Over the past few years, the Academy Awards have become a fuel-efficient vehicle for Hollywood’s green movement. And perhaps no environmental nonprofit has gleaned more momentum from star power than Global Green USA, which helped put the celebrity machine into first gear in 2003, when it shuttled A-list’ers to the Oscars in alternative-fuel cars.

The sight of Leonardo DiCaprio (who drove his own Prius) and others wheeling up in hybrids seems to have galvanized Hollywood greens who’d already felt the call to tout eco-awareness. The following year, Global Green USA unfurled its first “Red Carpet-Green Cars” pre-Oscars Party, attended by a slew of luminaries, including DiCaprio.

On Thursday, Feb. 19, the tradition continues at the Avalon in Hollywood (tickets, still available, range from $125 for general admission to $2500 for Patron level.)

Since its first bash harnessing the sheer energy of Tinsel Town, Global Green USA – the US affiliate of Green Cross International, founded by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993 - has hosted increasingly stellar pre-Oscar Parties to raise funds for its many projects, as well as to promote general awareness of global climate change.

Last year the nonprofit drummed up more than $420,000 for its initiatives, such as the high-profile “Rebuilding New Orleans” green-building project, faithfully supported by Crescent City part-time residents and Global Green supporters Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

This year, the 6th Annual pre-Oscar Party will again focus on New Orleans – particularly, on green school construction in the Big Easy. The party will unleash a cool river of pop-culture icons, with co-hosts including DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Penelope Cruz, Kate Bosworth, Marisa Tomei, Neil Patrick Harris, Heather Graham and Lyn and Normal Lear – with music by Sheryl Crow, Blackcowboy and Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale.

Wingdings past have drawn the likes of Tom Hanks, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Pitt and Salma Hayek, who have stepped out for Global Green, attending fundraisers for everything from the 4th Annual San Francisco Benefit on Dec. 2, 2008, advancing the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poland that month, to last summer’s 12th Annual Millenium Awards honoring environmental innovators. Also, a number of high-profile actor/activists sit on the American organization’s Board (Hayek, Norton, DiCaprio).

Global Green USA President and CEO Matt Petersen (pictured second from left above) recently spoke with GreenRightNow.com about deploying Hollywood greens in the battle against climate change. And while it’s true that a handful of non-greens have dismissed Hollywood’s enviro-involvement as trendy – or worse, self-aggrandizing – most people would agree that mixing celebritydom with environmentalism is a wholly organic a recipe. As natural as granola. The stars have the platform, environmental leaders have the message.

But Global Green’s celebrity push didn’t begin with the Oscars.

“The event started as a way to try to connect Hollywood to the global environmental movement in a different way,” Peterson says. “In August of 2002, we hosted an event to raise awareness of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which the media had done virtually nothing on (and which then-President George W. Bush’s administration refused to attend or endorse). We were able to draw attention to this important environmental event, thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio (the celebrity “face” for GG USA’s 2002 party).  That told us a lot about how we could direct the megaphone of Hollywood onto the issues we need to tackle. … Then later, (GG USA) board member Jordan Harris came up with the idea, ‘What if we put celebrities into hybird cars going to the Oscars?’ And we launched the Red Carpet-Green Cars campaign. …It sent a strong message, without these stars even having to say anything. The goal was to make fuel-efficient cars sexy.”

Clearly, the campaign has had some impact. Reams of Hollywood royalty now tool around town in fuel-efficient autos (whether directly inspired by Global Green or not). In fact, driving green has become almost de rigueur in Los Angeles’ hallowed hills and canyons.

But is that enough to stem global warming’s tide? And is the Hollywood green movement having any real impact?

“I think that, collectively, it is raising awareness,” Petersen says. “It’s a cumulative impact. .. and we’ve had a great, a very positive, response. The science is growing, the urgency is clear.”

He adds that Global Green “started doing this before An Inconvenient Truth came out. And we’ve worked hard to tie our efforts to real substantive projects and advocacy initiatives to change policy. The combination of substance along with reaching out to pop culture has its appeal – certainly in this town. People realize they have an obligation as people in the public eye to shine a light on the issues.”

(Photo credit: Global Green USA, Leonardo DiCaprio, top; 2007 pre-Oscar party group.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media
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Longtime ocean advocate Ted Danson is pressing Canada to take a more active role in efforts to reduce fisheries subsidies.

By Shermakaye Bass

Celebrities trade on their celebrity and always have – sometimes in not so earth-friendly ways. But among the nobler echelons of Hollywood, Manhattan and London, renown is fuel for green power. Instead of selling handbags made of rare reptilian skins, some of The Biz’s top stars try to protect these rare species, using their reputations, checkbooks and Rolodexes to aid our ailing planet.

Atop the green mountain are people like Robert Redford, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ed Begley – well-known spokesmen for the environment. But how many of us plebes realized that Pierce Brosnan is one of celebrity’s most committed eco-activists, supporting at least a dozen charities, or that Ted Danson is a key player and board member of the marine juggernaut Oceana.org.

There are many more, actually – dozens of celebrities who’ve thrown their green ideas into the ring, not just to green-wash or prop their careers, but to do the right thing, it seems. Ever wonder exactly what these famous stewards are committed to and why?

Here’s a sketchbook of five who are putting their money and hearts into making strides for Planet Earth:

• ROBERT REDFORD

No one can discuss the “greening of Hollywood” without uttering the names Redford or Sundance, which encompasses Redford’s Sundance Preserve, the nonprofit North Fork Preservation Alliance of Utah, as well as the Redford Center and Sundance Nature Center.

Photo: Sundance Institute

Robert Redford has fought environmental injustice for 40 years.

The man himself, who has fought environmental injustice for at least 40 years, prefers simply to be called “Bob,” as he told media at a recent press conference for The Unforeseen, the environmental documentary co-produced by Redford and filmmaker Terrence Malick, directed by Laura Dunn. The 72-year-old is as no-nonsense friendly in real time as he appears in TV interviews and magazine features – courteous, but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, especially during Q&A’s, and that’s refreshing to witness. But he’s also quite kind and plain-spoken. When asked about his love for nature at the recent “Unforeseen” screening, he explained matter-of-factly that he grew up on the coast of California, in the mountains Colorado and swimming the pristine springs of Central Texas – as if mere exposure to such beauty demanded his stewardship. Apparently it did.

The sun-weathered film star has been a proponent of solar energy since the 1970’s and has supported its advancement through film and activism (note, Redford’s 1979 “The Solar Film”; also, that his homes are predominantly solar and wind powered, as are most of the Sundance Group’s facilities).

The actor has been a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) for the past 30-odd years; is on the advisory board of the Land Trust of Napa Valley (since 2004); and serves on the board of the University of Wisconsin’s Gaylord A. Nelson Environmental Endowment at the Institute for Environmental Studies.

Redford’s past board memberships include those of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Policy Center in San Francisco, the Solar Lobby, the Yosemite Institute, among others.
But his real baby – the nexus from which all things eco/Redford spring – is his Sundance Institute, which is headquartered on the filmmaker’s 5,000-acre Sundance Preserve in Utah. He founded the Preserve in 2006, expanding the 860-acre Redford Family Wildlife and Nature Preserve he’d started in the mid 1990’s. Today’s Utah haven “engages in innovative and sustainable environmental practices, to both ensure the environmental health of Sundance’s North Fork Canyon and serve as a model for other communities,” Redford and other founders have said.

It is a demonstration project for “land management, wildlife and habitat restoration, watershed protection, mitigation of noxious weeds and active fire ecology practices,” according to the group.

Other eco-friendly practices in action at the Preserve and the nearby Sundance Resort near Park City, Utah: a wind energy exchange, recycling programs, an in-house recycled glassworks, organic products and alternative transportation using buses and hybrid vehicles.

With all of the Sundance offshoots (including Sundance Channel’s “THE GREEN” – now in its second season), Redford tries to synthesize the creative, spiritual and natural realms, all of which he feels are fully interwoven – and which he says Sundance, the broad concept, is really about.

“I believe that land is sacred, and that we should conserve it and pass it on to future generations. This has always been my philosophy for Sundance,” he states on his website.

The shaggy septuagenarian became environmentally active in the late 1960s and ’70’s, lobbying for 1974-75’s “Clean Air Act” and the “Energy Conservation and Production Act ” (1974-76). He has received numerous environmental awards, including the 1989 Audubon Medal Award, 1993 Earth Day International Award, 1994 Nature Conservancy Award, the NRDC’s 2004 “Force for Nature Lifetime Achievement Award,” as well as a Kennedy Center Award in 2005 for his “distinguished achievement in the performing arts and in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the life of our country.”