USA: Actor Robert Redford launches a primetime programme slot on Sundance Channel to focus on environmental topics

Record ID: 751501

  • Title: USA: Actor Robert Redford launches a primetime programme slot on Sundance Channel to focus on environmental topics
  • Date: 19th April 2007
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ROBERT REDFORD, ACTOR AND THE CREATIVE FORCE BEHIND "THE GREEN" ON SUNDANCE CHANNEL, SAYING: "We've been on the wrong street for a long time, using non-renewable energy sources to get our energy, particularly in the area of oil, that we would become so dependent on foreign oil from other countries who are unstable, and who don't like us. It's nuts. So, therefore, by going into our own home, by taking it back into our own country, we're also preserving that country's environment by not ripping it apart, by not digging up the Alaskan refuge, by not digging up some of our great national parks just to get something that isn't going to last more than five or six years. So I think that the times of the last century are gone, it's over, and now we are moving to a new place. I think that's the way of America, I think America always does change. It usually waits for the last minute, but it does."
  • Embargoed: 4th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA5SFYAW2VBDYF70B4FINMWILFK
  • Story Text: The golden boy of the silver screen, Robert Redford, is keen to have his audience turn their attention to the colour green instead. Redford is launching what is being claimed as the first regularly-scheduled programming destination on a U.S. television network that is dedicated entirely to the environment.
    "The Green" begins on April 17th on the Sundance Channel, a venture of NBC Universal, CBS and Robert Redford, which has emerged as an alternative platform for an independent and irreverent selection of documentaries, films and original programs. "The Green" will include a range of program series and documentaries about planet Earth as well as ideas for sustainable green living.
    In an interview with Reuters, Redford said that he believed America's can-do culture responded better to positive suggestions on what people could do for the environment, rather than the doomsday scenarios painted by environmentalists 20-25 years ago. Which is why, Redford said, "The Green" too focused on little things that people can do for the environment in their everyday lives, instead of harping on about the negatives of the state of the current environment.
    The veteran actor said he was pleased with the current wave of environmentalism and attention given to environmental issues by the media but that he had waited for a long time to see the trend develop and become strong.
    "I think when the business community realized that there was money that could be made going green and the people began to experience in their own lives the consequences of what was going on, that created the tipping point and now things are moving very very quickly, because you're having new industries that have started around new ideas, and those new industries will create new jobs and that will in turn will change the economy," he told Reuters Television. "That's pretty exciting stuff and so I think it is a very positive time, and what the Sundance Channel is committed to is telling stories that show people what they can do and examples and showing them other people just like them that are doing things, and places that they can go to join those people doing things. But it's things that you can yourself with your own hands, right in your home."
    The programming philosophy of presenting positive green role-models for the audience is reflected through series such as "Big Ideas For A Small Planet", which will lead of each edition of "The Green". The series will present "forward-thinking designers, products and processes that are on the leading edge of a new green world." Each episode will revolve around a different green theme as it spotlights a specific innovator or innovation that has the potential to transform everyday lives.
    For instance, one feature in the Wear section of "Big Ideas for a Small Planet", is Swap-O-Rama-Rama, an event where discarded garments are recycled into new outfits in a collaboration between ordinary people, artists and designers.
    Episodes of "Big Ideas for a Small Planet" will be paired with a thematically complimentary documentary premiere. The debut episode of the Big Ideas series explores alternative fuel sources, and will be followed by the television premiere of "Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash", a look at the past, present and future of the world's oil reserves.
    When asked to reflect on the question of whether America was doing enough on environmental issues, Redford said that he feels the country needs to do much more and that it should lead the world on environmental issues but that it hasn't done that so far. He blames America's lack of global leadership on environmental issues partly to the policies of the present U.S. administration.
    "We have it in us to lead the entire world on the environment. First of all, we're the greatest polluters of the environment because of all the oil and gas we use, and therefore we should be setting that example. But you have a sensibility in Washington right now that is so limited and narrow, that it didn't come, and that's sad. I mean I think that's what we should be doing. That's why we're behind. We haven't had leadership that understood this. It was too tied to an old fashioned way of thinking about energy. Once these guys are gone, I think you'll see a change. I don't think the next leadership in Washington will be as bad as this one on the environment," said Redford.
    The actor is hopeful though about America's stance on the environment in the coming years, and said that he thinks the country always does change but that it usually waits for the last minute. An he hopes that "The Green" on Sundance Channel will contribute to that positive environmental change in the country.
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