The Lighter Side of Green Celebrities

Did your post-Earth Day hangover leave you feeling a bit, um, green? Now that the media eco-overload is thankfully over, let’s take a look at the lighter side of celebrity eco life.

Nicolette Sheridan and Michael Bolton

Desperate Housecleaner
“I’m trying to be more eco-friendly about cleaning. So I’m sticking with supplies that are non-toxic. I like Mrs. Meyer’s line of products because they’re bio-degradable and because they really smell great and make my whole house smell incredible.”-- Nicolette Sheridan in Good Housekeeping

Wonder if Edie cleans in heels and a naughty maid’s outfit? Only Michael Bolton knows for sure.

And You Thought The Simpsons Were Yellow!
Vomit won’t be the only green thing on Universal’s new The Simpsons ride (set to debut this month they say). Turns out the screamfest will be replete with 2,582 LED lights, consuming one-third what standard lighting expends. Power driving the system will also be more efficient; saving 50% what it’d normally take. And a software program will oversee the ride and keep energy consumption at a minimum.

Excessive donut consumption, however, is mandatory.

Matthew Modine

Mind Matthew Modine’s Behind
Actor/activist Matthew Modine urged big city folks to bike to work for Earth Day, but the Full Metal Jacket star drew the line at bicycle attire. “You don’t want to show up with your ass wrapped in spandex,” the “Weeds” cast member told New York’s DailyNews.

Turns out the actor’s a double-threat -- his photography, featuring a California reforestation project -- was displayed at Chelsea Arts Tower to benefit American Forests’ Global Releaf. You’ll also catch Modine’s snappy work at TUMI stores worldwide.

Heather Mills Finds Sanctuary
Though Sir Paul McCartney wishes his ex would just sodder off, the former “model” is determined to buy herself another 15-minutes by hosting a three-course vegan dinner and awards show for Farm Sanctuary. Emceed by Melissa Rivers, Heather Mills will be dining with the likes of Kristen Bell, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jennifer Coolidge, Emily Deschanel, Christine Ebersole, Swoosie Kurtz and Kevin Nealon.

Edward Norton speaking on Earth Day at the National Mall

Strange Days with Edward Norton
BP Solar activist and Fight Club actor Edward Norton hosts National Geographic’s “Strange Days on Planet Earth” for PBS. Norton tells TV Guide: “I’m 38, and the greatest issue of my generation is that we are not living in a way that our planet can sustain … I wanted to speak to people my age and younger in a direct way with a bracing sense that this is happening now. This is not a set of pretty pictures.”

Where Green Gearheads Go
Ecomodder.com, discovered on Cool Site of the Day, offers tips on super-efficient driving techniques, saving money on reduced energy consumption, vehicle tweaks to improve fuel economy, and “squeezing the greatest distance from the least amount of fuel.” Highly recommended for the car-consumed looking to find ways to carbon offset. Sound like any stars we know?

Grim Reaper Ted Turner
“Failure to address global warming will have us all dead or eating each other by mid-century.” Ted Turner explained this fatalistic crusading to New York’s Daily News: "I read [about the possibility of cannibalism] in a book on the topic. I didn’t write that. When people are starving, a lot of them will just eat anything.” Turner added: “If we're going to be a bunch of slobs, then we don’t [deserve to live]."

And this billionaire is no slouch: “I don’t like trash near my restaurant. I walk around constantly and pick up trash. I pick up garbage in New York City -- particularly if someone's looking. Then they say, ‘If Ted Turner can do it, so can I!’”

Turner, who drives a Prius, also confessed to owning a private plane and a Hummer. “I use it when I go quail hunting in the desert, because you can't drive over a cactus in a normal car. It's just like Iraq without the insurgents." Sounds like Ted’s on an excellent adventure.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Indiana Jones meets the Riverkeeper
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his daughter, Kick, filmed a river trip with anthropologist/explorer Wade Davis, who is reportedly the inspiration behind Harrison Ford’s “Indiana Jones.” The IMAX flick, Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk 3-D, narrated by the Sundance Kid himself, Robert Redford, depicts 44 river warriors braving class 4 and 5 rapids while steering 10,000 pounds of gear.

Davis, sounding heaps more articulate than Indy, tells Outside Magazine: “There was [a] great moment when we were all at a spot called Redwall Cavern and suddenly this storm gathered. You study the geology of the canyon and you read Thoreau writing about the gentle movement of wind upon rock, and then you suddenly see a flash flood for the first time and you see that this is not about anything gentle.”

Wonder how Davis feels about snakes…. (I think we can guess how he feels about serpents and rainbows)