Ed Begley, Jr. Quotations

My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors.

I ride my bike for transportation a great deal - occasionally I ride it for fun. But I also have a generator bike that's hooked up to my solar battery pack, so if I ride 15 minutes hard on my bike, that's enough energy to toast toast, or power my computer.

California has always led the way on environmental protection and always reaped the benefits, pioneering everything from catalytic convertors on cars to stationary source reduction.

People are overwhelmed looking up at the Mount Everest of environmental challenges that we face. But you put one foot in front of the other and you recognize that not everyone is Sir Edmund Hillary.

Some would call me an environmentalist. I don't know why. I reuse the water that falls in my backyard in the winter. I reuse the trash and clippings I produce for mulch. I reuse the rain that falls on my roof, and I reuse the sun that shines on my house for energy. I guess you could call me a strategic opportunist as much as an environmentalist.

My favorite form of transportation is walking. I live in a neighborhood where you can walk to restaurants, banks, and shops.

We run around so much - with the best intentions: I want to save the rain forest. I've gotta clean up the oceans. I've gotta save the dolphins. All worthy efforts, but if you're not centered and you don't have the serenity in your life you need to accomplish that task, you're not going to do a very good job.

If you're not buying recycled products, you're not really recycling.

The environmental crisis is all a result of rushing.

It takes less land to grow a pound of broccoli than it does a pound of beef. Less land to grow a pound of grain than a pound of beef. Less water, less energy.

The film 'Tapped' illustrates quite clearly how we've been getting 'soaked' for years by the bottled water industry.

I'm a strong proponent of green tech for anyone who can afford it, having spent the last 40 years working toward achieving a smaller and smaller eco-impact for myself.

As someone who has grown up living in Southern California, I know all too well about the costs and scarcities of water.

I can trace my environmentally-friendly lifestyle back to my childhood. My father was a conservative Republican that liked to 'conserve'.

For decades, community colleges have been the backbone of American workforce training. Because they are nimble and closely attuned to local community needs, they are inherently positioned to be influential leaders of the movement for a sustainable economy.

I've lived a slower and less expensive life going off the grid, and I'm happier because of it.

By 1990 I went back to no gasoline; I was just riding around on my bike, taking the bus. I had a tiny little electric car that didn't go very far or very fast. People thought I'd lost my mind. Even my own family thought I'd lost my mind.

I started composting in 1970 by taking my food scraps out behind where I lived and burying them in a hole next to the railroad tracks - and green things started to grow there!

I've been in movies with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson - but I was on 'The Simpsons,' and finally, in the eyes of my children, I was a star.

People don't want to give up their SUVs. They don't want to turn the thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer.

I was a typical Valley teen, in smoggy Van Nuys.

I'm not a wealthy person because I was never a star. I was a working actor and a supporting actor.

Los Angeles is a city known as much for it's sun as for its stars and it's dirty air.

One of the regular intervals of meditation in my life, believe it or not, is in my car.

For my own health, I thought it was better to eat a plant based diet. I'm going to be 60 soon and I have boundless energy and I feel really good, so I'm all for it.

Keep in mind, coal plants claim plenty of birds too. Sadly, hydro claims the lives of many fish. There is a price for everything. Solar does the best as far as very minimal wildlife damage.

It's people wanting to do something about global climate change. People fed up with the high price of gas. People tired of breathing dirty air. In Houston, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and other cities. It's going to be a critical mass of people experiencing something.

People don't want to change. It's hard for people to change and it's hard for businesses to change. If I was running an oil company, I would be resistant to change too.

I wanted to be an actor my whole young life. My dad was an actor, obviously - he won an Academy Award, but I had no idea what was involved. I had all the wrong ideas about acting.

You cannot be quiet about things that you know.

It's something I passed on to my kids. They really love the earth because they've experienced it from the youngest age. They know where food comes from - it doesn't come from the Safeway bush or the Ralph's tree. It comes from the earth. And water and sunshine and nutrients. My children understand that because they've experienced it. I feel successful as a parent, having done that.

When you're in the public eye - whether it be entertainment, sports, medicine, politics, whatever way - you have an opportunity, and I think also an obligation and a responsibility, to disseminate good information.

There are many different ways now to experience nature. Get out there and hike.

I bought my first electric car in 1970. Its top speed was 15 mph and it had just a 15 mile range - it was essentially a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn.

What we often fail to recognize is how efficient a vegan diet is. Less land, less water, more food for our spiraling population.

The food in Yugoslavia is fine if you like pork tartare.

Experience nature. Then you know why it's worth protecting.

This is a deeply spiritual issue...Do we want to spend more time trying to care for our fellow man or do we want to just pursue more virtual reality? That's the issue before us.. and it's being played out in the world of the environment.

The two most abundant forms of power on earth are solar and wind, and they're getting cheaper and cheaper...

To build a power plant and run lines to houses, to huts, to anything is a tremendous amount of work...how about...just giving them the service where they need it-on the roof of their hut.

We have lots of other problems with plastic in our oceans. There are five different big gyres of plastic out in the ocean. There are problems with air pollution around the country that we need to deal with, and around the world. We have a great many problems to overcome, so I work on a lot of different boards trying to help in those important areas.

You can't just do one of the things, because it won't be enough to combat the climate change that we're already starting to experience. It will only get worse.

To be a modern person in 2012, you are often required to have some electronics in your life. And I do. I try to put that phone down, put the computer away, and get out there and hike in the woods; feel it in my feet, feel it in my hands; get out in the garden and feel the soil under my fingers, my fingertips and my fingernails. I try to be involved in nature in a very tactile way. I think that's important.

If you're going to drive a Hummer and buy carbon offsets, that's like getting drunk every night and getting into an AA meeting, throwing money in the basket, and leaving.

I think people love nature after they experience it. I know I experienced it as a young man - I took a lot of hikes, I was involved in scouting.

When we destroy something crated by man we call it vandalism but when we destroy something by nature we call it progress.

We, who have so much, must do more to help those in need. And most of all, we must live simply, so that others may simply live.

When I was single, I was down to $100 of power a year.