Who’s Who in Green: Ed Begley, Jr.

Actor Ed Begley, Jr. is well known for roles like that of Dr. Victor Erlich in St. Elsewhere, for which he won 6 Emmys, but over time, his environmentalism has begun to outshine his film and television career. Ed has always been an activist, working toward making his own life as eco-friendly as it can be and over the last decade or so, he’s been sharing his passion with the world.

He may sometimes seem like an irascible, get-off-my-lawn type on his HGTV show Living with Ed, but he’s certainly not a shrill holier-than-thou eco-martyr. Ed is the real deal – he lives his beliefs, and his show documents how he’s living the green life in California despite his celebrity status and a wife who’d rather be taking a private jet to Bora Bora. He’s not a poser, using the environmental movement to gain credibility, nor is he wagging his finger at people who do less than earth-friendly things. He simply does what he believes is right, giving advice only when asked.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Ed Begley Jr. was all too aware of the pervasive smog that hangs over the city, and it inspired him to change his life, despite the fact that an eco-friendly lifestyle was highly unusual at the time. He’s a longtime vegan, has been driving an electric car for decades and uses low-tech, man-powered gadgets whenever he can.

Ed arrives at Hollywood events on his bicycle or in his electric car. He’s unapologetic about his decidedly un-Hollywood 2-bedroom 1 ½-bath home, which is powered completely by solar energy.  He ripped out the lawns as soon as he moved in, grows organic produce, cooks meals in a solar oven and fastidiously sorts his recyclables. He collects rainwater in barrels, takes super-short Navy-style showers and recently installed a wind turbine on his roof.

On what he thinks it will take for renewable energy to go mainstream, Ed told Mother Jones,

I think the tipping point is just a critical mass of people who finally accept it. People have it in their mind that it’s too expensive, and so it is. Here is what I would like to have happen: that the people who can afford it would buy solar. Everybody who can afford it—doctors, lawyers, professionals, actors, athletes—people who have the money would put some amount of solar on their house. The way people did with personal computers. Enough people say, “Hey, I want to have a personal computer” in the ’80s and suddenly they got a lot cheaper and by the ’90s, you know, it just went boom. And now they are really cheap. I bought a personal computer in ‘87 with a hard drive, not just floppies, a 25 MB hard drive. You know how small that is. That’s like nothing. It was $4,700 dollars for all the stuff that came with it. And at some point just a few years down the line, it was a fraction of that.

In addition to his reality TV show, Ed has a book called Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life and his own range of cleaning products called ‘Begley’s Best’, which raises money for charity.  He speaks to crowds across the country about sustainability and environmental issues, hoping to get more people excited about the small ways in which they can contribute to the cause every day.

Ed Begley’s Green Score: 50,987

Photos via The New York Times

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