Word: begley
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...there's a mayor of that second Hollywood, it's the actor Ed Begley Jr., who's been evangelizing the environment since the 1970s, back when we were more worried about an ice age than global warming. The green-living Begley is the star in the electric car - though he's since switched to a hybrid - and his career is a handy measure of how much environmentalism has saturated Hollywood. Organic to his biodegradable core, Begley says that when he first began to preach the gospel of green, telling his friends and colleagues about his forays into recycling or alternative...
...Begley and some of his colleagues are trying to green the way Hollywood does business, not just the way it lives. On Dec. 11 and 12 industry insiders will attend the first Hollywood Goes Green summit, a networking conference designed to plot out ways to cut out waste and improve energy efficiency in film, TV and music production. The entertainment industry is vast, and as in any big business, the environmental benefits of switching to greener practices are equally significant. "We've come a long way from the wasteful ways of the past," says Begley, who will be giving...
...Some of those changes are elementary - producers shouldn't just recycle, they should aim to buy recycled paper the first time around. Instead of using polluting diesel generators on the set, filmmakers could buy ones that run on less-carbon intensive biodiesel - which, Begley points out, has the additional benefit of "smelling like French fries instead of diesel gas." But some of Begley's suggestions would seem to challenge the star system of at the heart of the Hollywood galaxy. Why, he asks, should we reserve singe cars for celebrities? "Load it up," exhorts Begley. "Get some grips and electricians...
...save the Earth, we're told we need to live simpler, consume less - in other words, turn down the wattage of our lives. But from the giant Hollywood sign on down, the entertainment industry has always been about living large. "There can be something hypocritical about it," admits Begley. "But if people are doing everything they can, whether they're a movie star or an electrician, I think they can make a difference...
...lifestyle shows or news programs--though enlisting a news division to do advocacy has its own issues. But commanding a sitcom like The Office to work in an earnest environmental theme sounds like the kind of high-handed p.r. directive that might be satirized on, well, The Office. Even Begley--formerly of St. Elsewhere--notes that the movie Chinatown worked because it kept the subplot about the water supply in Los Angeles well in the background: "It's a story about getting away with murder, and the water story is woven...