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Robert Redford hopes coal movie inspires citizen groups
Robert Redford was so struck by a story of Texas mayors, ranchers and other citizens who stood up against plans for a batch of new coal-fired power plants that he narrated a film about it.
The actor and founder of the Sundance Film Festival is lending his voice to a 34-minute documentary called "Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars." The film is being shown in seven cities in Utah and Nevada next week.
Redford's hoping the story inspires others to face off against the "mythology" of nonrenewable resources and consider renewable energy alternatives.
"It makes no sense going in a direction that represents yesterday," Redford said in an interview with The Associated Press this week.
The story centers on a fight that started in 2006 over 19 proposed coal-fired power plants in central and east Texas. The plans galvanized a diverse group of citizens who might otherwise have divergent political viewpoints: ranchers, environmentalists, business leaders, legislators, lawyers and more than a dozen local mayors.
Redford, who has been involved with environmental causes for decades, said he was inspired by the group's unifying interests around clean air and a healthy environment. The coalition opposing the plans grew to include 36 cities, counties and school districts.
"To me, that was a sign of changing times," said Redford, who spends about six months a year in Utah.
Eventually, the company that proposed 11 of the new plants agreed to build only three.
The film, produced by The Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve and Austin, Texas-based Alpheus Media, has already been shown in Texas. Supporters are bringing it to Utah and Nevada where several new coal-fired plants are being proposed.
"It's very relevant to what's going on not only in Utah but the rest of the country," said Tim Wagner, director of the Utah Smart Energy Campaign. "We want people to understand when they see this film that they can get involved, they too can make a difference."
Redford said he sees what happened in Texas as an indication that a tipping point has been reached in how the public perceives coal-fired plants.
"That's breaking apart now because the reality is seeping through like grass coming through the sidewalk," he said.
The screenings next week will be followed by panel discussions about pollution, global warming, renewable energy in the West, ways to minimize energy use and "economic opportunities of the clean energy economy."
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Robert Redford is an environmental icon whose work has brought great change in understanding and in perceiving the problems we face regarding it. Lending his voice to this movie will hopefully inspire other citizen groups to do what politicians will not: stand up to dirty big coal. That is where we will see the most change... right out here, bringing it there. Robert Redford was so struck by a story of Texas mayors, ranchers and other citizens who stood up against plans for a batch of new coa... more -
Ecuador voters to decide if nature has inalienable rights
This month, Ecuador will hold the world's first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, whether to endow nature with certain unalienable rights. Not only would the new constitution give nature the right to "exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution," but if it is approved, communities, elected officials and even individuals would have legal standing to defend the rights of nature.
It sounds like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council. But Ecuador is engaged in nothing less than an effort to redefine the relationship between human beings and the natural world. And as crazy as it may seem, the movement to give nature legal rights didn't start in Ecuador's Amazon forest or its Galapagos Islands -- it started years ago in the United States, in cities and towns seeking to fight off coal mines, incinerators and factory farms. Aided by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Pennsylvania, about a dozen municipalities have abandoned the old-fashioned way of halting development -- through the appeals process -- and are placing outright bans on environmentally disruptive activities.
For example, in Pennsylvania, Southampton prohibits corporate ownership of farms, and Wayne passed an ordinance that gives the town the power to keep out corporations with criminal histories. The Defense Fund gets much of the credit (or the blame) for these decidedly anti-business, grass-roots efforts. It even offers ready-made ordinances to protect ecosystems. Ecuadorean officials called the group when they were crafting the new constitution, and now it's fielding calls from Australia, Italy, South Africa and Nepal, which is writing its first constitution.
No other country has gone as far as Ecuador in proposing to give trees their day in court, but it certainly is not alone in its recalibration of natural rights. Religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Constantinople, have declared that caring for the environment is a spiritual duty. And earlier this year, the Catholic Church updated its list of deadly sins to include polluting the environment.
Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost indistinguishable from its regional geography -- the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Sierra. How this new area of constitutional law will work, however, is another question. We aren't ready to endorse such a step at home, or even abroad. But it's intriguing. We'll be watching Ecuador's example.
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I would vote yes. This month, Ecuador will hold the world's first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, ... more -
Applying Gandhi's Ideas To Climate Change
At what was once a Capuchin monastery on the Hudson River, the Zen archers were out in force on Friday. They were members of a New York City group celebrating 10 years of study with a retreat at what’s now the Garrison Institute, a New Agey organization that tries to meld contemplation and action.
The idea of the Zen archery is to combine intention and action, focus and carry-through. Physical action slows. The archer and the bow become one. The art becomes artless. The archer evolves through perseverance and discipline. Or so they say.
It’s not much of a stretch to go from the visiting Zen archers to the institute’s own initiative, an ambitious program next month to look at how the ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi relate to current environmental issues, particularly climate change.
Central to Gandhi, after all, was the notion that the truth, power and moral force of a movement are inseparable from the truth, power and moral force of its actors.
Hence Gandhi nonviolently freeing India from the greatest empire of his time, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. overturning segregation in the South, Nelson Mandela ending apartheid — intention wedded to action, focus leading to carry-through, evolution resulting from perseverance and discipline. Like the Zen archers, it may seem way too abstruse and exotic for the short attention span of modern life, but then, maybe not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/nyregion/30towns.html At what was once a Capuchin monastery on the Hudson River, the Zen archers were out in force on Friday. They were members of a New Yor... more -
Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot
When reflecting on the current state of our world and the environment, I always go back to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech because the words are so very true. And I believe that once we read them and take them seriously we will reach the higher consciousness we need to reach in order to solve our problems. This interpretation of his words is one I particularly appreciate. When reflecting on the current state of our world and the environment, I always go back to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech beca... more
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