The Sierra Club has joined with Organizing For Action, an Obama-allied nonprofit group, to organize constituents of Rep. Ann Wagner to protest on Wednesday afternoon outside the congresswoman's Ballwin, Mo., office in an effort to get her to acknowledge the reality of manmade climate change.
The protestors claim the Missouri Republican has ducked questions on climate change science, and point to her participation in Americans For Prosperity's "No Climate Tax Pledge," which opposes any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.
"She's got her head in the sand," Michael Berg, an organizer for the Missouri chapter of Sierra Club, told HuffPost in an interview Wednesday. "She clearly does not admit that this is a problem and will not do anything to confront it."
Environmentalists were particularly troubled by an email Wagner sent to a constituent regarding her position on climate change, which was later reprinted in full on a little-known blog.
"The field of climate science is in its relative infancy and it appears that some within the public policy world have made dubious assessments of scientific information in order to further their own political agenda," Wagner wrote in the letter. "Our policy response to this dilemma should not be based on inconsistent and unsound science or driven by the fear of a supposed catastrophe."
Wagner spokesman Patrick Howell confirmed that the letter was written by Wagner and signaled she is open to meeting with activists to discuss their concerns, though he declined to elaborate on her opinions about climate change. "The congresswoman is always willing to meet with these groups," he told HuffPost.
The protest comes as OFA is laying the groundwork for legislative action on climate change, the first step of which involves targeting so-called climate deniers in Congress. Last month the group emailed its reported 20 million subscribers a "greatest hits" video compilation of congressmen whom it's identified as climate deniers. That video targeted Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), as well as House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and others.
This week OFA held 50 events around the country that run the gamut of praising members of Congress for their work to combat global warming, to taking on climate deniers.
"The big success is that people were organizing very locally, figuring out what was important in their congressional disctrict and running their own plan based on that," said Ivan Frishberg, the organization's climate change campaign manager. "For a lot of these places, it was just a first step. This was the first action, and then we'll be building for future actions over the course of the summer and the rest of the year."