What Does Earth Day Mean to Ed Begley Jr?

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Here is Ed Begley Jr. talking about Earth Day, to Living Green Magazine. 

You’re very passionate about green issues.  When did green get into your blood?  Was there a tipping point, or did your interest build over time?  
There was a tipping point.  There was a moment of epiphany and it was at the first Earth Day in 1970.  It had been building before that.  By that I mean I grew up in smoggy L.A., and Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 60’s had horrible, chocking smog.  So after 20 years of that, I was poised and ready at the first Earth Day to take some action, to do something to make a difference.  So I started doing everything I could.

So today as we approach Earth Day 2012, what does “living green” mean to you? It means the same thing as it did in 1970 in one key area, and that is to do everything you can.  What I did in 1970 was interesting—but what I didn’t do, I think, is very important.  I didn’t try to do a bunch of things I couldn’t afford or could not possibly pull off.  I did stuff that was possible.  I started recycling.  I started composting.  I started using biodegradable soaps and detergents.  All this stuff I did back in 1970, it was all good for the environment.  It was also good for my pocketbook because it saved me money.

Ed, you have a bit of a reputation as a green zealot.  Can you share some examples of what’s been called your “low-density” lifestyle?  
After doing the cheap and easy stuff in 1970, I saved some money, and so I started doing more and more.  Now I can do some stuff that other people aren’t willing or able to do.  I have an array of 6 kilowatts of (electric) solar on the roof of my house.  I have an underground rainwater storage tank that’s 550 gallons.  I have not only solar electric but solar hot water.  I drive an electric car.  I ride my bike or take public transportation 300 days a year.  Probably sixty some days a year I’m in the hybrid car for a long trip, or occasionally I even have to fly.  Not a lot of people are going to go to such lengths.  It’s something I’ve been doing for so long that I’m quite comfortable doing what some might view as extreme measures.  Indeed, I like to do them for extra credit, if you will, and to keep upping the ante as I become comfortable with the things I started 42 years ago.

Many people know about you through the “Living with Ed” show on Planet Green that co-stars your talented wife Rachelle Carson Begley.  What do you want viewers to learn, or what message do you want viewers to take away from the show?

I want them to perhaps try to do it the same way I did, which is as a person with very little resources in 1970, to do that cheap and easy stuff first.  Now there’s a lot more choices in 2012 than there was in 1970.  You can buy energy-saving light bulbs about anywhere.  You can buy an energy-saving thermostat at most hardware stores.  You can buy weather-stripping that’s very easy to put up.  There’s much more public transportation in every city I go to than there was in 1970.  Bike lanes are much more prevalent now.  If you don’t have room for a vegetable garden in your front or back yard, there are many community gardens now.  The point is there’s simply more opportunity for people to do stuff that’s very cost effective.  All these things I mentioned are very cheap, very inexpensive.  So you want to start with those, and that gives you a taste for doing more because you’ll find you have extra money in your pocket after a very short time of doing these things.

Baby steps and a lot of positive reinforcement along the way.
That’s correct.

Let me ask a serious question.  Are we past the tipping point to prevent massive climate change?  Can we as individuals make enough of a difference just by changing our lifestyles?
I hope we’re not past the tipping point.  Nobody knows for sure, but most scientists agree that there are serious consequences to having too much CO2 in the atmosphere.  The point that most of them agreed on some years ago was 350 parts per million (ppm).  We’re above that now.  We need to get it down below 350 ppm, and I think we can do that by just starting with the cheap and easy stuff like I’m mentioning.  That’s going to free up more money to do things like some of the medium ticket items, which will free up more money to do some of the big ticket items like solar or wind.  Besides all the solar I’ve had since 1900, since 1985 I’ve owned a wind turbine in the California desert that’s part of a wind farm.  That’s a very good way to make electricity in 2012, as it was in 1985.  Indeed, that wind turbine is 27 years old; it’s still running, still sending me checks, and still putting out many kilowatt hours of electricity a day.  So, I’m very proud of that investment.  I think that’s the kind of thing we need to do as a country, to encourage more of that kind of clean power to get us off foreign oil, because that has quite a price tag with 350 billion—with a “b”—dollars leaving the country each year.  I think that’s a number we need to bring down as quickly as possible.

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