Hollywood's guru of global warming

Laurie David has become adept at using pop culture to promote a greener planet – on TV, the Web, and in the rock music world.

from the April 12, 2007 edition

Oscar moment: Laurie David, co-producer of Al Gore's movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' attends a post-Academy Award party.

Danny Moloshok/AP

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SANTA MONICA, Calif. - On a day of record heat, Laurie David drives up to a coffee shop in Santa Monica, Calif., in a sporty Toyota Prius hybrid and parks, appropriately enough, between two SUVs. The global-warming crusader – middle-aged, fit, wearing a short skirt and stylish sunglasses – doesn't look the part of rumpled social activist. But then again, this is California.

Only a short time has passed since her triumph at the Oscars – when Al Gore received his award for "An Inconvenient Truth" and Ms. David, whom the former vice president calls the "catalyst" behind the film, flanked him on stage. But she insists this is "no time to rest on your laurels." Up since 5 a.m., she is already organizing the next move in her ecocampaign: barnstorming college campuses across the Deep South this spring along with rock star Sheryl Crow aboard a bus running on biodiesel.

As the producer of Mr. Gore's film and organizer of a "virtual march" that has garnered more than 700,000 signatures, David has emerged as one of the nation's most ardent – and arguably most successful – global warming activists. She has become adept at using pop culture to rally people to the cause– getting "green" themes folded into TV scripts, marshalling musicians to trumpet the issue, and harnessing the power of the worldwide Web.

Unlike many in Hollywood, the media doyenne and wife of famous writer/producer/comedian Larry David hasn't fastened onto global warming as a cause du jour. Nor does she seem just out to burnish her image. She has been carrying a bullhorn for almost a decade, often 12 hours a day. While critics dismiss her as a typical well-heeled Hollywood gadfly, she usually works the issue in the shadows cast by others.

"The other side has tried to write her off as this prototypical Hollywood liberal, but she is incredibly charming and persuasive," says Robert Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator and an environmental lawyer who has worked closely with David. "She makes you believe that it's part of your obligation to do something on behalf of civilization."

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