He radicalized the Sierra Club. Now he’s preaching markets

Under the leadership of a man named Michael Brune, the Sierra Club—once a pillar of the environmental movement—rushed headlong into the most anti-capitalist and hard-left causes imaginable.

The club widely touted the book Capitalism vs. the Climate, which declared “our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.” It told its staff that equity demanded they stop saying  “Americans”, which excludes non-citizens, or “hardworking,” which reinforces racism. Most hilariously, it sued to block zero-emissions solar energy projects in Puerto Rico, calling panels on agricultural land “a serious attack on food security.”

Now, the man who made the Sierra Club into a caricature has, apparently, seen the light. Brune recently announced the launch of the Clean Break Fund, a market-based climate investment vehicle explicitly committed—in its own words—to “market-based and limited-government ideals.”

Whether it’s hypocrisy or a genuine road to Damascus moment, all I can say is “hallelujah!” The man who wanted to destroy the free market now apparently recognizes the truth that markets are the greatest force benefiting the environment on planet earth.

To understand how remarkable Brune’s conversion is, you have to understand what he built — and what he left behind.

For all its manifold flaws, the Sierra Club of the past was undoubtedly focused on environmental concerns. But under Brune’s leadership, the club adopted the ridiculous left-wing principle of ideological intersectionality, believing that one could not achieve “climate justice” or “environmental justice” (whatever those terms mean) without caring about racial justice, immigrant justice, or whatever else “the current thing” happened to be.

In short order, the group denounced its founder, John Muir, as a racist. At one point, the club redirected the equivalent of 108 full-time employees toward a “national equity investment” — leaving only two to work on the Trump administration’s Arctic policy. When a Colorado volunteer suggested the club lobby to protect wolves, a staff member stopped her: “What do wolves have to do with equity, justice, and inclusion?”

Good point: the Gray Wolves of the American West are ambiguously colored. Maybe if they were just black or just white, they would matter to the Sierra Club.

The members noticed the absurdity. In 2020, dues-paying members ranked climate change first among their priorities and racism dead last. More than half said they worried the club’s leftward drift “will detract from its core mission.” Nobody listened.

By the time Brune departed, the Sierra Club was staring at a $40 million projected budget deficit, hemorrhaging members, and falling into a far-left black hole. (Excuse the non-inclusive language.)

And yet here is Brune in 2026, running a fund that invests in private companies using innovation and capital markets to pull carbon from the atmosphere. Diversity, inclusion, protests, petitions, and anti-growth lawsuits are out. Free market funding is in.

Welcome to the party, Michael. The door was always open.

Brune’s conversion is shocking. It’s also the first time he’s been right about environmental policy. Real environmental results aren’t driven by NGO activism, but by the power of innovation and freedom.

Consider what markets have produced while the Sierra Club was busy writing language guides. Seventy-three percent of new American solar capacity installed in 2025 went up in states that voted for Donald Trump — not because of progressive activism, but because the economics worked. Solar manufacturing in the U.S. is up 37 percent since President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Eighty-five percent of clean energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act landed in Republican congressional districts, where companies found lower taxes and fewer regulations. Carbon removal — the exact space Brune is now investing in — isn’t happening because of government mandates, but thanks to private development.

The environmental left spent a generation treating capitalism as the enemy. Meanwhile, capitalism was busy building the clean energy economy they claimed to want.

I’m glad Brune finally recognizes the truth. But it’s still a tragedy that it took destroying a 134-year-old organization by allowing it to turn into a progressive grievance machine to realize what the evidence has shown all along.

Markets work. They worked before Brune figured it out, and they’ll keep working long after the Sierra Club stops imploding. The only question is how much time and how many institutions the environmental left has to burn through before the rest of them see the light.

Chris Johnson is the founder and president of the American Energy Leadership Institute.