On the Green Carpet at the Environmental Media Association awards

Mother Nature Network
October 25, 2010

Celebrating the eco-friendliest examples of filmed and televised entertainment, the Environmental Media Awards drew a megawatt assemblage of stars and media moguls to the green carpet at the Warner Bros. lot for a festive evening of accolades and revelry. Sponsored by Toyota and Lexus, whose respective plug-in Prius and CT200h were on display, the ceremony honored Avatar, 30 Rock, Bones, and Living With Ed and featured a performance by Kenny Loggins.

“I don’t know if Rupert Murdoch knew he was going to spend a couple hundred million dollars to make an environmental movie,” James Cameron (pictured right with wife Suzy Amis) said as he accepted the feature film EMA for Avatar from Eva Mendes. Realizing he was “preaching to the choir,” he nevertheless took the opportunity to speak at length about pressing eco-issues. One byproduct of the film’s global impact is his increased involvement in trying to help those who face issues depicted on screen. He’s been to the Amazon rainforest twice and “met with indigenous communities there to push back against the big hydroelectric dam they’re building, which will displace 25,000 people. We think of hydro as clean but it’s devastating the rainforest. It will throw thousands of megatons of carbon into the atmosphere, which will accelerate global warming. There are so many better answers with energy.

“This is such a critical time in the history of the environmental movement and there’s so much that needs to happen right now,” he continued, noting that he donated to the campaign to stop California’s oil company-backed Proposition 23, which would suspend the greenhouse gas emissions bill. “We really have to look at how we’ve been running our civilization and reevaluate our value system. We need a sense of conscience in what we do and the entertainment community can do that, slowly effect change in people’s lives. Our leaders in Washington aren’t going to do it,” he said, citing politicians’ refusal to mention climate change in energy legislation. “The leaders only [act] when the public tells them to and that’s our job. What happens in the next decade may well determine the outcome for life on this planet for the next thousand years so we have to step up to the challenge and accept responsibility, for our children and their children. When they look back I want them to think of us as those ancestors who took responsibility and did what had to be done and saved the planet.”

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