Kicking the Coal Habbit, Texas Style

I’m sitting in a church guest house in Houston, preparing to attend Dynegy’s annual shareholder meeting tomorrow. We’ve gathered in Texas to confront Dynegy CEO Bruce Wiliamson, King Coal himself, because he plans to build six new coal burning power plants — more than other corporation in the country. They say everything’s bigger in Texas and it’s especially true with the anti-coal movement, which has turned out over one hundred activists from around the country to challenge Dynegy’s plans. Activists from Iowa, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, Michiga and Nevada, each state in which Dynegy plans to build a coal plant are gathered here. As expected, the youth climate movement has provided most of the energy and activists for the event. Twenty students working with Seth Gunning in Georgia caravaned out! There’s also representation from the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition, the University of Arkansas and the University of Texas here.

Tomorrow I’ll be representing Co-op America inside the shareholder meeting, bringing the argument that the coal business is bad business to the boardroom. Outside the meeting, the youth climate activists will be joined by representatives from the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, RAN and Houston Climate Action Coalition to send the message to shareholders: it’s time to invest in a renewable energy future, not our grandfather’s coal plants!

It’s me and Mr. Williamson. The youth vs. King Coal. The time is now for us to rise up and declare: NO NEW COAL PLANTS. NO NEW COAL INVESTMENT. ITS TIME FOR A RENEWABLE ENERGY FUTURE!


About


As a sophomore at Walter Johnson High School in Maryland, Yochi was recruited to join the SSC's Montgomery County Student Environmental Activists. After a couple of weeks of hanging out with the SSC'ers, he started organizing what turned into a county-wide campaign that gained media attention and attracted the support of the county council. While an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, Yochi founded a business partnership called Brewing Hope with farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Working with students, faculty and businesses interested in promoting the fair trade system, Yochi set up a program that not only sold coffee, but also created a relationships between coffee growers and latte drinkers. Brewing Hope's student delegations visit Mexico to learn about coffee production and meet with indigenous communities while farmers from Chiapas travel to speak at educational events in the Midwest. He turned over the management reins of Brewing Hope to study the connection between biodiversity, economic sustainability and coffee certifications in Central America. Yochi now works at Co-op America, the national green business network, expanding the market for fair trade products and pressuring businesses to adopting forward thinking policies on climate change. Yochi's first blog was titled "The Neoliberal Chopping Block"

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