The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club consists of over 25,000 members. The Chapter spans the entire state of Texas, excepting El Paso, which is part of the Rio Grande Chapter.

Located in Austin, the Lone Star Chapter's State Conservation Office serves Sierrans as their grassroots communications center. We also provide Sierrans with a full time professional activist staff employed to represent Sierrans as we fight at the state level to protect and conserve Texas' diverse and valuable natural heritage.

Gore’s Global Warming Film Cool, but What About These, uh...

15 New Coal-Burning Power Plants Coming to Texas?

( Austin, TX) – Texas environmentalists from Sierra Club, SEED Coalition, and Public Citizen welcomed the Austin opening of Al Gore’s film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, speaking with reporters and film viewers before the noon showing at the Regal Arbor Cinema on Great Hills Trail.

Gore’s eye-opening film makes the indisputable case that global warming is real – it is agreed upon scientifically and the effects of climate change are evident now.

An Inconvenient Truth exposes fossil fuels as a prime cause of climate change. The film makes quiet mention of the most critical source of global warming gases – emissions from coal-burning power plants that generate our electricity. At a time when coal-burning power plants should be retired and replaced by clean, renewable energy sources, 15 additional coal-burning power plants are proposed in Texas further threatening our climate. They are in various stages of permitting and development. (Map and pollution data follows.)

Texas leads the nation in the emissions of global warming and if we were a nation, we’d rank 7 th in the world in emissions. No state could benefit more from real global warming solutions than Texas due to our vast renewable resources,” said Donna Hoffman of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Texas has begun moving toward more renewable energy – wind and solar power, an important step in curbing global warming,” Hoffman said. “15 additional coal-fired power plants planned for our state, would produce 100 million tons more carbon dioxide (CO 2) , in our air each year for the next 50 years!”

Coal plants increase global warming, and Texas is already the worst state in the nation for power plant carbon emissions.

Due to global warming, diseases are on the increase, our health, coastlines, agriculture, coastlines and our economy are at risk,” stated Karen Hadden, Executive Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. “Gore should add to the film’s list of things that citizens can do. The list should include fighting additional coal-burning power plants and demanding renewable energy and efficiency instead.”

In 2005, Governor Rick Perry signed an Executive Order fast-tracking the permitting process for coal-fired power plants. Not a single one of the proposed Texas plants plans to use the best available emissions control technology, gasification, the so called “clean-coal technology,” despite the fact that 24 such plants are proposed in other states around the nation.

Governors of fourteen other states have developed plans to reduce global-warming gasses, but Governor Perry, is pushing dirty, old coal plants, leading us faster into global warming and climate change, ” said Hadden of SEED.

Samantha Hechman, researcher for Public Citizen said  "This upcoming governor’s election is critical to our future health and the survival of our species. We urge every Texan to demand that all candidates for Governor produce a strong plan to reduce global warming and explain it clearly on the campaign trail.”

The Texas Clean Air, Cool Energy Campaign includes Lone Star Sierra Club, Public Citizen, SEED Coalition, Environmental Integrity Project, League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense, Texas Impact, Blue Skies Alliance Texas Campaign for the Environment, Clean Water Action and TexPIRG.