Josh Dorner is the Sierra Club's Deputy Press Secretary, covering energy and global warming issues, as well as the Club's independent political work on behalf of candidates up and down the ballot. He blogs at AlterNet, Gristmill, and Sierra Club's Compass blog.

He has appeared in the Washington Post, Guardian, the Economist, and numerous other major media outlets. He also writes Sierra Club RAW, a weekly snarkfest that takes a look at the week's most unbelievable environmental news.



Josh holds a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College and a master's degree from the London School of Economics.

Blog Entries by Josh Dorner

A Desperate Fili-Boehner to Stop Clean Energy

2 Comments | Posted June 26, 2009 | 08:15 PM (EST)


An embattled conservative minority that is out of ideas and beholden to Big Oil, Dirty Coal, and other polluters threw everything they had at the comprehensive clean energy jobs plan passed by the House of Representatives. But Minority Leader John Boehner sank to a new low in the clean energy...

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Big Coal Writing House GOP Talking Points on Clean Energy Bill

3 Comments | Posted June 19, 2009 | 01:44 PM (EST)


Dirty energy interests have long held sway with the GOP's leading figures. In fact, we don't even have to merely speculate that the Bush-Cheney energy policy was written both by and for the coal, oil, and nuclear industries. We have proof.

And now we have proof that Big Coal...

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VIDEO: Big Oil CEO Agrees to Lobby Against Coal with Sierra Club

Posted June 11, 2009 | 01:27 PM (EST)


Over a year ago, shareholder activist, current Sierra Club director, and past Sierra Club President Larry Fahn challenged the CEO of Chevron to a debate with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. After a year of dithering and delay from Chevron, Pope and Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly finally met last...

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House GOP on Energy: All Hat, No Cattle

1 Comments | Posted May 22, 2009 | 04:04 PM (EST)


As a fellow blogger wrote today, the minority on the House Energy & Commerce led by "Smokey Joe" Barton of Texas (R-Big Oil) turned out to be all hat and no cattle when it came to stopping the comprehensive clean energy jobs plan that passed the committee 33-25 last...

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The Faux MB Environmental Scandal That Wasn't

1 Comments | Posted May 15, 2009 | 04:46 PM (EST)


Like most of the rest of the DC enviro set, I spent Tuesday morning waiting with baited breath for details of the compromise around the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill to come over the transom. But then midway through the morning the blogs and newswires were suddenly atwitter with...

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House GOP on Clean Energy: Lights, Camera, Inaction!

4 Comments | Posted May 1, 2009 | 05:08 PM (EST)


It would truly take a production worthy of Broadway to convince the public that what we heard from House conservatives (and Newt Gingrich) last week was anything but a re-tread of the failed Dick Cheney/drill, baby, drill energy non-solutions they've been pushing for at least a decade now. So...

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Newt King Coal & Other Big Oil Buffoons

29 Comments | Posted April 24, 2009 | 01:51 PM (EST)


This week, the defenders of dirty energy really, really outdid themselves in their efforts to try and derail the clean energy jobs plan currently starting to wend its way through the House of Representatives. The House Energy & Commerce Committee held a marathon series of hearings on the plan,...

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EPA Regulations Will Destroy Economy, Says GOP

4 Comments | Posted April 22, 2009 | 06:27 PM (EST)


When I first saw the Earth Day message from House GOP Leader John Boehner come across my Twitter feed, I almost thought it was a joke. Boehner's blog basically outlines the main argument for letting the Environmental Protection Agency move forward with regulations to limit global warming pollution: that...

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April's Climate Fool: Marc Morano

1 Comments | Posted April 10, 2009 | 03:59 PM (EST)


The most denying-est denier of all, Marc Morano, former flak to Senator James Inhofe launched a new denialist website this week called Climate Depot (and no, I won't link to it). It promises to give climate the ol' "fair and balanced" treatment, which apparently means the usual denialist dreck...

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Michael Steele Punk'd by Dead Vikings

Posted March 20, 2009 | 02:40 PM (EST)


Everyone's favorite GOP muppet, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, really managed to outdo himself this week. And considering how things have gone for him so far, that's really saying something.

Your correspondent is not sure whether it's good or bad for Mr. Steele that he hosted an entire 2-hour radio show...

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Virtual Clean Car Show Proves That California Global Warming Standards Are Doable--Today

Posted March 5, 2009 | 11:31 AM (EST)


Today the Environmental Protection Agency is holding a public hearing (almost a novelty after 8 years of utter disregard for the public's opinion) here in D.C. to review the Bush administration's unlawful denial of the Clean Air Act waiver that California needs to move forward with its landmark global...

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Coal Industry Front Group CEO Refuses to Say Whether Burning Coal Causes Global Warming (VIDEO)

Posted March 4, 2009 | 01:56 PM (EST)


This morning, CNN ran a piece featuring Bruce Nilles, Director of Sierra Club's Move Beyond Coal Campaign, discussing the fabulous new Reality Coalition (of which Sierra Club is also a part) anti-"clean coal" ad. The new ad, directed by the Academy Award-winning Coen Brothers, has generated

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Use Your Cell Phone Cam to Tell EPA You Want Clean Cars

Posted March 3, 2009 | 01:26 PM (EST)


President Obama is listening. One of the first things his new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Lisa Jackson, did was to acknowledge that Americans want cleaner cars; cars that go further on a gallon of gas and emit less global warming pollution.

EPA is now considering whether to...

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Will-ful Deceit at the Washington Post

Posted February 27, 2009 | 03:29 PM (EST)


The earth may be warming at an ever-quickening pace, but it's the climate blogosphere that's been burning white hot this week.

After years of soft-pedaling the science around global warming and actively abetting the Bush administration's strategy of sowing doubt about the problem, it seemed like the media had more...

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Enough is Enough: Confirm Solis Now

Posted February 6, 2009 | 04:17 PM (EST)


As more than 2,500 environmental and labor activists gathered this week in Washington D.C. at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference, the nation's chief green jobs advocate-in-waiting, Labor Secretary-Designate Hilda Solis, remains in political purgatory thanks to conservative objections to a long overdue piece of legislation that will...

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Sierra Club RAW: The End of an Era

Posted January 16, 2009 | 12:51 PM (EST)


Our long national nightmare is (almost) over. We've laughed; we've cried.

(But mostly we've cried -- except when reading RAW*, natch.)

It is a momentous occasion I never thought Dick Cheney would allow to happen: the final Friday of the Bush administration. And with it comes the...

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Lisa Jackson: Music to My Ears

Posted January 14, 2009 | 01:23 PM (EST)


What a difference an election makes. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator-designate Lisa Jackson was in the dock before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today and I agree with Barbara Boxer that Jackson's answers to many questions were "music to my ears." (And that's not just because I now have...

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WATCH: Celebs Thank Obama, Talk Substance on Energy, Global Warming

Posted January 12, 2009 | 03:10 PM (EST)


Some of the Sierra Club's BFFs in the entertainment industry got together to make this video to congratulate President-Elect Obama and thank him for the extraordinary leadership he has already demonstrated on environmental issues. But the video is more than just an ode to the awesomeness of the President-Elect. The...

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NBC Confirms That "Clean Coal" is an Oxymoron

Posted November 18, 2008 | 07:50 PM (EST)


It's Green Week at NBC (and all other NBC-Universal properties) and thus we're treated to an extra helping of energy and environment stories from Nightly's globe-trotting, business savvy environment correspondent, Anne Thompson. Tonight's report included some serious straight talk about so-called "clean coal."

Brian Williams began with a remarkable lead-in:

...
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Obama Hits Green Homerun With Remarks to Govs on Energy, Climate

Posted November 18, 2008 | 03:14 PM (EST)


Much like Al Gore's surprise appearance at Netroots Nation this summer (which seems like eons ago at this point), I am told that President-Elect Barack Obama's taped message to the Bi-Partisan Governor's Global Climate Summit was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation earlier today.

President-Elect Obama's remarks...

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