Living green with Ed Begley Jr.

Kara Rota interviews Ed Begley Jr. on his eclectic career, environmental activism, and hit television show.

Ed Begley Jr. is an actor and environmental activist whose work spans the gamut in terms of genre and cross-generational appeal. His breakthrough role was as Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the hit TV show St. Elsewhere, which earned him six Emmy nominations. Since then, his career has included film, television and stage work, and his latest project, the reality show Living With Ed on Planet Green, represents a new stage. We caught up over the phone and discussed the projects he’s working on and his environmental plan that makes it simple for any consumer to go green and save money while doing so.

Living With Ed follows the story of Ed and his wife, actress and Pilates instructor Rachelle Carson Begley, and their self-sufficient solar-powered home near Los Angeles. Along the way, Ed and Rachelle provide viewers with information on how to incorporate green living into their own homes. Ed says that his consciousness of environmental issues “came from growing up in smoggy Los Angeles. I lived there from when I was born in 1949 to 1952, and I live in LA now. At this point I’ve lived there over two decades. So, at that point in 1970 when the first Earth Day came along, I went, ‘Yeah, I’m on board,’ because it was wrong. It’s not right to live in this kind of choking pollution. It hurts my lungs and it’s not good, and I’m going to try to do something different. It was very personal.”

In 1970, Ed began changing his lifestyle to lessen the impact of his consumption on the environment, and was surprised to find that these alterations helped conserve his money as well as the earth. “That is what’s so effective about the show,” said Ed. “We certainly show some highfalutin’ homes with some big-ticket items, but we always focus on the cheap and easy stuff. We have that up on the website as well. I’m not asking people to do it any differently from the way I did it in 1970. I was broke, and what I was doing even after 1970 wasn’t much. So do the cheap and easy stuff first, you will save money, and then you move up the ladder and do more.” I asked him what he would tell a consumer who, like most of us, feels overwhelmed by the amount that there is to do in terms of living a more eco-conscious lifestyle. “Get out of your car as much as you can,” Ed responded. “This means that if you live in an area where you can walk to things, do that. When weather permits, ride a bike. If you live near public transportation, try that. Second, save energy in your home as much as possible. What does that mean? Energy-efficient light bulbs, energy-saving thermostats…You’ll save money and get a taste for it and you’ll want to do more.”     

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