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January 25, 2008 > News > Anti-coal group begins activism on campus

Anti-coal group begins activism on campus

Sierra Student Coalition plans on lobbying Houston-based Dynergy energy

By Joyce Yao | Thresher staff

More than fifty people from Rice and the greater Houston community filled Sammy’s on Wednesday to learn about how to get involved at the Sierra Student Coalition to Rice. The coalition, spearheaded by Emily Stone, a member of GreenCore, a field school for environmental demonstrations, is working to stop the development of approximately 90 coal plants across the country.

Since the greatest number of proposals are by a Houston-based company, Dynegy, Stone said the coalition is uniquely positioned to decrease the number of proposals for plants nationwide.

Stone stressed the importance of Rice student involvement in the campaign against the power plants.

“Since Dynegy’s headquarters are located in Houston, it’s very important that Rice students get involved,” she said. “This will become a major national campaign, and the best way to get involved is to help build the campaign to a critical mass.”

Stone is optimistic that this campaign will work.

“The likelihood for success is huge,” Stone said. “We are focusing on strategic public pushback that will emphasize the inefficiency of coal, and to tell the energy companies not to engage in a coal rush but rather invest money in energy efficiency and renewable energy, like wind and solar power. The campaign will be formulated in the best interest of Dynegy as a market-based campaign, and we will do this by convincing the energy companies to switch to more efficient, alternative forms of energy.”

Citing the successful push by the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Houston Mayor Bill White and Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert against an energy company called TXU in retracting all eight of its plant proposals, Stone said the campaign against Dynegy will be even stronger than it was against TXU. Prior to these retractions, TXU was the largest proponent of new coal plants.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Susannah Hook Rodgers, Houston Sierra Club Campaign Organizer, Andre Droxler, director of the Center for the Study of Environment and Society (CSES) and Mike Roberson, an advocate from the American Lung Association of the Central States spoke about the potential effects of the power plants.

Most climatologists and Democratic presidential frontrunners Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards advocate an 80 percent reduction of global warming emissions by 2050. This goal would be impossible even if half of the proposed power plants are built, since it would increase the country’s emissions by 25 percent.

The group’s next activity, a campus-wide call-in day to the CEO of Dynegy Bruce Williamson, was organized for next Tuesday.

The coalition’s goal is to be as aggressive as possible against Dynegy before the company holds its shareholder meeting on May 12. The coalition has spread the plan throughout the Rice, University of Houston, Baylor University and Texas Southern University campuses.

A student leader in the Sierra Club’s campaign, Kendall Hollis, said she joined because it seemed like the right thing to do.

“I met Emily at the RMC, saw the signs, and thought it was a good idea to join,” Hollis, a Martel College sophomore, said. “I think any logical person who knew the facts would be all for [the cause].”

Margaret Diddums, who has worked with Hollis to lead the campaign, also said she feels it will be successful.

“I think the issue with students is that most of the people are interested, but don’t know how to create change,” Diddums, a Lovett College freshman, said. “But as long as the interest is there we should have no problem recruiting students for the campaign.”

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