By Tim Saunders on
Robert Redford – the original Butch Cassidy and an environmental warrior for more than 30 years – is backing a campaign against plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Kent, England.
The 71-year-old wrote a special letter read out at an environmental awareness meeting organized by the World Development Movement last week, speaking out about E.ON UK’s plans to build two coal-fired units at Kingsnorth.
“To those gathered this evening around the proposed coal fire power plant in your community of Kent, I congratulate all of you for coming together to learn more and to do more,” he said in the letter. “Coal power plants or as you call them, stations, are bad for public health; they are bad for the environment close by in proximity as well as much farther away as pollution is taken by wind and water. They contribute greatly to climate impacts in a highly negative manner; and thus are ultimately very bad for the local and larger economies.”
The meeting also featured a screening of a 2008 film narrated by the actor called Fighting Goliath: the Texas Coal Wars, the story of a group of Texas mayors and residents who tried to stop plans to build coal-fired plants in their communities.
Copyright © 2008 Look to the Stars
