Environmental activist Aaron Mair was elected president of the Sierra Club. The appointment makes him the first African American person to lead the Club.
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?We founded Green 2.0 to manifest a more diverse and inclusive environmental movement. I congratulate Mr. Mair and the Sierra Club on this historic election as the organization?s first African American president. I am certain that with Mair in this role, the ?green ceiling? will continue to crack,? said Green 2.0 Founder Robert Raben.
Mair?s career, marked by civil rights and urban environmental advocacy, began 31-years ago. His extensive experience includes working as an epidemiological disease-mapping expert at the New York State Department of Health. Between 1984 and 1994 Mair led an historic grassroots-organized, environmental justice effort that led to the shutdown of the Albany-New York State Waste to Energy Recovery System (A.N.S.W.E.R.S.) that was negatively impacting the health of his family and inner-city African American residents.
For the Sierra Club, he served as the former chair of the 41,000-member New York Atlantic Chapter and was the recipient of the EPA?s Citizen Environmentalist Activist Award.
