Spreading The Word About Green Living
What can children teach their parents about the environment?
I think children teach us honesty about the environment. They hold no quarter with people who are hypocrites about this, or say one thing and do another when you're out there talking about recycling or energy conservation. There was a time years ago, back in 1990, the 20 year anniversary of the first Earth Day, and people would say: "You have to ride share. It's important that we all save energy." "Cut." "You got it? OK. Where's my limo? I gotta get home. You have a gift bag for me?" There's that syndrome that's kind of a mistake, let me just say; I think it's a mistake. So, I've tried to be consistent and kids hold us to that standard very well. They catch every little detail. My daughter does, and she's very wonderfully strict.
What is the most important thing I can do to help the environment?
If I had to sum one thing you can do to help the environment, distill it to a phrase, it would be, "Drive less." There's ways to do that. Use public transportation, if it's available where you live (and it is in L.A.) Ride a bike if weather and fitness permit, and weather certainly permits here in Southern California. The most important thing you can to do help the environment is to drive less. You're going to put money in your pocket, lessen our dependence on Middle East oil and combat global climate change. It's good every way you slice it.
Can my actions really make a difference on the environment?
People ask all the time, can my Actions make a Difference, and I say a resounding yes. Look at what we've done so far. We had this big ozone hole over Antarctica; Northern hemisphere as well but it was quite pronounced in the Southern hemisphere and getting worse. And now it's gotten not bigger. It has not stayed the same. It's gotten smaller because we banned CFC's. Look what we did with the air in LA.It was much much worse in 1970. We have four times the amount of cars as we had in 1970, yet we have half the ozone. We should all get a medal. We've done a lot.And not only the air in LA but the air in all the cities because of the measures we put into place in California, California clean air standards that became the standard for the nation. We could do this. We can deal with global climate change and it's not going to break anybody.
What could happen if we don't help the environment?
No one knows what will happen if we don't act to help the environment. There's a lot of theories and they've done a lot of computer models; most of the computer models - the vast majority, nearly all of them - say the consequences would be quite dire. By that they mean that rising sea levels that would really create tremendous upheaval in places like Bangladesh, Marshall Islands, Southern Florida, Manhattan. Sea level rise could be quite a problem if that turns out to be the result of not helping the environment.
