there are more economic benefits to be had by transitioning to wind power and other forms of clean energy.”

It’s fantasy to argue that “wind power and other forms of clean energy” can supplant coal, especially when Brune — as reported in this NewJerseyNews.com profile — opposes nuclear power.

Here’s what the Energy Information Administration had to say in its annual energy outlook about coal’s future role in the U.S. economy through 2035:

Total coal consumption increases from 22.4 quadrillion Btu (1,122 million short tons) in 2008 to 25.6 quadrillion Btu (1,319 million short tons) in 2035 in the AEO2010 reference case. Coal consumption, mostly for electric power generation, grows gradually throughout the projection period, as existing plants are used more intensively, and new plants, which are already under construction, are completed and enter service.

Brune’s leadership involves getting arrested in flashy protest actions with the usual suspects like Darryl Hannah and James Hansen.

Funny, too, that Brune rises to power advocating extreme action even as the anti-energy climate activists are in retreat scientifically and politically. When even The Washington Post has to acknowledge the seriously flawed “evidence”* being used to push a global economic restructuring — page one Monday, “Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda” — then the movement is losing steam. Can a radical program of civil disobedience fire up the more mainstream Sierra Club or just cost it members?

The new head of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, intends to bring a more aggressive, anti-business activism to the nation’s largest environmental organization.

Yes, if there’s one thing America doesn’t have enough of, it’s radical environmental groups campaigning against economic activity and jobs.

Grist, an activist web/newsite, interviews Michael Brune in a  report, “New Sierra Club chief brings confrontational style to the job.” Staff writer Jonathan Hiskes provides the context:

The Sierra Club’s new leader will come to the job with a record of “environmental agitation” against big industrial polluters.  The group announced on Wednesday that Michael Brune, 38, currently head of Rainforest Action Network (RAN), will replace Carl Pope as executive director as of March 15. Brunehoned RAN’s strategy of negotiating politely with corporate heavyweights such as Bank of America, Citigroup, and General Motors—and then, if they don’t clean up their acts, campaigning mercilessly against them. The two-pronged approach earned results that belie RAN’s modest size—it helped convince Home Depot to stop selling wood from endangered forests, for example.

Brune spoke to me about his plans to bring similar ferocity to the comparatively mild Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental group, which claims 1.3 million members. With its self-governing regional chapters, its way-outside-the-beltway headquarters in San Francisco, and a smaller D.C. policy shop than other Big Green groups, the Sierra Club has always relied more on grassroots advocacy than direct work with Congress.

 And from the subsequent Q&A:

Q: What habits and ways of thinking—perhaps acquired in the ‘60s—does the movement need to shed?

A: I’m reluctant to criticize folks on whose shoulders we’re standing. The work that was done in the ‘60s and ‘70s might be a little outdated, perhaps, but the results have improved the lives of millions of people.

That said, there is important work to be done in the near term, such as isolating the corporations and public institutions that are most resistant to change, that are most aggressively fighting to maintain a failing status quo.

The name Saul Alinsky has been thrown around a lot over the past few years, as left-wing activists like  — and more recently, some conservative activists — draw inspiration from the dead labor/community organizer’s “Rules for Radicals.” And while there are many radical traditions, Brune’s comments and use of words like “isolating” smack of Alinsky’s strategy and tactics, such as his ’60s campaign against Eastman-Kodak in Rochester, N.Y.

We assert that most Americans aren’t radical, dislike the demonization of American employers, and reject the full-scale social transformation promoted by the more extreme environmental groups. The Sierra Club could find itself marginalized, or at least a smaller organization, under the new leadership. But no doubt the organization’s board of directors thought this through and made a choice.

UPDATE (11:35 a.m.): Sierra Club’s news release, soft-sell bio and Q&A.