“We’ve come a long way and proven we can do this.”
actually see the financial difference. Something as simple as changing your light bulbs or bringing your own canvas bags to the supermarket can accumulate savings over time, and time and patience may be what we need to see the results. It’s a great way to get started. You can take the cheap and easy way first and work your way up as you save. It has taken almost 100 years of industrial might, both the good and the bad, to bring us to where we are today. It may take time to see the benefits of using certain products or to afford a specific item. “It took me 20 years to be able to afford solar electric, 15 years to be able to afford solar hot water, so I don’t expect anyone to do anything different than I did. It just took many years to get those big-ticket items. You do what you can do.” To get a firsthand experience, Ed and his beautiful wife, actress Rachelle Carson, allow viewers into their home in a reality program called Living with Ed which airs on the Planet Green channel (http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/livingwith-ed). In its second season, Living with Ed is almost a modern day version of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. “Rachelle really cares about the environment, not to the level that I do, but she does cares a great deal about it. I’d like to think I had a good influence on her over time. She certainly influenced me about what I didn’t have any sense of whatsoever, which was visual appearance and esthetics,” Ed laughs as he describes his drought-tolerant garden as something from the Addams Family yard. “It was drought-tolerant, but it looked like hell.” Inside the house, you are immediately aware that Rachelle has brought style to their home while continuing to be energy efficient. They have a white picket fence made out of recycled milk jugs, a beautiful new kitchen counter top made from recycled glass bottles, and their very own wind turbine, which attributes to their $300 per year electric bill. Living with Ed also takes viewers in to the homes of celebrities such as Jay Leno (see The Boulevard February 2008), Larry Hagman, Helen Hunt and neighbor Bill Nye (the Science Guy), who are all making significant environmental
Use Small, Efficient Devices to cook food ... Buy a Fuel Efficient car
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contributions in their lives as well. One of Ed’s more recent performances was in the HBO movie Recount, a film that told the story of the 2000 presidential election. Ed played David Bowes, the attorney that defended the Gore campaign. I asked Ed what would things be like today if Al Gore had become president. “I feel fairly certain it would be a lot better – there would have been a lot less of the rollback of environmental laws, more incentives for solar and wind power. We wouldn’t have had this decision that was made to allow power plants that were ready to settle [the lawsuit] on clean air regulations, but the Justice Department was told to call off the action and they went back to business as usual. A lot of these decision that were made I feel were a mistake and I don’t feel that Al Gore would have done the same thing. He wouldn’t have done everything that I wanted, but he would have done a lot more that would have been a good common-sense approach to the environment.” To help even more, Ed has come out with a biodegradable cleaning product called Begley’s Best (www.begleysbest.com), an all-purpose cleaner designed to replace all other cleaners. The unique product is made from pine extracts, de-acified citrus, maize, fermented sugar cane roots and olive seeds. Since the products are all natural they biodegrade in less then a week. Begley’s Best can be used on any surface that is compatible with water. There is no question that Ed has done more then any of us could imagine. What started out as the need to get smog out of a smog-filled city has set standards that all of us can both learn from and take part in. Through conservation, Ed has turned his quest into a profitable one and in the end is living a simple and better life. He has allowed the world to see into his life while continuing to entertain and protect that world. He has shown it’s easy to live like Ed.
Ed’s Website -
www.edbegely.com www.boulevardli.com
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