Hi, all! I hope everyone is having a happy, healthy and safe Semiquincentennial summer (yes I had to look that up) and that you have not suffered too harshly from the heatwaves and the smoke from Canadian forest fires, among other climate-related hazards (and other man-made ones like the state-owned Capitol Area System gas burning heating and cooling facility in Hartford – shown above on a particularly hot and smokey day in July).

 

The day after this newsletter goes out I’ll be heading to the Cape on a camping trip. Camping is something I grew up doing with my parents, and I’ve continued doing it with my kids. In fact, I was on a cross-country camping trip with my parents and my brother the summer of our Bicentennial, and I can say, based on my experience at least, there was a much better spirit in our country in 1976 than there is today.

 

But that’s not a big surprise, is it? Take camping as one quality of life example. While still being less expensive than other ways to vacation, it is obviously more costly and less doable in the summer of 2026 on a relative basis. In 1976, my family of four on a single teacher’s salary could afford to have a house, a car, and a campervan, and could manage to take time off and pay for a summer long camping trip across the United States (and other long trips in the summers before and after). Would that be feasible for such a family now? I doubt it.

 

And it’s not just the cost of living/quality of life for average Americans that has gotten worse since that Bicentennial summer. We have seen the degradation of our natural resources and our national parks (Trump’s executive orders shrinking the size of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears being just two recent examples); worsening pollution of our air, water, and land; and increasing damages from climate change. I believe the economic and environmental harm we have witnessed over the past 50 years are part and parcel of the same problem. National policy has both created a massive wealth gap (the United States ranks among the most unequal developed nations, with the top 10% holding approximately 67% of all U.S. household wealth, and holds the highest CEO-to-worker pay gap in the developed world) and allowed the rich to accumulate that wealth by polluting our environment, emitting more carbon than any other nation and stalling the transition to clean renewable energy.

 

My hope, though, is that we’re on the verge of a new era (New Deal Era 1933 to 1980, Bad Deal Era 1980 to 2026?) and that we can all do our part to usher in a better one. At the Sierra Club, we focus on missions such as environmental protection (read Brenny Alcantara’s article on his Ride to End Fossil Fuels), clean energy (see Geremy Schulick’s article on vehicle-to-grid) and climate change (read Syed Noorwez’s article on Project Beacon). But we act in solidarity with individuals and organizations that work on civil rights, economic justice, affordable housing, access to health care, and other critical issues in our communities. Going forward we want to continue to strengthen these connections so that we are all supporting and amplifying each other's causes and are united on one overarching goal: a Better Deal for all of us and our planet.

 

In that spirit (the spirit of ‘76?), we will be hosting a Climate Fest on Saturday, September 19 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Parkville Market in Hartford. More details will be provided next month, but there will be speakers, poetry and music, opportunities to connect with a number of organizations and community members working on improving quality of life in Connecticut, and, as always at Parkville Market, a huge variety of good eats. I hope you’ll be able to join us. It should be fun, and a great way to start building momentum toward a joyful, clean and cool Tricentennial (and putting this Semiquincentennial in our rearview mirror).

 

In the meantime, have a great rest of your summer!

 

With solidarity and care, 

 

Mike Ungaro

Chapter Chair of Sierra Club Connecticut