BY MARIE GRAVELLE
Statesman Journal

September 12, 1997

The president of America's largest environmental group has a
collection of Pez toy candy dispensers on his desk.

The plastic renditions -- Garfield, Darth Vader, Miss Piggy -- sit
beside a photograph of John Muir.

This president also surfs occasionally, plays in a funk band and
makes commercials for MTV.

At 24, you could say Adam Werbach is a little different from those
who preceded him at the helm of the 105-year-old Sierra Club.

"It's time to celebrate. We have to party," the youngest-ever club
leader said recently.

"Things are getting better.  We've got to celebrate the successes."

He cites improving air quality in the Los Angeles area and the
preservation of some Northern California forests as examples of
environmental achievements.

Perhaps because of his youth, or because he was indoctrinated young
(his parents were club members), Werbach puts children first on his
agenda.

That's why he agreed to travel to Salem today to the International
Youth Environmental Summit.  This gathering of 100 students from six
nations has been in Salem all week setting goals for cleaning up
worldwide toxic waste, repairing deforested lands, controlling
urbanization and dealing with corporations that pollute.

Werbach will speak at the summit's closing ceremonies at 7:30 p.m. in
Willamette University's Smith Auditorium.  He'll be speaking to an
audience of teens only a few years younger than himself.

His GQ-looks and media savvy may have helped his quick rise to
prominence in the environmental world.  But his drive can hardly be
criticized.

At age 8, when his pals were playing with their Pez candy dispensers,
Werbach organized a petition campaign among second-graders to help
oust former Secretary of Interior James Watt.

Other Sierra Club chapters participated as well, and the secretary
eventually was kicked out.

"I was lucky to have early successes," Werbach said.

In high school, he founded the Sierra Student Coalition and managed
to convince 30,000 volunteers to join than campaign.

Then, in 1994, he was the youngest person elected to the Sierra
Club's Board of Directors and subsequently became its youngest
president.

And he just wrote a book.

"Like in college, I've had to pull some all-nighters," he said.  The
book, "Act Now, Apologize Later," will be out soon.

Attitude may be everything, but for Werbach, policy is even more
important.

For two years, he's been working to move the club away from its
lobbying base in Washington, D.C., and bring it home to the state and
local level.

"I think the political game is ridiculous," Werbach said. "We've
transferred 80 percent of the money we spent on lobbying and put it
into grass-roots organizations.

"We still have people talking to members of Congress, but we're
focusing on creating public demand for a cleaner environment."

Gaining congressional favors is an uphill battle, he said. "They have
their hands so far into the tills of corporate America that they
aren't focusing on our rights."

Tonight, Werbach will show teens how they can succeed at organizing
and changing the way things are done.  He will point to the successes
and call for more.

Werbach will tell them not to trust cynics.  He'll probably talk
about Oregon's clearcuts, which he calls "mountains with malaria."
And he will ask teens to work for their future.

But back to that age thing.

Isn't he too young for this president's job?

"I'm probably too old," he replied.  "When I was 16, I didn't see the
boundaries.  I knew what was unacceptable.

"The challenge for those of us who are no longer 16 is to empower
those 16-year-olds to lead us."