Ed Begley Jr. and I Had Breakfast Together

Well, I did most of the eating; Ed stuck to his oatmeal and did most of the talking, which worked out just fine!  All of this eating and talking took place this morning at the Santa Barbara Club where the Community Environmental Council hosted one of its wonderful Partnership Council Breakfasts.  These events are organized by the staff of the CEC as an educational opportunity and way of saying thank you to our Board, Partnership Council, supporters and members of the general public. 

Today our guest speaker was Ed Begley Jr. and I was honored to be able to introduce him.  Ed grew up in Los Angeles and continues to live there with his wife, Rachelle, with whom he stars on the Planet Green reality TV show, Living With Ed.  Ed was a vegetarian, recycled and even drove an electric "car" in 1970, way before all of these things were mainstream.  I put "car" in quotes because he said it could barely be called that, it was really more of a golf cart on wheels with one windshield wiper blade and he had to stay to the right on all roads in Los Angeles to stay alive!

While he discussed the many things that we need to do to help the environment, he focused on the many things that we have already done.  Decreasing the size of the hole in the ozone layer, reducing the air pollution in Los Angeles even though 4x the amount of cars are on the road, not allowing any other rivers to catch on fire from pollution.  Breakfast with Ed was one of hope and achievement and easy digestion!  

He recently had an energy audit done on his own home and was feeling pretty un-auditable since he was "Mr. Green" and had his own green TV show.  Then the results of the audit came back and he was shocked at how much else he could do to save money and tighten up the leaks in his own home.  He recognized our audience as already being very involved but went on to challenge each of us to "do one more thing today."  

He said that some of the shows storylines are based on suggestions from the audience.  Perhaps he wants to do an episode on the Community Environmental Council and our mission to get our region off of fossil fuels in one generation.  That sounds like a winner to me!  I invited him back up to our 40th anniversary of Earth Day and asked him how he chose what Earth Day to attend each year.  Perhaps if I mentioned that we would have hemp thongs for sale, he would come to ours...you had to be there for that one to make sense.  Next time...you're invited, get involved!  

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