Diary Of A Mad Voter: Jessica Peck Corry

Hollywood’s Making Of The Green “Celebritician”

By Jessica Peck Corry, 8-16-07

If you are a decent-looking Democrat looking to make it big with Hollywood donors, you’ve got to undertake one simple task: Create a plan to save the world from humankind’s devastating environmental impact.

Former Vice President Al Gore has headlined the trend. He was an eager participant in a film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which followed him and his “traveling global warming show.” His efforts to raise concerns about damage to the global environment were rewarded generously when the film won an Oscar. In the process, Gore gained a slew of Hollywood friends who had once viewed him simply as a backdrop to an otherwise glamorous and irresistible Clinton presidency.

On the Academy Awards stage, Gore challenged the audience by saying “We need to solve the climate crisis. It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That’s a renewable resource. Let’s renew it.”

While Gore got all of the attention, others, including John Kerry, similarly tried to be seen as “green” candidates. In 2004, Kerry professed his devotion to the environment as the “commitment of a lifetime”, condemning those candidates who only “seem only to discover the cause of the environment only on election years.”

Not since the Atkins Diet gripped America with its low-carbohydrate, high-fat fad, were Americans so enthralled. And Hollywood—complete with its million-dollar salaries heaped upon 10th-grade educated stars—caught the environmental bug worse than any of us.

Stars responded to “celebriticians” like Gore and Kerry by ditching their gas-guzzling Hummers in exchange for more fuel-efficient hybrid sedans. They started replacing their Evian plastic water bottles with glass-bottled Voss, and even installed energy-efficient windows throughout their 10,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansions.

While it’s fun to mock Hollywood, we cannot escape a more serious inquiry into how effective each of our efforts will be in fighting environmental decay—especially in an era when we face a new global world complete with its own set of unknown variables.

The message from Gore and others seems to be that if the U.S. would just take leadership on this issue, we’d all be okay. In truth, however, the facts simply don’t bear out this way. Now we’ve got China to worry about. According to a report issued by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental non-profit, China is quickly becoming one of the world’s worst offenders. 

According to the report, 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China. The country is second only to the U.S. in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide it emits. And while the Chinese government is paying lip service to the need to protect the environment, and has begun implementing fuel efficiency standards, how much can we rely on this Communist country’s leaders to tell us the truth, particularly when its people are engaging in the largest rural-to-urban migration in human history?

The whole situation kind of makes my efforts to drive less and walk more look silly. 

The truth is this: Even if we do our best to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle, we still leave an impact when we don’t want to. Almost all of us are guilty of using the air conditioner on hot days; taking the family station wagon on unnecessary weekend trips to see old friends; and only occasionally, forgetting to drop the newspaper in the recycle bin-instead commingling it (gasp) with the non-recyclable trash.

My husband and I bought our home where we did in part because of its proximity to the grocery store. We walk there almost nightly, buying only the groceries we’ll need for the next day or two. We ride our bikes to work whenever possible. We conserve electricity at every corner, including keeping the thermostat at almost uncomfortably low temperatures in the winter.

When our car starts to wear down a few years from now, we’ll likely consider buying a hybrid or flex-fuel vehicle. Maybe when our carpet wears out, we’ll consider buying a recyclable version. 

Not unlike the Hollywood stars we like to make fun of, we’re pretty proud of ourselves and our environmental stewardship. We do these things because they make sense for our family. To us, it’s about us - and not the global environmental impact of Chinese factories.

In the end, living a more natural life focused on driving less, eating healthy, and leaving less impact on our local environment is good for all of us. The million-dollar question will remain, however, as to whether this will be enough to save the world from ourselves. 

Al Gore seems to think we have the tools to save the world, but do we? I’m sure Democrats will be able to answer this question - but maybe not until the next election.

Editor’s note: Jessic Peck Corry’s weekly blogs are part of a new feature on NewWest.Net/Politics called “Diary of a Mad Voter,” a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. Check back this week at www.newwest.net/madvoter.

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