At DC's Green Festival the big Top Green Celebrity was actor/activist Ed Begley, and he packed the house for his talk about living simply. I'm happy to report that he included some jokes in with all that Message. Didja hear that Ed and wife Rachelle have the only pre-nup in Hollywood involving carbon credits? (Funny but probably true.) And that for her birthday he bought her a hemp thong? Badabing!
But I also took notes about these more substantive bits:
- This all started for him back in 1970, when riding a bike wasn't cool, just nerdy. His bell bottoms got caught in the spokes, and his Afro was blown straight.
- He's big on "quantifiable good news", like the fact that while LA has four times the cars that it had years ago (what year, he didn't say) with only half the smog. The Hudson and Cuyahoga Rivers have been cleaned up. The CFC-caused hole in the ozone layer IS smaller. And the green economy does create jobs.
- He's a big fan of the Boy Scout experience – it taught him his love of nature.
- He's a fiscal conservative and declares that everything he's done "for the environment" since 1970 (when he was a broke, out-of-work actor) has saved him money. Like becoming a vegetarian, buying an electric car, installing a solar oven, a rain barrel, a wind turbine, etc. He did the cheap and easy things first.
- He recommends peer-reviewed web resources written by people with Ph.Ds after their names.
- He's been carbon NEGATIVE since '85.
- He calls Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu people who "get it!"
- He loves his "green switch" that turns off all the "phantom power" in his house when it isn't needed.
- What's green? Not needing a lot of money. It's even better than HAVING a lot of money. (I love that one.)
- His favorite recycled product is his recycled plastic fence.
- His house is only 1,600 square feet (same as mine).
- In 2008 he agreed to a "modern energy audit," thinking his house would pass with flying colors, and they found huge energy leaks.
- Asked (by me, of course) about his lawn, he blamed his on Rachelle – she wanted a patch. After he asked "Who's going to mow it?" the couple chose artificial turf made of recycled plastic and tire. Acknowledging that it has an unfortunate heat island effect, on the plus side it never needs mowing and after pets dump on it he just rinses it off.
- On another gardening note, he blasted the pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that get into our groundwater and pollute it.
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PLASTIC AND TIRE CRUMB on top of the former living soil???!!!.I can only hope Ed Begley and Rachelle did not do their homework on the artificial turf. For a compendium of information go to http://www.synturf.org . and http://www.ehhi.org . As they should know there are much better ways to landscape with the local conditions and if they must have a grass-like area can collect stormwater to water it- plus there are sedges native to california that create a nice lawn. Zinc leaching from the tire crumb into groundwater and water ways has been shown to be a significant problem for aquatic organisms. California now requires all artificialt turf to be tested for lead.
If they MUST have plastic grass they can steer clear of the cyto, neuro and reproductive toxins in tire crumb by using natural cork/ coconut husk infill.
Ditto on not needing a lot of money being even better than having a lot. If you live like you don't need it, then you are more likely to live lightly. If I HAD a lot of money, I think it would be harder to live simply. As it is, I think I don't live simply enough.
I recall a whole Living with Ed episode on choosing that artificial tour – I did not pay much attention as not anything I'd do, but I can see those with a CA lifestyle wanting to explore it* – it is a tiny piece BTW – on TV looks like 3×3 ft max.
*I'm having opposite problem of grass tringto come BACK in my beds
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