Redford shines light on Texas clean air battle
Sometimes the little guy does win. Take the case of the group of Texas activists who took on a big power company’s plan to build 11 coal-fired generators in their state. The new documentary, Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars, produced and narrated by Robert Redford tells their story.
From Edward Klump’s article on Bloomberg.com: “There are no easy answers, no clear solutions,” Redford, 70, says in the 30-minute film. “There is only what each of us is willing to do.”
The film premiered Thursday in Waco, Texas, where many of the activists who took on TXU are from. They’re people like Robert Cervenka, a 77-year-old rancher near Waco, and Laura Miller, the former Dallas mayor, who helped create the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition. (Here’s the CBS 11 news story on the premiere).
And while the victory wasn’t complete (three of the plants are moving forward), the story does show what can happen when a community rises up for the common good. But as Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, said last year after the group scored a major victory over TXU, “the struggle is far from over.”