I wonder if Ed Begley knows the price of organic milk?
Tuesday on the CBC interview show Q, Jian
Ghomeshi talked to actor Ed Begley Jr., Hollywood's leading environmental
activist and green-lifestyle enthusiast. Discussing Living With Ed, the reality TV show in which Begley
and wife Rachelle Carson clash over his carbon-footprint obsession, Begley
observed that Carson is the sort of person who cares about the earth but
doesn't go to extremes.
His examples? Carson doesn't like to use Begley's
power-generating stationary bicycle to make her toast. And she doesn't like
taking the bus.
I admire Begley as an actor and activist (and drummer),
but...wow. He really sees these two examples as similarly fringe? Just more
evidence that while there may be a lifestyle gap based on environmental
concerns, it's dwarfed by the one based on money and class.
Perhaps Stephen Colbert remembers better than Carson does what
it's like to ride the bus. In this amusing conversation with religious
historian Stephen Prothero, Colbert compares a Quaker meeting to a ride on a
city bus:
