Oscars Still Light Green

Well, the Oscars are over, and while there’s just no way that a party this big can be environmentally-friendly, efforts were made to make this Oscar greener than ever (though the website doesn’t detail exactly how impacts were reduced), it says:

This year, the Academy, the Oscar telecast producer Laura Ziskin and the entire production team endeavored to select supplies and services with a sensitivity toward reducing the threats we face from global warming, species extinction, deforestation, toxic waste, and hazardous chemicals in our water and food.

Independently, some stars did try to reduce their impact where they could, most notably by getting to the big event in a hybrid or other kind of alternative transportation (I’d love to see biodiesel shuttle buses in the future!), in a campaign by Global Green called Red Carpet/Green Cars.

And of course, Al Gore’s speech got a lot of claps and supportive hollers at the party I went to last night. Serious….and funny!

From this Reuters article, following is a list of some of the leading green celebrity players (and I have to mention, where are the women? This list is really dominated by the guys….):

– ROBERT REDFORD: 30 years on board of Natural Resources Defense Council,
founder of Sundance Preserve, winner of 1993 Earth Day award, 1987 United
Nations Global 500 award. In April 2007, launches weekly three-hour slot
called “The Green,” dedicated entirely to the environment, on his Sundance
TV channel.

– LEONARDO DICAPRIO: started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to
promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and
producing a feature length documentary on global warming called “11th Hour.”

– BRAD PITT: co-creator of design competition to build 20 affordable,
reduced energy, environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans.

– STING: founder in 1989 of Rainforest Foundation to protect rain forests
and their indigenous peoples.

– HARRISON FORD: vice chairman of Conservation International, has a Central
American ant named after him, won the Global Environmental Citizen Award in
2002.

– DAVE MATTHEWS BAND: offsets CO2 emissions produced by their multi-city
tours by funding projects such as tree plantings and wind turbine
construction.

– AL GORE: former U.S. vice president whose climate change documentary “An
Inconvenient Truth” was Oscar-nominated, also nominated for 2007 Nobel Peace
prize.

– PIERCE BROSNAN: focuses on marine mammal and wetland protection, headlined
Natural Resources Defense Council campaign against effects of Navy sonar on
whales, awarded 1997 Green Cross International Environmental Leadership
Award.

– CATE BLANCHETT: plans to equip Sydney Theater Company building with solar
panels, rainwater collection systems to make it completely eco-friendly.
Sydney home is fully powered by solar energy, donates to Forest Guardians.

– EDWARD NORTON: launched the BP Solar Neighbors Program in 2003 which
matches each celebrity purchase of a solar energy home system with a solar
installation in a low-income family home in Los Angeles.

– DARYL HANNAH: arrested in June 2006 for staging a 23-day tree sit-in
during a bid to preserve an urban community garden in Los Angeles, traveled
across America in 2005 in a biofuel car, home is entirely off-grid.

– RICHARD BRANSON: Virgin Group chairman, a former global warming skeptic,
who in September 2006 pledged to spend all profits from his airline and rail
businesses (estimated $3 billion over 10 years) on investments in biofuel
research and projects to tackle emissions.

– ALANIS MORISSETTE: given 2003 Environmental Media Association Missions in
Music Award; campaigns against oil drilling in Alaska; has solar panels on
home.

– KT TUNSTALL: ran her US tour bus on biodiesel fuel, performed at
eco-friendly “Golden Green” at the 2007 Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles.

– JOSH HARTNETT, ORLANDO BLOOM, MAROON 5, KT TUNSTALL: promoting 2007 Global
Cool initiative to cut carbon emissions by encouraging people to turn off
TVs, mobile-phone chargers and other energy-draining gadgets.

– JAMIE OLIVER: celebrity chef, plans to power his Cornwall, England,
restaurant by wind turbines.

– NEIL YOUNG: 2004 North American tour fueled entirely with biodiesel.

– WILLIE NELSON: singer, co-partner in the Willie Nelson Biodiesel Company.

– BARENAKED LADIES: run their tour buses and trucks on biodiesel fuel.