Who’s Who in Green: Laurie David

Laurie David may not be as visible a green Hollywood figure as Brad Pitt, Daryl Hannah or Leonardo DiCaprio, but she’s every bit as powerful – if not more so – than her more famous counterparts. The producer of An Inconvenient Truth is a longtime environmentalist who’s on a mission to spread global warming awareness around the world.

Sprig called her “a walking eco-encyclopedia of green-living tips” and Grist affirms that anyone who’s skeptical of Hollywood greenies would have a change of heart after meeting her. With a background in the entertainment industry booking comedians for David Letterman, David changed her focus over the years to concentrate on the environmental movement and has been a force of nature ever since.

Laurie David founded the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, wrote the best-selling book Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You!, co-authored The Down to Earth Guide to Global Warming and executive produced HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle as well as comedy special Earth to America!. David also famously embarked on the Stop Global Warming College Tour with Sheryl Crow in 2007, visiting college campuses in the Southeast to raise awareness about global warming and inspire students to act.

She’s a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a founding member of The Detroit Project, producing television commercials that helped change the tide of public opinion about the use of gas-guzzling SUVs. In 2004 the NRDC opened the David Family Environmental Action Center in her honor, featuring museum-quality exhibits on global warming, ocean pollution, everyday toxins, green building solutions and other issues.

David has been particularly successful in reaching women with her message of taking action on global warming. She has appeared multiple times on Oprah to discuss environmental issues in front of a devoted audience of millions, and was the first-ever guest editor of three issues of Elle Magazine, which became the first fashion magazine to devote an entire issue to the environment and print on recycled paper. She also regularly writes for The Huffington Post.

Vanity Fair declared her to be ‘the Bono of climate change’, and with a resume like hers, it’s not hard to see why. In the last two years alone she has been profiled in People, Glamour, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Self, Elle, Seed Magazine, Wired, House and Garden, Vanity Fair, Outside Magazine and The New York Times and appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNBC, NOW, Nightline Hardball, Joe Scarborough Country and The Martha Stewart Show.

David has been honored with numerous awards including a U.S. EPA Climate Protection Award, the Feminist Majority’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award, Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award, the NRDC’s Forces of Nature Award and National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award.

When asked by Treehugger why global warming issues are so important to her, David replied,

First of all, if you care about anything as human being, you have to care about the issue of global warming because it is the mother of all issues. We are literally changing life on this planet as we know it. And we’re not talking about just melting glaciers, we’re also talking about affecting seasons, and we’re talking about the leaves changing, when the birds get their food, how polar bears exist and survive, and we’re affecting, we’re causing extinction. Human beings are causing the climate to change. That is a giant statement; that is a huge thing to sort of wrap your mind around. This is as big as it gets, and we’re doing it. In particular, the United States is the world’s biggest cause of global warming position and we’re doing the least about it. It all has to do with our consciousness; it has to do with how we’re living, and how we’re going to live in the future. My whole thing is the solution is you; we have to change the way we think, we have to change the way we act, we have to change the way we behave. And then we’re going to demand… if we change ourselves as individuals, we’re going to demand that our families change, then we’re going to demand that our businesses change, and then hopefully country changes. That’s sort of the path that I’m on, and that’s what I’m hoping will happen.

Laurie David’s Green Score: 77,599

Photo credit: Vogue Magazine

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