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Q: Your husband made a hilarious speech at an NRDC event in
which he described his early impressions of you as "a materialistic,
narcissistic, superficial, bosomy woman from Long Island ... But then
after a few short months I began to sense that something had changed.
She started peppering her conversation with words like ozone layer,
sustainable forestry, and toxic runoff ... what was now all too
painfully obvious was that I, Larry David, the shallowest man in the
world, had married an environmentalist." Tell us about your
eco-epiphany. A: I sat down to
breakfast with Bobby Kennedy and I got up from that table and I have not
been the same since. Alan Horn and Rob Reiner, who were at Castle Rock
where Seinfeld was being produced, had been involved with the NRDC for
many years. I told them I had inklings about wanting to learn about the
environment and asked if they could recommend a group to get involved
with. They said you need to meet Bobby Kennedy and [NRDC President] John
Adams. So when they came out to Los Angeles, they set up a breakfast for
Larry and I to meet them. When Bobby talks about the environment, he
frames it like a civil-rights issue, and it is. That resonated with me.
It rearranged me completely.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., tells it like it is.(Photo: Alex Berliner)
Q: So what did he say? A: Nothing
specific that I can remember. It was like 10 years ago. I'm sure we
talked about global warming and rivers and oceans and pollution and
pesticides and toxins. What I remember is the mood. The gist was that
everybody should have the right to clean air and water the way they
should have the right to affordable health care and racial equality.
What's more basic than the right to health? One in four black kids in
Harlem has asthma because of pollution -- now that's a civil-rights
issue. It's an environmental-justice issue. A human issue. I walked
away from that breakfast and I said, OK, forget TV producing. My
full-time job is now to work on behalf of the NRDC and to help them do
the work that needs to be done. Q: Your work seems to have
crescendoed in the last year or two in terms of galvanizing Hollywood,
raising money, and bringing these issues into the mainstream.
A: Well, I spent the first two years
educating myself. I started reading all of these books. There was a big
pile of recommendations -- a John Muir book, a forestry book by Todd
Wilkinson. Mark Hertsgaard's book Earth Odyssey was also a major
influence. I started combing the newspaper for environment stories and
blocking out all the other news. I started going to briefings for NRDC.
I'd have lunch with the oceans people and they would teach me about
oceans issues. Then I would read about sprawl issues. And so on. Then
I started doing events at my house to brief other people. I would pick a
topic and Bobby would come out. We did a session on how the opposite
side was using PR firms and misinformation and false scientists and
false advertising and greenwashing. We did a session on pesticides. I
would invite 50 people and 50 turned into 100 people and then it turned
into 150 people. Q: So is your mission to draw ever-bigger crowds
to the environmental cause? A: It's
not so much a mission as a gut instinct. Soon after that first
breakfast, I had seen Bobby speak at someone's house and there were
about 12 people there. I was just horrified that he was speaking to 12
people. I said, this man should be speaking to thousands of people. So I
created this event called "Earth to L.A." which we just did last month.
Q: [Laughter.] Earth to L.A.! A:
That was Larry's title. There were thousands of people. It was reported
in Variety as the biggest industry turnout since the Oscars. There were
three motion picture presidents there, a television network president,
every agency there. And we raised $3 million in one night for NRDC.
Q: On a personal level, how did your life change as a result of these
experiences? A: My philosophy about
this stuff is, it's not all or nothing. A lot of people have that
attitude: So you drive a fuel-efficient car, what about your giant
house? What about this, what about that? I just got asked that on Paula
Zahn and I was like, I'm not looking for perfection in any of this.
We're an imperfect people. But I really feel strongly that if everyone
did one thing, we would be well on our way to a better planet. And I try
to do more than one thing in my personal life. Q: What else beyond
the Prius? A: Of course, I'm obsessed
with telling my kids, no long showers and don't run the water too much
when you brush your teeth. I always use both sides of the paper for
printing and faxing. I recycle obsessively. And since I get a lot of
clothes dry-cleaned, I take a garment bag to the dry cleaner so I don't
waste the disposable plastic covers. Q: But why not shrink your
wardrobe or move to a smaller house, given that less dry-cleaning would
do more for the environment than saving the plastic bags? Or that the
energy saved in heating and cooling a smaller house could be more
substantial than what you save driving a Prius?
A: Everybody has to strike their own
balance between how they want to live and how they can reduce their
impact. If the environmental movement wants to be mainstream, it has to
lose its purer-than-thou, all-or-nothing attitude. It has to be
pragmatic enough to bring everyone onboard. If perfection is the
measure, we will fail to appeal to anyone but the fringe. Sure, I have
a big house, but I use it to gather hundreds of people for eco-salons.
That's not to justify the size of it, but it does create opportunities
to spread knowledge and raise money for the greater environmental good.
Sure, I could always cut down on clothes and dry-cleaning, but the point
is not necessarily what more you could do -- we could all do more -- the
point is that we do our part. And even with the house and clothes, I
think I can do, and am doing, my part. |
