An Exclusive Interview with Ed Begley, Jr. – Part 1

Ed Begley, Jr. is both a well-known actor and well-known environmental activist, and in this exclusive interview with us, he talks candidly about his environmental activism.

He first became prominent when he starred in the 1980’s TV show, St. Elsewhere. And he’s been busy working ever since, acting in TV shows such as Arrested Development, Scrubs, and The West Wing, and in such movies as This is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Recount.

His most recent movie acting roles are in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works, and the Judd Apatow film, Pineapple Express.

Currently, he is seen in two TV shows: the network show Gary Unmarried, and the cable reality show, Living with Ed.

Living with Ed, seen on Planet Green, allows Ed to talk about his favorite subject, green and sustainable living. He knows his stuff about the environment, as he has been involved in environmentalism a long time.

After all, how many people do you know use a bicycle to power their toast?

Truly, Ed Begley, Jr. lives a Low Density Lifestyle. To learn more about him and his work, go to his website at www.edbegley.com.

So today, I give you the first part of the exclusive interview I did with Ed. I’ll continue with the interview tomorrow.

Michael Wayne: How do you use a bicycle to power your toaster?
Ed Begley, Jr.: The original system I had was made by a friend of mine. It was a simple stationary bike with a generator on the back that fed 12V power down into my solar battery array where it could then be used as stored power. A few years ago another company built me one out of a bike trainer – so I could hook any normal bike to it and make power that way. It doesn’t power the toaster directly – it simply puts power into my batteries that power the entire house. What I figured out was that 15 minutes of hard riding essentially generated enough power to toast two slices of bread.

M.W.: What got you interested in living in a more sustainable way?
E.B.: It was several things. It was the first Earth Day in April 1970, and I wanted to get involved. I had grown up in smoggy Los Angeles and had really had it with the horrible, choking smog. My father Ed Begley Sr., a wonderful actor, had just passed away and I wanted to do something to honor him. Even though we didn’t call him one, he was an environmentalist. He was the son of Irish immigrants and a ‘conservative that liked to conserve’. He had lived through the great depression and had saved string and tin foil and turned out the lights and did those things you did back then to save money. He had always told me “Eddie, don’t tell people what you are going to do, show them by doing it.” And so, to honor him, and to get involved with Earth Day and to try and do something about the horrible smog problem in L.A., I started taking public transportation, riding my bike, walking, recycling, composting, using biodegradable soaps and detergents, eating a vegetarian diet and so on. I even bought an electric car.

M.W.: What are some of the things people can do to live a more sustainable lifestyle?
E.B.: They can Live Simply so that Others Can Simply Live. Less is more. I encourage everyone to slow down and simplify. Start with what you can afford and work your way up the ladder. That’s the way I did it starting back in 1970. You do what you can, save money, and do more. Start with the cheap and easy stuff – energy efficient lighting, weather stripping, recycling, composting, home gardening, bike riding, public transportation etc. A kilowatt SAVED is far cheaper than a kilowatt PRODUCED. I encourage everyone to start with a home energy audit – and work towards a more energy efficient home through insulation, windows, lighting etc.

M.W.: What do you use to power your home, and approximately what does it cost you a year?
E.B.: My electricity comes almost entirely from solar. I use between $300 and $600 a year in grid electric – mostly off peak power to charge my electric car which I use about 10,000 miles a year. I also use between $20 and $40 a month in natural gas. The natural gas is for heating the home using hot water – some of the work is done via solar thermal, the rest with a high efficiency AO Smith Vertex 100 gas water heater hooked into a FirstCo AquaTherm water-based forced air furnace. Both the solar thermal and solar PV are fully paid back and I’m into profit on all of them. Solar thermal was first put in in 1985, and PV in 1990. I also get to claim a carbon negative footprint, as I invested in a 75kw wind turbine in the California desert back in 1985 and its still putting out about 10 homes worth of power.

M.W.: What do you say to people who state that climate change isn’t real?
E.B.: I say let’s agree to disagree on that – and instead focus on what we can agree on. Do we agree that $3+ a gallon gas is a problem? Do we agree that we have a dependency problem on Mid-East oil, and that we are sending billions of dollars to countries that don’t like us very much and impact our national security? Do we agree that we want to clean up the air and water in our cities? Do we agree that we want to save money? If we can agree on those things, then a sustainable lifestyle can make a difference.

M.W.: What lessons should we emphatically learn from the Gulf Coast Oil Spill?
E.B.: That although there is still quite a bit of oil available to find, it is getting harder, more dangerous and more expensive to get. At some point we have to decide if getting to that oil is more expensive and dangerous than the alternative which is to spend the money on other forms of more renewable energy. I think that time is now.

M.W.: I understand that California has four times the amount of cars since the 1970’s, yet half the ozone. How was that accomplished? Didn’t the skeptics say it would bankrupt the state?
E.B.: It was accomplished through good policy and good technological efforts. Unleaded fuels, catalytic converters, combined cycle gas turbines, spray paint booths, natural gas busses, expanded public transportation – all things that contributed to California’s clean air efforts. There were many businessmen and economists that felt smog and pollution were signs of progress and that our economy would struggle. But throughout these changes in the 70s, 80s and 90s the economy thrived. We can do this.

M.W.: What can people do to be more energy conscious if they don’t have a lot of money?
E.B.: As we talked about above, they can pick the low hanging fruit – lighting, thermostat programming, weather stripping, biking, public transit, energy star devices, unplugging phantom power etc. etc. These are things people can do today on any budget and immediately start saving energy and saving money.

Part 2 will appear tomorrow…

The Planetwalker – The Man Who Walks the Planet

John Francis is an incredibly unique and gifted individual. He is a planetwalker – a man who walks the planet.

Listen to him above at a talk he gave at a TED conference.

For almost three decades, John Francis has been a planetwalker, traveling the globe by foot and sail with a message of environmental respect and responsibility – and for 17 of those years he did it without speaking.

John Francis walks the Earth in order to carry a message of careful, truly sustainable development and respect for our planet.

Over the years, he has walked tens of thousands of miles around the globe, crisscrossing the United States, and voyaging to Cuba, South America, Patagonia and Antarctica.

Born in 1946, Francis moved to Marin County, California as a young man. After witnessing the devastation caused by a 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay, he stopped riding in motorized vehicles, a vow which lasted 22 years from 1972 until 1994. From 1973 until 1990, he also spent 17 years voluntarily silent.

During this time he earned a Ph.D. in land management and traveled extensively, walking across the entire width of the lower 48 states of the USA as well as walking to South America.

His journey began on January 19, 1971, when two oil tankers owned by Standard Oil Company collided in San Francisco Bay, creating an enormous oil spill. After seeing the damage caused, John Francis decided that he wanted to stop riding in cars.

The following year, a neighbor of Francis’ died suddenly. Faced with a new sense of the uncertainty of life, Francis decided to act immediately and for the next 22 years refused to ride in motorized vehicles. Francis describes himself as having had an over-inflated sense of self-importance at this time, and says that he initially expected other people to follow his example and also forgo automobiles and other powered vehicles.

As Francis traveled about on foot, people would sometimes stop to talk about what he was doing, and he often found himself arguing with them, as well as with friends and acquaintances, about his decision to go on foot.

On his birthday in 1973, Francis decided to stop speaking as a gift to his community, to not argue for one day and instead listen to what others had to say. He found this so valuable that he continued to be silent the next day. This continued and he ended up not speaking for 17 years, with the exception of a phone call to his mother after 10 years of silence.

During this time, he communicated by writing and gestures, and also expressed himself by playing the banjo. He ended his vow of silence on Earth Day in 1990.

While he was silent, he completed three college degrees, culminating in a Ph.D. in Land Management from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He walked to Ashland, Oregon to enroll in Southern Oregon University, and completed a B.A. there in a two-year program. Next, he walked to the state of Washington and built a boat, contacting the University of Montana and informing them that he’d like to enroll in a master’s degree program in about two years. He walked and sailed to Montana, and completed his degree there.

With little money, he audited classes but professors tracked his grades, and when funds became available to pay for the classes he had taken, they were put on his transcript for credit. As is common with graduate students, Francis taught classes while studying for his master’s degree.

Francis then walked to Wisconsin, where he took up his doctoral studies, focusing on the effects of oil spills. During his studies, the Exxon Valdez disaster occurred, which brought attention to his research. After completing his degree, he walked to Washington D.C.

In 1994, Francis decided he could be a more effective environmentalist if he began to again use motorized transportation. At the border of Venezuela and Brazil, he boarded a bus.

Today, John Francis is an expert on oil spills, tankers and other environmental issues.

And also in these times, Francis does talk and drive, but it’s all in the name of inspiring people to do as he has done – become a steward of the earth and a planetwalker.

He has written a book about his experience, PlanetWalker: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence.

This book is the story of a man who, on foot and in silence, has rediscovered rhythms in nature that most of us have forgotten, and learned to communicate his understanding and empathy without speaking a word.

He says of walking that, “part of the mystery of walking is that the destination is inside us and we really don’t know when we arrive until we arrive.”

Perhaps the Gulf Coast oil spill will create many more John Francis’. We surely will need them.

John Francis still lives in Marin County, CA, in Point Reyes Station, with his wife and two sons.

To learn more about John Francis and his organization Planetwalk, you can go to www.planetwalk.org.

Where Have All the Bees Gone?

In the article from the other day, The Obsession With Lawns, I mentioned how among other things that lawns are harming is the bee population – which begs the question, where have all the bees gone?

Bees are disappearing in droves, dying in epidemic numbers. One out of every three bees has died in the last few years.

For those of you who don’t like the sting of bees, you may think this is a good thing. Yet bees have an important place in nature.

You see, a third of what we eat is thanks to bees – because of their work pollinating flowers and plants. Bees are responsible for pollinating over 100 commonly eaten fruit and vegetable crops. Without bees our food system would be in serious trouble.

The disappearance of bees has an official name – Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD for short.

Colony Collapse Disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.

European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree. Possible cases of CCD have also been reported in Taiwan since April 2007.

And what is causing CCD?

Bees are dying from the equivalent of the flu, and so they’re getting bad virus infections. But it’s not the same flu – there’s different strains and different types of viruses bees can get. CCD bees have a lot more pathogens than healthy bees do. The question is, why are these bees suddenly so susceptible to these different pathogens?

The answer is that their immune systems have become fragile.
There are a number of things that are weakening their immune systems: the widespread use of pesticides is first and foremost. This can harm the bees directly, or other insects that the bees eat.

Other possibilities have included cell phone radiation and genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics.

Whatever is behind it, it’s important that things be turned around, or our food system could be in peril.

Above, you can watch Dennis vanEngelsdorp, State Apiarist for Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture, speaking at a recent TED conference about the mysterious disappearance of bees. One of the things he does talk about as contributing to the bee problem are lawns, so pay heed to what he says.

And below is a trailer to a film about the bee crisis entitled The Last Beekeeper.

God’s Word on Lawns

In the last article, I discussed The Obsession with Lawns, and how lawns are extremely harmful for the environment.

Today I have no less an authority than God, who will tell us what He thinks of lawns.

This is a conversation God held with St. Francis not too long ago that we here at Low Density Lifestyle World Central Headquarters were allowed to sit in on.

Actually, it’s something that has floated around the internet for awhile that is totally appropriate to the discussion on lawns. It’s funny, but makes absolute sense.

So here goes:

God: Hey St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect “no maintenance” garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.

St. Francis: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers “weeds” and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It’s temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

St. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. The begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it… sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

St. Francis: No Sir. Just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes, Sir.

God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You are not going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It’s a natural circle of life.

St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. The haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

God: Enough. I don’t want to think about this anymore. Sister Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

Sister Catherine: “Dumb and Dumber”, Lord. It’s a real stupid movie about…..

God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

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