PARK CITY, Utah—Environmental movies with a message are taking center stage at the 25th Sundance Film Festival, with films ranging from vanishing bees and threatened dolphins being screened here.

“We are ravaging the earth. We need to think how we treat our resources but more importantly how we treat the people,” said director Joe Berlinger in an interview with AFP.

Berlinger’s latest documentary “Crude” in the US Documentary Competition is the riveting story of five Ecuadoran tribes as they seek justice from oil giant Chevron.

“We as a society fill our gas tanks but don’t think where these products come from. It’s our moral responsibility to know. I hope that’s what people get out of this film,” Berlinger said.

Berlinger deftly introduces the tribes and their way of life deep in the jungle rainforests of the Amazon.   Gradually the “paradise” quiet jungle life is revealed to have been poisoned decades earlier by oil producers. Waste pits from oil production are visited by both legal teams as charges and counter charges are leveled. The inspections, delays, arguments and legal wrangling are coupled with endless frustration.

“It’s a great David and Goliath story,” Berlinger said, adding, “It will be decades before this is decided. In the meantime the people will suffer. It’s a shameful chapter in our history.”

Lawyers for the tribes go on a marathon legal run to harness evidence, witnesses and support before ever hoping for a chance against resources employed by Chevron.

Berlinger clearly knows about balance in covering an important issue. Lawyers and scientists representing Chevron appear throughout the movie offering their viewpoint.

“It’s a film about the process about the process of justice. I’m not saying who is guilty. The film doesn’t try to solve who is responsible. I let each side have their say,” said Berlinger.

The film also shows how legal teams prepare for court appearances and how they strive to have their side presented in the media spotlight.

The legal war is accompanied by a public relations battle that features radio and television appearances along with efforts to bring government pressure to bear on the issue.

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa sides with the tribes’ dilemma and rock star Sting and his wife Trudie Styler trumpet their plight.

“I consider it our fight as well,” said Trudie Styler in the film.

Berlinger is no stranger to Sundance where he won the audience award with “Brother’s Keeper” (1992). Other credits include “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” and “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.”

Other Sundance films serving up environmental green to movie audiences include “Earth Days,” directed by Robert Stone. Stone’s film explores the environmental movement through those heavily involved in it.

Director Rupert Murray’s “The End of the Line” is based on a book by journalist Charles Clover and reveals the impact of overfishing on the oceans.

Using humor “Dirt! The Movie,” directed by Bill Beneson and Gene Rosow, shows how humans are destroying the last natural resource on earth.

“The Beekeepers” screening in the New Frontiers category uses an experimental approach to entice audience-goers.  Director Richard Robinson mixes ancient accounts of beekeeping, black and white film clips, contemporary film with his own artistic narrative to get peoples’ attention.

“The bees tell us what is going on in the environment,” said Robinson.

Robinson himself is a beekeeper and says he interviewed beekeepers in the United States including a NASA scientist who tracks global warming by studying bees. Robinson points to Colony Collapse Disorder which is killing bees worldwide.

“You’re going to have a host of problems. The bees are like a tractor for a farmer. They pollinate the crops and increase yields on the crops,” said Robinson.

“The Cove” directed by Louie Psihoyos follows the demise of dolphins and disappearing whales off a coastal village in Japan. A group of activists led by Ric O’Barry (Flipper) reveal the environmental crisis.

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Leonardo DiCaprio
Once "king of the world," this star often flies commercially and drives himself around in a hybrid Toyota Prius. In 1998, he started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation to promote environmental causes. More recently, he's been working on 11th Hour, an environmental documentary featuring interviews with global green leaders.

Cameron Diaz
This bombshell ain't trippin' (though that was the name of her eco-themed MTV show). The avid surfer drives a hybrid car, got trained to give Al Gore's climate presentation, and helped make the big announcement about Live Earth.

Robert Redford
The Sundance Kid has campaigned for Utah wilderness, promoted solar energy, convinced mayors to tackle climate change, and served 30 years on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In April, he launched a weekly three-hour slot of eco-programming on his Sundance TV channel.

Cate Blanchett
Take notes on this scandal: Recently part of an ad campaign promoting Sydney's Earth Hour blackout, Cate Blanchett and her playwright hubby have converted their own home to solar power. As co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, the duo also plans to green that venture and hopes to power an entire theater season off-grid.

George Clooney
This leading man not only earned an Oscar last year but also a prime spot on the cover of Vanity Fair's first green issue. In association with his award-winning role in Syriana, Clooney launched Oil Change, a campaign to say good night and good luck to America's dependence on oil. And to drive the point home, he's frequently seen out and about with his eco-friendly Tango electric car.

Ed Begley Jr.
We're Ed over heels for this electric-car-driving, solar-powered-home-owning star. He's got his own brand of eco-cleaners (Begley's Best), a reality show that puts a domestic spin on green issues (Living with Ed), and a morning routine that involves powering his toaster with a stationary bike.

Edward Norton
The eco-commitment of this Hollywood heavyweight is no illusion. Norton used his star power to help launch BP's Solar Neighbors Program, which gets solar panels onto low-income homes in L.A., and he hosted an award-winning, four-part National Geographic TV special about the unnerving effects of global environmental problems.

Daryl Hannah
Arrested last year for staging a 23-day tree-sit in a bid to save L.A.'s South Central Farm, an urban community garden, this steel magnolia is a longtime environmentalist who drives a biodiesel car and runs her green home on solar power. Hannah has also recently made a splash online with the eco-video blog dh love life.

Amitabh Bachchan
Concerned about his native India's vulnerability to climate change, this top Bollywood star helped launch a partnership between Global Cool and the International Indian Film Academy to use the power of cinema to build awareness of the issue.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
She may be starring in The New Adventures of Old Christine, but being a devout environmentalist is nothing new for Louis-Dreyfus. Her solar-powered home is a showcase of green design and energy efficiency, and she's long been active with organizations like Heal the Bay, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Trust for Public Land.

Pierce Brosnan
The world is enough for this 007, who focuses his activism on the planet -- marine mammals and wetland protection in particular. Brosnan -- who was named "Best-Dressed Environmentalist" in 2004 and serves on the board of the Environmental Media Association -- has long fought for dolphin-safe tuna rules and protested the U.S. Navy's widespread use of sonar, which can harm whales and other cetaceans.

Rosario Dawson
Though she's soon to reprise her Sin City role, Dawson's environmental involvement leans more toward the virtuous. In 2005, she brought her star power to a U.N. summit on preserving the environment and ending poverty, and, more recently, she's dialed up her work with Global Cool's mobile texting campaign, which steers money to clean energy and energy-reduction projects.

Will Ferrell
He got guffaws during his blaze of glory on TBS's "Earth to America!" eco-comedy special, but this funnyman's commitment to the environment is no laughing matter. He's an active supporter of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and, though it may sound stranger than fiction, he'll soon be driving his electric car into the driveway of an eco-friendly home.

Tom Hanks
An avid supporter and volunteer for The Nature Conservancy, this Forrest had the gumption to order the very first eBox electric car, delivered earlier this year. And Hanks often goes the extra green mile to make mention of his environmental leanings when he makes major TV appearances.

Brad Pitt
Twice named "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, Pitt isn't just a pretty face. A major architecture buff, he's been hot on the trail of the emerging green-building movement, helping with efforts to rebuild New Orleans in an eco-friendly way, narrating a sustainable design TV series, and supporting Ed Norton's Solar Neighbors Program.

Photo: Kevin Mazur / WireImage

Julia Roberts
This pretty woman was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair's green issue last year -- and for good reason: She's a spokesperson for Earth BioFuels and frequently talks up green issues on Oprah and other TV shows. Plus, the Erin Brockovich star will soon be playing another green activist, wildlife conservationist Joan Root, who was shot and killed in 2006.

Photo: PBS

Matt Damon
The talented Mr. Damon has been a good shepherd for the earth, narrating the documentary Running the Sahara and participating in the related awareness campaign about the water crisis in Africa. Damon also narrated the Journey to Planet Earth series on PBS.

Photo: Leon Bennett / WireImage

Alicia Silverstone
A longtime vegetarian -- and PETA's "Sexiest Female Vegetarian" in 2004 -- this blonde bombshell certainly isn't clueless about real environmental commitment. Silverstone is quick to talk the green talk in interviews, but she also walks the walk in her own green home, complete with solar panels and a table made from the flooring of an old bowling alley.

Photo: Vera Anderson / WireImage

Matt Dillon
There's something about Matt Dillon: He recently teamed up with Global Green USA and Yahoo! to announce a "Greenest City in America" challenge as part of the web engine's new "Be a Better Planet" program, which urges Americans to take action against climate change.

Photo: John Sciulli / WireImage.com

Charlize Theron
This South African beauty is no monster when it comes to green issues. She's traveled in eco-style to the Oscars and teamed up with a number of other celebs to fight the installation of LNG terminals off the coast of Malibu, Calif.

Sarah van Schagen contributed to this list.

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With his legendary Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford brought sex appeal to the business of independent filmmaking. Now, with his Sundance cable channel, he's aiming to do the same thing for another underappreciated art form -- eco-themed television programming.

Tonight, the channel launches "The Green," a block of environmental programming that will air on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Each week, it will kick off with a half-hour segment of Big Ideas for a Small Planet -- a 13-part series on environmental problem-solvers and innovations. Produced by the team behind Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the show is slick and fast-paced, applying a thick coat of gloss to environmentalism's typically rough-hewn image. Following each segment will be the television premiere of a feature-length documentary, on topics ranging from environmental refugees to Andy Goldsworthy's natural sculptures to Dr. Bronner's natural-soap empire. Tonight's documentary -- A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash -- explores the frightening implications of peak oil. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the advisory committee for "The Green.")

I spoke with Redford about his new green enterprise last week at his office in the Sundance Channel's Manhattan headquarters, just before he jetted off to D.C. to finish filming his latest political thriller.

What was the inspiration for "The Green"?

We are coming out of one of the most politically damaging periods of American history, during which so many cornerstone environmental protections were rolled back in the face of immense ecological challenges. The beauty of it is that in the midst of this political disrepair, all these solutions and opportunities have been bubbling up from the grassroots. People are fighting back, they're finding green solutions in agriculture, in food, in fashion, in building, in home furnishings, in transportation. And more of that's going to come. There are so many positive and exciting stories to tell about the environment right now. What Sundance Channel's "The Green" is going to do is tell those stories.

Can you give us an example of some upcoming green programming?

I'm particularly excited about the Big Ideas for a Small Planet series. It's organized by topic -- fuel, cities, buildings, clothing, food, and so on -- and spotlights the creative innovators and innovations emerging in these areas all around the country. The shows are solution-based, story-driven, and moving the conversation about sustainability to a new place -- one of optimism and of people taking control.

It's a big departure from the doom-and-gloom scenario that environmentalists have been communicating for the past 20 years. We were trying to warn people that things were getting bad, but America didn't want to listen, so it was hard to get traction. This is about solutions, about people from all these walks of life who are finding industrious ways to help solve our environmental challenges and make money from it.

Would you call what "The Green" is doing "activist media"?

Absolutely.

The environment has surged into pop culture in the last year or so. Do you think it's a fad or the beginning of lasting change?

It's certainly more than just a fad. The environmental tipping point has been reached. It has come together to a crux so fast that it's now a bandwagon, and it's moving fast, and there are all these opportunities that are rolling out of it. But the battle isn't over. We have to educate and engage people about what's going on. There are going to be new ideas and new innovations, and those innovations are going to lead to new industries. And the industries will lead to new jobs, and that will lead to a new economy. But in order for this to work we have to educate people -- especially young people before they get hardened.

What factors do you think led to the environmental tipping point?

Two things. First, it became good business. A bunch of entrepreneurs discovered that you can make money doing good, and then suddenly larger groups woke up to the fact that they didn't want to be left out. Then Wall Street got on board. Once Goldman Sachs is in, you know you're in business.

At the same time, people were experiencing the symptoms of climate change and a changing energy landscape -- whether it was soaring gas prices or intensifying hurricanes or their health was being affected.

So I think that those converging forces created this tip where we are now.

Do you really think we've reached a tipping point politically? Many enviros would argue that while big change is happening at the grassroots, it hasn't yet reached Washington.

I think on global warming it has. There have been dozens of different climate-related bills introduced in recent months.

But do you think we'll see climate regulations pass in the 110th Congress?

I do, I honestly do. We may have to wait until 2009 to get a really ambitious program in place, but I do think the political tides are turning in a big way on this issue.

In general, I am very hopeful that the dangers and the destructive patterns of our leadership in Washington are going to be stopped. It's hard to believe that one man, one president, could undo so much.

You seem to have very strong feelings about Bush.

King Midas had the golden touch -- everything he touched turned to gold. Everything [Bush] touches turns to shit. Everything. The only thing guarding him must be the Rapture, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise. I've met the guy. He's in a bubble. But it's getting ready to pop.

Do you think the environment is going to be a defining issue in the 2008 elections?

I think it's going to be a defining issue, yes, but will it be the defining issue? It's going to be competing with some other pretty strong issues. Hopefully voters will understand that all the major issues -- namely, national security and jobs -- are actually very intimately connected to protecting the environment and greening the economy.

Is there a candidate you favor?

Not at the moment. I don't get involved in presidential elections. I usually focus on local elections, candidates who are solid on the environment. There is certainly a great presidential campaign to be built around a strong green agenda, and I hope we'll see that emerge.

Are you working on any politically or environmentally themed movies?

I'm just finishing filming Lions for Lambs -- that's very much tied to these issues. It's about taking personal responsibility in the area of politics, national security, and media. It stars Meryl Streep, myself, and Tom Cruise.

The character I play is a professor who's trying to keep a kid from drifting into total apathy and cynicism. We're trying to get this kid involved and to wake up because he's such a brilliant student, and he's not coming to class anymore and he's drifting away, and he's trying to save this kid before it's too late.

When the professor tries to get the kid to engage, the kid says, "Why do you want me to get involved in a system that's so fucked up and broken? Do you want me to go into politics and be jerked off by some page under the table? You call that morality? What's the matter with just having a decent life? Do I have to go to the barricades and fight this and fight that? And you're certainly not going to tell me I should go into the armed forces. That's the most morally absurd thing I can think of." The kid is trying to justify a certain amount of apathy. He's trying to justify non-involvement.

So the professor says, "Because how long do you think you and your neighbor are going to be safe? How long do you think your streets are going to last before forming potholes like Third World countries? Before there's no gas in your tank?"

Do you think this debate within the movie reflects a real reluctance within the younger generation to address the challenges of our day?

I do think there is a pervasive apathy among young people. Some say it's because there's no draft, some say it's the consumerism, some say it's the media. But I also sense change. I think the pendulum might be ready to swing back the other way, where young people start to engage. I think kids are beginning to realize that there's more to life than just having an easy life. It hasn't happened yet on the grand scale, but it's rumbling. I can feel it underneath my feet.

I agree that the younger generation is struggling to shake off apathy, but then again, it was the boomers who are largely responsible for America's profligate energy use and heavily polluting habits. There's apathy inherent in that legacy.

You're absolutely right. When you stop to think about it, the boomers did the burning, and that seed was sown by the generation before it that sacrificed so that we could burn the oil. In the '30s and '40s, it was the Depression and off to war -- it was struggle, sacrifice, die for your country. Then suddenly the '50s come and we're told to get out there and consume, build, burn oil -- it was the patriotic thing to do, and boy we did it. And then, suddenly, it was like, "Where are all the ashes going?" We are leaving these problems to you all to figure out, and that's a huge and daunting responsibility.

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Discovery and Sundance channels plot green programming

Good news: soon you can be green without leaving your couch. Next year, Discovery Communications will start up an around-the-clock channel focused on eco-friendly living. The already-existent Discovery Home channel will be rebranded as Discovery PlanetGreen and beamed into 50 million homes, starting off with a series called "Ten Ways to Save the Planet." (And it just so happens that your favorite online green magazine -- yes, that would be us -- will be a partner in Discovery's green initiative.) The Sundance Channel is also getting into the game: under a campaign dubbed The Green, it's widely airing a public service announcement wherein Robert Redford directs readers to eco-tips on the Sundance website. In mid-April, the channel will debut a weekly three-hour green programming block, kicking off with "Big Ideas for a Small Planet," and will announce a promotion soliciting one-minute green-living films from viewers. Says Discovery CEO David Zaslav, soon to be working out of a carbon-neutral headquarters: "Today, green means responsible."

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America's sweetheart (back off, Witherspoon!) Julia Roberts has agreed to serve as a spokes-star for clean-energy developers Earth Biofuels, joining fellow Oscar winner Morgan Freeman and country singer Willie Nelson. We're glad she's green and all, but still, let's hope she burned that unsettling sprite get-up from Vanity Fair.

Photo: Kevin Mazur / WireImage.com

Built for greens with a lotta green and wicked midlife crises, the electric Tesla Roadster is a sexy new rig with built-in satellite nav and an iPod dock. Sure, it goes from 0 to 60 in four seconds -- in complete silence -- but with an $80,000 price tag, it'll also take your bank account to zero in no time, flat.

Photo: Tesla Motors.

"What does your car say about you?" a new ad by Greenpeace asks (and answers), as it follows an SUV driver through a day at the office. Though not the first advert to use the concept, it's probably the first to use the word "wanker." We approve.

Photo: Greenpeace.

Middle-aged minivans be damned, this Portland family is forgoing high gas prices and emissions by powering their multi-person vehicle with small children. The human-pedaled jalopy is perfect for short trips around the neighborhood, says dad Dean Mullins, whose motto is "Burn fat, not oil." Mmmm ... better keep pedaling.

Photo: Miles Hochstein.

Even though he's got wrinkles deep enough to create their own low-pressure systems, Women of a Certain Age harbor crushes on Robert Redford that are inextinguishable. Hopefully his new move -- Sundance Channel Green, a weekly three-hour block of eco-themed goodies -- will get them hot for environmentalism.

Photo: Stephen Lovekin / WireImage.com

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As GOP leaders bluster about gay marriage, flag burning, and the "death tax," Democrats are struggling to get a word in edgewise about the bevy of proposals they've been drafting to address more substantive national concerns -- namely, soaring gas prices, dependence on oil from an increasingly volatile Middle East, and global warming. These are among the hot-button election-year issues that Republicans are trying to dodge by throwing red meat to their right-wing base.

Dems say they've got solutions for America's energy problems.

Photo: iStockphoto.

Dems are pulling out all the stops -- including Robert Redford -- to get some air time (if not room on the congressional calendar) to advance their energy platform. Senate Democrats including Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), and Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) in recent weeks have announced or introduced a number of broad legislative initiatives promoting cuts in U.S. oil demand and boosts to alternative-energy development.

Next week, Reid and Redford will share the stage at an energy-independence event at the Washington Hilton, part of a three-day progressive "Take Back America" conference. They'll stand alongside enviros and steelworkers to outline plans intended to create 3 million jobs in clean-technology industries and wean America off its oil addiction. It's a clear election-year gambit to help Democrats stake their claim on the energy issue and address concerns about high gas prices that many liberal candidates hope will hobble their Republican opponents.

In a sense, the publicity event takes a bullhorn to the goals of the Clean Energy Development for a Growing Economy (Clean EDGE) Act, a Senate Democratic energy plan devised by Reid's staffers and introduced in mid-May by Cantwell with 23 Democratic cosponsors. (Cantwell's office now says that 40 of 44 Senate Democrats have expressed support for the basic principles of the bill.) It proposes to cut U.S. dependence on oil imports 40 percent by 2020, set targets for production of electricity from renewable sources, remove a sizable chunk of subsidies from the oil and gas industry, and hasten the development of infrastructure for the distribution of gasoline alternatives such as ethanol.

Enviros applaud many elements of the bill, emphasizing that it contains no calls for oil or gas drilling. "On the whole, the bill represents a big step," says Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. It's a clear contrast to the hapless Republican energy plan put forward by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) in late April, which promoted drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and promised $100 taxpayer rebates to soften the pinch at the pump. That proposal was widely mocked and quickly jettisoned.

"Clean EDGE basically says the Democratic leadership stands for using less oil, the Republican leadership stands for drilling more," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group. As Reid put it, "[D]rill, drill, drill is not going to deliver the results we need."

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chair of the Senate Energy Committee, reinforced the drill-vs.-conserve rivalry by dismissing the Democratic plan as "a sprinkling of good ideas, a heavy helping of bad ideas and distractions, and a pathetic absence of any effort to increase America's energy supply" -- which, in Domenici's eyes, would mean drilling.

If there is a pathetic absence of anything in the Clean EDGE Act, say enviros, it is mention of stronger auto fuel-economy standards, gasoline taxes, or other controversial yet specific means of reducing oil demand. Instead, the bill puts forward a broad mandate that the president devise a strategy -- any strategy -- for reducing petroleum demand in the U.S. by 6 million barrels a day by 2020.

"It's an ambitious but essentially unenforceable goal if the president decides not to play ball," said Dave Hamilton, the Sierra Club's director of global warming and energy programs. Still, he said, "I don't want to pooh-pooh the challenge of getting the Democrats united around these goals. It's an effort toward consensus-building within a fractious party." He said there are likely equal numbers of Dems to the right and left of the proposal: "Some are saying it's not equal to the task at hand, while others likely think that it's going too fast for them. Which means that if the goal of the act is to unify, it's heading in the right direction."

Cantwell's press secretary, Katharine Lister, told Muckraker the senator was well aware that the proposal could be more ambitious. "Sen. Cantwell has long been a supporter of ambitious clean-energy reform, including increasing CAFE [corporate average fuel economy], and if she had her druthers we'd go further with some of these goals," she said. "But she doesn't want to push a bill that's ahead of its time."

According to Lister, Cantwell believes that what Dems need right now is a common-denominator energy platform: "Clean EDGE represents a baseline of what we have consensus to achieve. It's a place to start, and build from. It's our effort to herd the cats in one direction. In the wake of Katrina and other world events, and given the homework and legwork that's being done, the baseline has been raised considerably in just a year."

Indeed, Cantwell's soft touch has convinced a few stray cats to join the herd. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a longtime opponent of progressive energy targets, agreed not only to endorse the proposal, but also to bring the United Auto Workers union on board in support of the bill's mandate that 25 percent of new vehicles have a flexible-fuel capability by 2010, rising to 50 percent by 2020.

Despite these achievements, the bill has no practical chance of success. With only Democratic supporters, it won't get a committee hearing, and even though the whole bill or selected parts could be offered as amendments to another energy-related bill, GOP leaders seem dead-set on preventing any such opportunity.

"It has little chance of moving forward this year," said Aurilio. "Its primary function is to shape the debate."

Reasoned Hamilton, "It's an election year. Democrats want a banner that they can wave in their home states."

Certainly Cantwell, who faces a tough reelection campaign this year, could benefit from such a banner, but her staffers say the bill isn't a play for votes. "Maria has been working on these issues since 2001," said Lister. "This has never been a campaign issue for her."

Hillary Clinton's energy proposal seems, on the face of it, more politically motivated than Cantwell's -- designed to show that she's a national leader on energy and climate issues, at a time when Al Gore has been stealing some of her thunder. Though Clinton is a cosponsor of Clean EDGE, she came out with her own proposal just one week after the act was introduced. Enviros characterize Clinton's bill as more ambitious, noting that it would create a strategic energy fund for renewable technologies paid for by levying a new tax on Big Oil and rescinding some oil-related tax breaks. Clinton says her legislation could cut imports of foreign oil in half by 2025.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) proposed a bill on the same theme in early May. His bipartisan Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006, cosponsored by Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), and the ubiquitous Clinton herself, would require the White House to reduce oil use from projected levels by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2016, and by 10 million barrels per day by 2031.

While it might seem that Democrats' various energy bills are competing with each other and detracting from a coherent platform, Aurilio of U.S. PIRG tried to put a more positive spin on it. "To have the debate be about all these different ways we can save oil is a good thing," she said. Added Hamilton of the Sierra Club: "All have a slightly different tune, but together they add up to one basic message: the energy bill of last year didn't solve our problems, and we've got to reduce oil use, one way or another."

Certainly a common message is much needed. But Dems will have to belt out one hell of a loud and tireless tune to be heard above the shrill cries of the GOP ideologues.

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Salt Lake City played host to mayors getting up to speed on climate issues.

City leaders from around the U.S. were treated to a rare bird's-eye view of the environment earlier this week at the Sundance Summit, a three-day mayors' retreat on climate change hosted by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City and at his 6,000-acre resort nestled beneath Utah's Mount Timpanogos, near Park City. In between briefings on "The State of the Science" and "Why You Should Care," and tutorials on emissions-trading programs and retrofitting public transport, a bipartisan troupe of 46 mayors representing nearly 10 million U.S. citizens slathered on sunscreen, grabbed bag lunches, and glided up the Sundance chairlift over miles of tumbling creeks, quivering aspens, and ponderosa pines.

"Oh, I'm just lovin' mayor camp!" said Melvin "Kip" Holden (D), mayor of Baton Rouge, La., as he dismounted the lift and headed back to the conference center. "I feel like I'm back in college -- it's just that excitement of learning, that bigger-than-you feeling of wanting to make change."

That's precisely what Redford and his co-hosts -- Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson (D) and the nonprofit ICLEI/Local Governments for Sustainability -- had in mind when they organized the all-expenses-paid gathering, funded in part by Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. "The whole idea was to bring leaders together in a magical place where the monumental implications of climate change and a passion for solutions could really take hold," Anderson told Muckraker.

Bill Richardson (right) rallies mayors to the climate cause.

Photo: Wil Tidman.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who served as energy secretary under President Clinton, kicked off the retreat with a feisty call to arms: "Let's face it, if we wait around for the federal government to act, we aren't going to see anything happen," he said. Though Richardson has been a pioneer in promoting renewable energy at the state level, he argued that "even the states are not as accelerated as the cities" when it comes to implementing climate initiatives. "I know where the power is, and I know it's with you guys."

Redford echoed that theme in his opening speech: "You here are closest to the people," he said. "The best and most significant change comes from the grassroots." He later added, "We can't let America play Nero while the planet burns."

The summit was just the latest in a string of recent efforts to galvanize local action on climate change. This year, at the urging of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, more than 170 mayors nationwide have pledged to adopt Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The New Cities project, launched by Madison, Wis., Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (D), has a network of mayors working to implement on the local level the energy-independence proposals of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, environmental, and other groups that aims to spur eco-friendly economic growth. The Institute for Policy Studies in June launched a Cities for Progress campaign that's pushing for energy security, among other goals.

The Nation recently chronicled these and other progressive city-level campaigns in its cover story "Urban Archipelago," arguing that cities are the spots to watch for innovative, positive change. And last week, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof praised Portland, Ore., for having slashed its greenhouse-gas emissions below 1990 levels, even as it's been booming economically, proving wrong President Bush's recent claim that "Kyoto would have wrecked our economy."

This kind of economic optimism was a recurring theme during the Sundance Summit. Executives from the British-based consultancy The Climate Group impressed many in the audience when describing how 17 major U.S. cities had already reduced their emissions below 1990 levels and saved a total of $600 million through efficiency measures. "You must understand that tackling climate is financially a competitive advantage, not a liability," stressed Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group.

Patrick McCrory (R), mayor of Charlotte, N.C., and head of the Republican mayors' association, noted that municipal leaders have the power to move markets: "We are the ones building roads, designing mass transit, buying the police cars and dump trucks and earthmovers. We're the ones lighting up the earth when you look at those maps from space," he said. "Together we have huge purchasing power, and if we invest wisely, that can have huge implications for the environment."

But not all of the attendees, at first, drank in the cheer.

Mark Begich (D), mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, told Muckraker that among his predominantly conservative constituency, climate-change initiatives are a hard sell: "There are members on my city council who think the term 'global warming' is more objectionable than the term 'liberal.' Some consider it a wacko radical concept."

Mike McKinnon, mayor of Lynnwood, Wash., said he wasn't even sure what his constituents thought on the matter. "I don't believe we've had any discussions in our community on climate change. I have one staff member who is half-time on recycling -- that's the full extent of my resources on the environment." When asked why he attended the conference if the issue was so low on his radar screen, he said, "When I read on the invitation, 'Salt Lake City ... Sundance ... Robert Redford ... all expenses paid,' that said yes to me!"

Des Moines, Iowa, Mayor T. M. Franklin Cownie (D) said he wasn't willing to sign any climate-related agreements without first getting the support of his city council. "I want to sell 'em first rather than go dump it on 'em. I need to make sure they understand gas-house [sic] emissions and all that before I make any big pledges," he told Muckraker.

Graham Richard (D) of Fort Wayne, Ind., put it this way: "My job is to be pragmatic. If I approach this issue with my constituents as some kind of Kyoto thing, I guarantee that'll raise a stink. Now if I sell it as a cost-saving measure, that's another story."

After hearing a litany of suggestions for investing in energy-efficient lighting, clean energy for municipal buildings, and hybrid-engine police cars, Roberta Cooper of Hayward, Calif., said, "I am a small-town mayor with small-town resources. I don't have the budget or the political leverage" to buy into such programs.

But these are precisely the doubts and barriers that the Sundance organizers hoped to address. "We didn't want to bring the choir here," said Mayor Anderson. ICLEI Executive Director Michelle Wyman explained that a lot of research went into selecting cities and towns that "historically tended to be more conservative on enviro issues and were also hotspots for CO2 emissions. We wanted to cut through the partisan barriers and recruit grassroots climate leaders in new regions." And they had reason to be proud of their outreach -- of the 58 invitations sent out, 48 were accepted.

Indeed, as the sessions went on, skepticism began to fade and the message got through to even some of the most dubious participants.

The most persuasive cris de coeur came from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D), whose photograph was snapped admiringly by more than a few of his smaller-town counterparts. He has implemented measures on everything from tree planting and bike paths to renewable-energy standards and requirements that "all of our major big-box [stores] have to do green roofs," he said. He later told Muckraker that cities, more than states or federal agencies, "are terrific laboratories for testing environmental policies and initiatives. We can demonstrate what works [to reduce emissions] and send a signal to the federal level that they are economically safe to implement."

Soon, the ideas were flowing. Hayward's Cooper suggested that all small-town mayors unite in a coalition to increase their purchasing power for clean energy and green products: "If I join forces with mayors in neighboring cities, I have more leverage. By joining each other we can be more effective and adventurous than by standing alone." Fort Wayne's Richard then expanded on the idea, proposing a large nationwide network of mayors that could buy green products collectively in an online auction to accelerate economies of scale.

Aspen Mayor Helen Klanderud suggested that cities participate in a "Canary Alliance" in which they would document the local impacts of climate change -- "how warming is threatening the skiing industry in Aspen, how drought is affecting crops in Idaho, and so on. That's the way to get people to understand that it is a local problem."

ICLEI's Wyman was thrilled with the results of the conference, saying, "What happened over the course of the past three days will change the way U.S. cities consume resources and do business." She pledged that her organization would help implement the ideas that emerged, chronicle successes and failures, and organize annual follow-up summits.

Redford, too, was positively buoyant: "What gives me hope is that in politics, baby steps can lead to sea change," he told Muckraker. "The whole political system can be terribly sluggish, stalemated, constipated -- the barriers can seem insurmountable. But then all these distributed little pockets of inspiration slowly begin opening up, joining together, building a collective force, and can suddenly give way to tremendous momentum and change. That, I hope, is what's under way."

McKinnon of Lynnwood may end up bringing inspiration back to his pocket of the world; he's now vowed to strike up a dialogue in his community on climate change. "I've decided to make my half-time employee full-time," he beamed, "with a focus not just on recycling, but climate too. I just can't wait to get back home and start implementing."

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15 Green Actors

Robert Redford chats about the new green programming on the Sundance Channel

Do you realize we are gathered in what must be the greenest building in the United States?" Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Frances Beinecke asked a crowd of well-scrubbed Californians gathered for the opening ceremony of the organization's new SoCal headquarters in Santa Monica. Swilling mimosas and nibbling croissants on the building's sunny, plant-strewn terrace, everyone cheered and grinned at the rhetorical question, well aware that they were standing at the newest altar of sustainability. I, for one, had sprung for a plane ticket to Santa Monica as though I were heading out on a pilgrimage to the Emerald City.

Redford cutting the green ribbon.

Photo: Gary Leonard, NRDC.

Granted, there was also the allure of hobnobbing with Robert Redford, the man for whom the building was named, thanks to his 28 years of support for NRDC. In his speech at the opening ceremony, Redford bemoaned the "crisis of American leadership ... the guiding federal policy of not caring ... the nation [being] removed from under our children's feet ... and the Bush administration's weapons of mass delusion." But he counterbalanced every grievance with praise for green building and confidence about the clean-technology movement. Speaking with Grist after the ceremony, he called the new NRDC headquarters "a lighthouse of promise and superior environmental engineering ... one of the best reasons for optimism at a moment of so much national darkness." [Editor's note: Read a recent Grist interview with Robert Redford.]

Truth be told, no one can really verify the claim that the Robert Redford Building is the nation's greenest structure. Though it is expected to receive the much-coveted Version 2 Platinum green building rating from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, which indicates the highest possible level of sustainable design, the building is just one of several others that may also soon carry this badge. But the claim itself represents a kind of triumph for the sustainable-building movement -- a gauntlet, finally, to be thrown down in the spirit of our famously competitive national ethos. It's about time that the all-American lust for superlatives and habit of one-upmanship be embraced by the building industry -- to see not only who can design the tallest and glitziest, but also who can out-green the rest.

"Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment," said Rob Watson, NRDC senior scientist and a chair of the LEED program. "The built environment devours half of all the world's material and resources, half of all forests. Think about it -- the concrete, the drywall, the lumber, steel, vinyl, and granite, not to mention the furniture. Think about all the toxins produced in the mining of materials, the air pollution, the chewed-up land. No other human activity even comes close to this kind of impact." The most surprising part of this equation is energy: All of the buildings in the U.S. consume more than twice as much energy as all of the cars in the country (when you consider, in BTUs, the total embodied energy it takes to construct and operate them) and emit twice the amount of carbon dioxide -- which makes them the leading human-induced cause of global warming. Buildings also consume 80 percent of the nation's drinking water and 2 million acres of forests and farmland each year.

NRDC's new digs.

Photo: Jean-Maurice
Moulene, Moule &
Polyzoides.

NRDC's new headquarters, however, uses 60 to 75 percent less energy than a conventional building of its size, gets 100 percent of its energy from carbon-free renewables, and consumes 60 percent less drinking water. As Watson estimated, "If all commercial buildings in the U.S. were as efficient as ours, the country would achieve 70 percent of its Kyoto Protocol obligation."

In reality, though, only 5 percent of U.S. commercial buildings have begun to integrate clean technology and green principles -- largely because the technologies are only just now becoming affordable enough to attract the attention of the mainstream building industry. "I'd estimate that in five years or less, there will be a significant spike in the percentage of buildings that are doing this," said Ashok Gupta, NRDC's chief energy economist and director of its air and energy program. "Most of these technologies are becoming off-the-shelf now, and increasingly affordable. It's just a matter of convincing consumers to demand the technologies and educating developers to continue integrating them in a holistic way."

Robert Fox is a leading green architect and the man who led the design team for the Conde Nast Building at 4 Times Square, the first high-rise office building in the U.S. to implement clean-technology applications and sustainable principles. He says most developers and architects simply haven't been able to understand what a vast shift in thinking green building entails: "For most developers, sustainable design is an afterthought; it's a matter of sticking a solar panel or a windmill on top of the building and calling it green. On the contrary, sustainability must be the defining principle, informing the design and engineering process from the outset of the project."

Sustainable architecture is about energy efficiency and clean technology, but it's also about many other things: location, indoor air quality, materials, water consumption, sewage, and ventilation systems. It is about going "beyond standard code requirements to generating ideas that force new efficiencies to emerge," said Fox.

The NRDC headquarters reads like a case study in how to go about greening the building process. "Even L.A. has never seen a facelift like this," quipped Alan Horn, president and chief operating officer of Warner Brothers and NRDC board vice chair, in his remarks at the opening ceremony. From the outside, the building looks more like a humble beach bungalow than like the Oz-like dreamscape I was expecting. But on the rooftop, in the basement, and integrated into literally every detail of the building are dozens of examples of sustainable design wizardry.

Gray on the outside,
green on the inside.

Photo: Jean-Maurice
Moulene, Moule &
Polyzoides.

According to Elizabeth Moule, the leading architect on the Robert Redford Building, her team's first consideration was finding an existing, salvageable structure in a downtown location. Rehabilitating an old structure in a developed area is more resource-efficient than building a new one from scratch in an undeveloped area. Moule also serves on the board of directors of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and in the spirit of the movement, she was committed to locating the building in a high-density urban environment close to public transportation and within walking distance of other office, residential, and shopping areas. "New Urbanism is all about walkability," she said. "The amount of embodied energy and pollution you save when you put your building in a place that people don't have to drive to is enormous."

Moule's second most significant concern was the energy consumption of the building itself. Since lighting is the largest energy drain in standard commercial buildings, her team designed the NRDC headquarters to maximize the amount of daylight it would get, with the result that it is graced by internal courtyards and skylights that illuminate every single office in the building. The few artificial lights are on occupancy sensors and automatically switch off when people step out of a room, and photo sensors dim the lights when daylight is sufficient.

The offices are cooled through natural breezes coming off the ocean -- just 100 yards or so from the building. Internal transoms and vents in the roof send hot air upward and out and keep cool air circulating. The windows are designed to block the sun's short-wave radiation and reduce the amount of solar heat gain in the building, thereby minimizing the need for air conditioning. The design team also used plants and light-colored roofing to absorb and deflect the sunlight, further cutting down on heat gain. When air conditioning is needed, NRDC uses a high-efficiency system with ozone-friendly refrigerants -- and it, too, is connected to sensors and shuts down automatically when windows are opened.

All this points to a reality of green building: The moderate climate in Santa Monica makes it far easier to get dramatic energy savings than it would be in cities like New York or Chicago. Nevertheless, technologies are emerging to control energy use in buildings in more extreme climates -- such as computerized "smart systems" that automatically track weather forecasts and anticipate changes so they can gradually heat or cool a building. (This is a far more efficient process than letting a building cool down or warm up overnight or during the weekend when extreme weather is in the forecast -- and then blasting it with heat or air conditioning when everyone comes back to work.)

Perhaps the most inspiring component of NRDC's project is its radical pollution-free promise: The Robert Redford Building is one of the first ever constructed in the United States to boast net-zero production of carbon dioxide. Twenty percent of the building's electricity needs will be supplied by a 7.5 kilowatt solar-electric array on the roof. When the building is empty and not consuming much electricity, the system pumps solar-generated power back into the grid. When the building is at full occupancy and relying on fossil fuel-powered grid energy, NRDC offsets the associated carbon emissions by purchasing an equivalent amount of carbon-free renewable energy ("wind certificates").

The building's water savings are also impressive -- and particularly important in an area of the country that has insufficient water resources of its own and relies on controversial diversions from the Colorado River. According to Watson, "It's hard to believe how scarce our drinking water resources are in the grand scheme of things: Less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the planet's water is drinkable -- and more than 80 percent of that goes to uses in buildings, including flushing toilets." The building's water-saving strategies include rainwater capture and reuse (which has the added benefit of preventing the runoff from draining into the streets, the municipal sewage system, and the nearby ocean).

The building's gray-water
system.

Photo: Grey Crawford, NRDC.

Rainwater and so-called gray water from sinks are treated on site and used for flushing toilets and landscaping. The toilets also have a logical dual-flush option (light or heavy, depending on the amount of waste). Then there are the waterless urinals, which are quickly becoming a mainstream trend with their astounding water and cost savings; each urinal conserves roughly 40,000 gallons of water per year, and cuts down significantly on plumbing bills as well. When I snuck into the men's bathroom to give the urinals a gander, they looked no different from their conventional counterparts. And though Redford was not there to give a personal review, I detected no unusual odors.

As for building materials, NRDC specified that 98 percent of the wreckage torn down from the original structure be recycled, and chose a number of replacement products with significant recycled content, including carpets and ceiling tiles. Additionally, all the lumber products in the building have been certified by Forest Stewardship Council. Even a majority of the furniture was "recycled" -- either donated or bought used in an effort to cut down on the energy used to produce new furnishings.

Other than providing boasting rights, most of these green-building components will have only subtle direct effects on the building's tenants -- with one notable exception: indoor air quality. According to Watson, Americans spend 80 to 90 percent of their time indoors -- even those lucky enough to work a stone's throw from the beach. For most people, that's bad news, because indoor air quality -- what with trapped fumes, carbon dioxide, and particulate matter -- can be even worse than outdoor. Not so for the people working in the Robert Redford Building. Its carpeting, paints, and other materials have no or low volatile organic compounds. The copy room is designed with negative pressure, which flushes the ambient toxins generated by the copy machine out of the building. Carbon dioxide sensors determine when extra fresh air is required -- a particular concern from a worker-productivity standpoint, because an excess of CO2 in poorly ventilated offices and conference rooms causes drowsiness.

Putting the California sun to
work.

Photo: Grey Crawford, NRDC.

Given the implications of the amazing resource efficiency of the new NRDC building, it seems absurd, from a policy standpoint, that green building is so overlooked. Why isn't creating incentives for efficient buildings as much of a policy priority as, say, creating incentives and funding research for more efficient cars? "There is simply a fundamental disconnect between buildings and their hidden consequences," said Watson. "Most people don't realize that when we talk about clear cutting, we're talking about buildings. When we talk about power plants, mining, drought, and global warming, we're talking about buildings."

But some people do realize it, of course, and a clamor for green buildings is starting to make itself heard on local, state, and federal levels. Already, cities ranging from the usual suspects (Seattle, Berkeley, and Portland, Ore.) to less predictable locations (San Jose, Austin, and Arlington, Va.) have created funds and incentives to help promote green building development; some even require that all new government buildings be LEED certified. Movements are also afoot in larger cities, including New York and San Francisco, to require municipal buildings to meet LEED standards. On a state level, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania have introduced green-building incentives and requirements.

The federal government is making progress, too; U.S. government buildings account for roughly 10 percent of the projects registered in the LEED program. The Department of Defense has adopted LEED standards for all new Navy, Army, and Air Force buildings, and the U.S. EPA and NASA have both instituted LEED Silver rating goals for all major new facilities. Other agencies, such as the Department of Energy, State Department, and Department of Health and Human Services, have also begun to set green-building goals.

Still, none of these plans is sufficiently ambitious. Particularly given the absence of federal global-warming legislation, there should be a government-wide initiative mandating that all agencies achieve high-level LEED certification for all new facilities. "Now that these programs are proving effective from both an environmental and economic standpoint, it's clearly time to redouble the effort to expand them to more and more cities, states, and federal agencies," said Watson.

And yet, as Gupta noted, LEED considers itself first and foremost a market-based effort and emphasizes economic pragmatism over incentives and regulations. "What's amazing about LEED is how much it has become the brand developers seek out because it gives cache to their projects," he said. "Our primary focus is on how we can get people to demand it in the marketplace. We want people renting buildings to say: 'Are you LEED certified?' And developers have less and less reason not to be, given that it makes so much economic and environmental sense."

Indeed, the state of California recently came out with a study comparing the cost of 40 green buildings -- most of them LEED certified -- to conventional buildings and found that, on average, the initial costs of green buildings were only 2 percent higher, and the long-term benefit-to-cost ratio was 10 to 1. Furthermore, said Gupta, the nearly 5 percent of developers who have begun adopting green principles is actually a considerable quantity, given that "the early adopters pave the way for mainstream adopters, streamlining the certification process and creating economies of scale that reduce costs."

So once the early adopters push the movement to a tipping point, the logic goes, it will be a landslide. In addition to incentives and regulations, perhaps the best way to nudge this tipping point would be to launch a "Greenest Building on the Planet" competition -- a race to develop an ever bigger symbol of optimism, an ever higher altar of sustainability. Right now that title belongs to a building in India -- the Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad, which was the first building in the world to receive the LEED Platinum rating. There's a chance that the Robert Redford Building will beat out this rating (the jury is still out) -- but if it doesn't, let's challenge American developers to come up with another project that does. This is one form of American supremacy, surely, that we can all support.

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He played the Sundance Kid, the sharpshooter sidekick to Paul Newman's Butch Cassidy in the 1969 classic; he built the Sundance Village in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah; he founded the Sundance Institute for independent film and theater production and established the Sundance Film Festival. But all the while, Robert Redford has been doing an altogether more literal kind of sun dance: preaching the clean-energy gospel at the grassroots, in the op-ed pages of newspapers, on the big screen, and inside the Beltway.

Solar is not a new fascination for the actor and director. As far back as 1975, Redford began working on short films and documentaries promoting solar power. More recently, he has been a major supporter of Vote Solar, the San Francisco organization responsible for securing $100 million in city bonds for investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures on municipal buildings -- a model that is now being adopted by cities and states nationwide.

And today -- as in literally today, Nov. 13, 2003 -- Redford is officiating at the opening ceremony for what the U.S. Green Building Council has called "the greenest building in the nation": the Santa Monica office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which will get 100 percent of its energy from solar and wind power. The building will be named for Redford, who is not only a trustee and a founding member of NRDC, but also a funder of the $8.3 million dollar project.

Redford's environmental activism has gone beyond renewable-energy advocacy, from lobbying for the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in the 1970s to holding international conferences on global warming in the '80s to campaigning for pro-environment Democratic politicians in the '90s (which he says he also plans to do in the 2004 elections).

Still, even the great horse whisperer has a few environmental skeletons in his closet. A onetime racecar driver and former owner of various all-terrain vehicles (not to mention a major player in notoriously eco-insensitive Hollywood), Redford freely admits to having been "extremely hypocritical" in the past. After reading the following Grist interview, though, even the purest of environmentalists will have to admit that few celebrities -- or politicians and activists, for that matter -- have shown as much dogged dedication to the environmental movement as Robert Redford.

Robert Redford: Hullo there, it's Bob. Please don't call me Mr. Redford. It's Bob, or just Redford. I'm not a "mister," never have been.

Okay, Bob. Your involvement with the environmental movement goes way back and covers an amazing array of issues. What are you focusing on these days? What's your biggest concern?

The Bush administration has advocated the most destructive policies I've seen in the more than three decades I've been working on these matters. From the moment Bush stepped into office, not only has he been leading a vast and disciplined campaign to cripple environmental protections and enforcement across the board, he's been manufacturing more immediate crises -- war, for one -- that have kept the American public distracted and completely in the dark. And what makes our Republican leadership, both in the White House and Congress, seem all the more stupendously ignorant is that they're implementing these backward policies at a time when they could be pushing forward a new era of solutions -- tremendous technological advancements related to things like energy efficiency, renewables, sustainable building, and agriculture that are so incredibly exciting. It's as though they can't even see the historic opportunity they're passing up.

Wow, you clearly feel strongly about this! What exactly are you doing about it?

Well, I'm doing some work to help fundraise for the 2004 elections and level the remarkable imbalance of campaign financing the Democrats are up against. And I'm working, as I have been for years, with over a half-dozen organizations, local and national, mostly focused on land protection and energy issues. Energy is my biggest concern right now, mostly because there are so many great solutions in efficiency and renewable technology that need to be pushed.

So with the NRDC, among other things, I continue to work on advocating for the kind of energy bill we need and I try to do things with Vote Solar, the organization that convinced the city of San Francisco to invest $100 million on solar installations on public buildings -- schools, buildings, jails, even sewage treatment plants -- using government bonds that pay back over long-term periods. It's already spread to eight other cities across the nation. They just did a conference educating mayors nationwide how to adopt solar in their cities in an economically manageable way. This project touches a personal nerve that goes way, way back.

More than a moment in the sun.

Photo: NREL.

A personal nerve?

I did a lot of projects advocating solar energy in the early to mid-'70s that were premature for a lot of reasons. One, because there wasn't the awareness that there is now about the practical promise of solar. The petroleum industry had an easy time shooting it down in the '70s because solar energy was still classified as woo-woo. They attacked solar advocates as being, you know, in new-age la-la land, in outer space.

Well, technically speaking, solar was in outer space at that time, right? Photovoltaics were being used almost exclusively on satellites in the '70s. But the woo-woo association didn't deter you from promoting it as an oil alternative?

No, it was soon after the Arab oil embargo and I was pretty convinced that we needed to come up with alternatives. I tried to use popular media to get the word out to the mainstream. I made a film on solar with Saul Bass in 1975, an eight-minute short called The Solar Film that took me two years to develop. It was a sort of unprecedented thing at the time because I was about to release All the President's Men and I convinced the heads of the studio to attach The Solar Film to the release schedule for the feature as sort of an opening public service announcement. It probably wouldn't be possible now considering the kinds of controls over the media industry, but back then it was pretty successful -- won a few awards and things like that.

It seems like today would be a good time to re-release it.

I'm thinking about it!

In general, given all the current energy concerns, don't you think now is the ideal time to revive this kind of media- and entertainment-based activism?

Absolutely, but we're in a different time now than the '70s. We have less innocence. We have less hope. We have less public mechanisms than we had then. There is more dominance by the powers that be. The technology has changed things; the medium has changed more toward the youth market, more in your face. More expressionistic versus impressionistic. It's not a time for subtlety. And so therefore it has to be kind of in your face and loud and commercial. I'm not sure a little eight-minute animation would be appropriate in this media climate. People are dealing with such a flurry of images and racing through 500 channels and the Internet, so you have to change your approach; you have to exaggerate in order to get people to see, to get the attention, in order to move through the incredible paralytic apathy in the American mainstream.

What about Bob?

Apathy -- can you elaborate?

Yeah, it's like people skim past all news about the ozone hole and the latest mysterious fish die-off and the wetlands being drained and junked by developers and Glacier National Park in Montana that will have no glaciers within 25 years, and they skim past the fact that the levels and flow of the Colorado River will be 20 percent lower in the next 20 years -- in our lifetimes! My God! The Colorado River drying up in our lifetimes! -- or the fact that half the world's species are facing extinction. The problem is definitely that people aren't paying attention, that apathy is our biggest enemy.

So how do we get their attention?

I think the way is to tell the story, using modern-day scenarios and modern-day devices.

Like an Erin Brockovich kind of story?

Yeah, well, movies are a good way to touch a chord. The story has to be told in a popular culture framework. You have to have a human-interest element. You have to weave in characters and narrative, you have to touch a nerve, but the larger goal is activism and making change. That's what I was trying to do with A River Runs Through It, sort of addressing this family that's held together by this river and showing fly-fishing as a sort of soul-nourishing art. Then we got people thinking about the connection between human beings and the natural environment. We used the fundraising plan to raise money for Trout Unlimited and the American Rivers association and local Montana-based groups working to restore the Big Blackfoot River, which has become highly polluted from mining runoff.

Then there was The Milagro Beanfield War. I made that film about taking these people's water -- their inheritance over 400 years versus the big development company that wants to build golf courses -- [about] the power of the bottom-up collective versus the top-down powers that be, and the whole story that surrounded a limited resource. We used that movie to help NGOs address development issues.

In the '70s, you did different kinds of films, films that created or intensified distrust of the government among Americans -- All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, and the like. Those films seemed more deliberately activist. Why have you stopped making that kind of movie?

I think there are several ways to do it. It has a lot to do with cultural timing. When Watergate broke out, I felt a tremendous responsibility to the First Amendment and the issue of investigative journalism. I felt extremely obligated to preserve that ethic. And we're back there again now. We're losing very valuable constitutional rights.

Can you tell a story like that now? Do you think we need to tell those stories again? I'm imagining a sort of eco-Parallax View about how the Bush administration opened up all this public land to industrial exploits without the public knowing, and the $44 million the Bush administration received in campaign contributions from industry.

Oh, absolutely. It's dizzying how many stories there are like that to be told right now. I am planning a film right now that I don't want to talk too much about because I get nervous -- a sequel to The Candidate. But again, the entertainment industry is very different than it was in the '70s. And the political environment is moving so fast that one minute something is a big story and the next minute it's passe. Outlets like FOX News have essentially pulled the entire media landscape to the right, telling these incredibly skewed stories so fast and so furiously. There has to be an equal acceleration on the other side to get the real story told about how the American people are being affected by the Bush administration's corrupt policies, but it's almost as if we don't have time to get the stories out.

So given the Hollywood timetable -- I mean, if it takes a year and a half at least to produce a film -- wouldn't it be difficult to turn around a mainstream film in time to tell the real story?

Unless it's a quickie for television, but television these days is generally dominated by a conservative slant. There's only one point of view being presented. It all boils down to that: who the players are and what the points of view are and what the stories going to be told are. That's the battleground for the future.

Ugh. This all sounds very grim.

Well, no. We're up against incredible odds, but that's where you and I come in -- to tell those stories as fast and furiously as we can, in magazines, movies, chat rooms, op-eds, wherever. My general feeling is actually positive. We have an obligation to focus on the positive. I find that there is hope and it's the right kind of hope because it's coming from the bottom up. It's happening in Vote Solar. It's happening in the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign, where all these local reverends are educating their communities about energy-efficient cars. It's happening in the work of the NRDC, and we have to tell the stories of hope and solutions and not be daunted by the onslaught of stories from the right.

I'd love to tell the story, for instance, of Paul Wellstone's campaign, when he worked against the tide of an incredible imbalance of campaign finance and he went door to door to get people's support. He couldn't rely on big advertising, so he just hit the road. And he won because he got to the people in such a direct way. And that was possible even in the theater of modern politics. Those are the kind of positive stories we have to focus on.

The Bush administration has a genius for storytelling. They couch all their policies in these rosy, patriotic terms like the Healthy Forests initiative and the Clear Skies initiative and so forth.

It's insidious. I mean, listen to that rhetoric. It's jingling with jingoism. It's so ugly. So painfully ugly. And the only way they would even try to do that is that they know that they have apathy on their side. They like to wrap themselves in the American flag and yet they're totally chipping away at what it stands for. This administration has learned the power of staying on message and keeping it simple. They are very, very shrewd in couching it in patriotism. Nearly every statement that comes from this administration includes the phrase "the American people," which in their case is another way of saying "industrial interests." Every time I hear that phrase "the American people," I just substitute "industrial interests."

If Dick Cheney were a plant, what kind of plant would he be?

A cactus. But one that holds oil, not water.

You've held large environmental conferences at Sundance and submitted reports from these conferences to the Reagan and Bush administrations. Can you tell us a little about that?

I've held a number of global warming conferences at Sundance. The first aimed to get environmentalists and developers together in one room to review all these proposed projects -- who wanted to open up what -- ANWR, Escalante, whatever -- and who wanted to protect it. We got both sides to agree: If you let us explore here we'll stay out of that. We sent it to the Reagan administration and they shelved it.

Then we did it again -- a conference called "Greenhouse Glasnost" that came out of a trip I made to the Soviet Union in 1987, where I was asked to visit the Soviet Academy of Sciences and they were talking about global warming and I said, "This is so huge but no one knows about it! Would you please come to the United States and talk to us about it!" My business affairs guy tried to pull my shirt off to get me to sit down, said, "Jesus, Redford, are you out of your fucking mind? You can't afford to bring these guys over!" I was inviting the entire Soviet academy to come to Sundance, and he's like, "You're out of your fucking mind!" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm out of my fucking mind," because I just get really -- I mean I just fly off on this stuff.

So we did it. We had the head of the Soviet space program and all the top Soviet scientists. It took 18 months to pull it off and we had it at Sundance in 1988 and it was called Greenhouse Glasnost. And it was the top scientific authorities of both continents who came together and jointly agreed that this was a serious issue and came up with specifics about what could be done and should be done and the joint resolution was signed and sent to Gorbachev and the Bush Sr. administration, and again it was shelved.

Ouch. You must have felt pretty burned.

To put it mildly.

How do you compare the different administrations -- Nixon versus Regan versus Bush I and II -- in terms of their impact on the environment?

Well, Nixon had no clue. Reagan was very effective at pushing his pro-industry mandate because he relied on personality and charm and people liked him. Bush I seemed like the president of the Sierra Club compared to his son. This administration is a whole different beast: They've taken even the opportunity for public interests to respond out of the equation. Even Reagan and Bush I engaged in debate and conversation with environmental groups. This administration has completely sealed itself off.

The moment Bush got into office, they started moving like a panzer division, unraveling all the laws -- logging regulations, pollution regulations for air and water, critical habitat, national monument protections, everything -- everything is being rolled back, and probably most concerning is the obliteration of laws that allow for environmental review and public comment.

Didn't you and [Interior Secretary] Gale Norton have a famous letter exchange last year in which she asked you to release a condor in public? And you wrote back to her and declined, saying, "I intend to use what time I have to do what I can to focus on the devastating environmental repercussions of the ... decisions you are now making in your current capacity at the Interior Department." Whoa!

Oh Jesus, do you remember that? Was that a joke or what? I mean, when I looked at that letter, I said, "You've got to be kidding." First of all, it was so obvious they were looking for a photo op. She worked against the very act that allowed for the preservation of the condor! Second of all, I'd released a condor in captivity as part of the wildlife movement in California 12 years earlier. I was like, Hello? I've already released a condor, thanks! Twelve years ago! And you're just coming around? And meanwhile you shred the rest of the country with mining and gas drilling and timber stuff and you're going to release a condor and you think that's going to make up for what you are doing?

It's amazing to me that so many people in the Bush administration like Cheney and Norton were born and raised in the West, like you. Why doesn't coming from that environment produce the desire to preserve it?

Well, part of it is the old "manifest destiny" still at play in the West: What we can take, we deserve. Look, there are Westerners and then there are Westerners. There was Morris Udall -- he was a Westerner. There are many examples of Westerners who are good guys. I happen to think that John McCain is a good guy.

Tell us a little about your upbringing in the West and your formative years as an environmentalist.

I grew up in a non-privileged environment in southern California that was constricted by the war and sacrifice. I had family members who died in the war. I grew up in an ethnic neighborhood that was mostly Mexican and working class. I gained a respect for the environment because for me it was a way out. When I was a kid growing up, going into the desert, the Sierras, going into the ocean, going to swim and surf were these extraordinary resources -- if I could just get to them. We were so confined by these parameters of war and the economics and the lack of privilege, so getting into the natural environment was this incredible joy. This incredible liftoff.

And then after the war, suddenly [there was this] acceleration unknown to man, [the wilderness] being wiped out in favor of development -- freeways and concrete -- I watched it all happen. It happened in my lifetime. So I go way beyond George Bush. I mean, my feeling about the environment goes back to being a kid and watching it be destroyed. So I took my family to Utah. A state with some of the most incredible natural assets in the world and the attitude of the leadership is: Wipe it out! So for me it's this saga; it's more than politics, it's a way of life.

What's your lifestyle like now? Do you have a worm bin?

Say what? Do I have a warm bed? What are you implying?

Something new under the Sundance.

Photo: Tena Parker Liddiard.

No, a worm bin. It's that bucket of worms you feed to compost to help with decomposition. I'm asking if your lifestyle is eco-friendly.

Oh! Ha! Boy, I was really off-track with that one. Yeah, we do, in Utah. Most of the time I'm on a horse in the summertime and skis in the winter. And yeah, we do have compost. Sundance itself is trying to be a model community with art and nature coming together. There's 5,000 acres; I've preserved 2,000 of it. We've got vegetable gardens and solar panels and all that. My home is passive solar and through the years I've adapted more and more energy-saving systems with it, from recycling to natural energy to glassblowing. Part of our art-shack program at Sundance Village has glass blowing and we do it from all the recycled bottles from the two restaurants. And so our plates and glasses are all made on the premises and recycled.

Yeah, but don't you have any vices?

Well, I'm extremely hypocritical. I mean, I used to race cars when I was a kid, so it's very hard for me to let go of the idea of a racing vehicle in my life. And I did have SUVs but I gave it up. I came to realize the disadvantage of them. I said, "Do I need an SUV in Los Angeles to drive around in traffic?" No; that to me is tremendously wasteful. And you might as well get with the program. But if you're in a wilderness area -- which I'm on the edge of in Utah -- I would have a justification for using the SUV.

But for me, those days have pretty much ended and now I really do spend pretty much of my time on horseback. And I'm very happy because of it. I smell and see and feel things I never would have dreamed to feel if I were swishing through on a car. So that is not a loss for me; it's actually a wonderful gain.

In the grand scheme of things, who are you most concerned about -- the politicians, the media, the average Joes who can't look past their SUVs? Which part of the equation are you most worried about?

It's a bit of a domino thing. The overwhelming picture is that we simply don't have any high-level moral leadership. It's been on the decline for many, many years. And as the decline has occurred, the American people's interest has also declined, so now we have voter turnout worse than it's ever been in history, and each election it gets worse and worse. They're moving into apathy. They don't give a shit. And it's a negative feedback loop: The less attention they pay, the more advantage for mediocre leadership to gain a foothold. The mediocrity in D.C. is a reflection of our own apathy. They are there because we're not paying attention. The special interests put them there because the American people weren't voting enough. It's the cost of not paying attention.

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Robert Redford, in a letter made public on Friday, has royally dissed an invitation from U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton to attend a press event with her later this month to release a California condor into the wild. Norton invited Redford after learning that he was critical of her policies. She noted that he had starred in the 1975 thriller "Three Days of the Condor" and suggested that they could "discuss the best way to conserve America's unspoiled landscapes and the wild creatures who inhabit them." Redford told Norton that instead of meeting with her, he said he would use his time to draw attention to "the devastating environmental repercussions of the agenda you and President Bush embrace."

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