ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip

May 5th 2008

Reese Witherspoon Rocks The Avon Walk For Breast Cancer

Filed under: campaigns, donations, events, events: DC — parrish @ 11:42 am

Last October Ecorazzi announced that Reese Witherspoon had been named the first ever global ambassador and honorary chair of the Avon Foundation – a group dedicated to improving the lives of women through focusing on vital issues like breast cancer, domestic violence and emergency relief.

Since her appointment, Reese has worked with Avon to stop domestic violence, and this past weekend she showed her charitable side again as a special guest at the sixth annual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Washington, D.C.

Reese spent the weekend in D.C cheering on the walkers and spoke at the closing ceremony.  She said, “I am very excited to be partnering with the Avon Foundation and to help them continue to affect real change, I feel a great responsibility in my own life to give back to society. As the Honorary Chairman of the Avon Foundation, one of my first experiences last year was to meet Avon Walk walkers at a training walk in Los Angeles. Now I am proud to support the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer here in Washington, D.C. and hope my presence can in some measure express my deep appreciation for all the women and men who participate in the Avon Walks, and for all of the people who dedicate their lives to breast cancer research and care.”

The walk had 3,500 participants and raised $8.1 million for local, regional and national breast cancer organizations. GOOD JOB YA’LL!! So a big thanks to Reese Witherspoon, the Avon Foundation and all the walkers for their hard work and generous donations.

To learn more, visit AvonCompany.com!

via: dailystab.com

January 28th 2008

Hayden Panettiere Saves The Whales…Again.

Filed under: animals, campaigns, events, events: DC, green and famous — parrish @ 10:57 am

Breaking News: Hayden Panettiere is actually part whale. A thin whale, yes. A cute whale, absolutely. But I am most definitely, one hundred percent convinced that Hayden Panettiere is somehow directly related to the cetacean family and thus porpoise like in distinction.  And like any good family member-she protects her clan.

This weekend, Panettiere spoke at the Save the Whales-Again campaign at DuPont Circle in Washington D.C to help raise awareness about the brutal slaying of whales around the the world. Save the Whales-Again is an international conservation project that aims to re-ignite the passion of the earlier “Save the Whales” movement and “Save the Whales Again!”.  

Panettiere joins fellow celebrities, Pierce Brosnan, Keely Shaye Smith, and Isabel Lucas  who have all pitched in to try and help save the whale…again.  Panettiere has been particularly active in the movement and has future plans to speak with representatives from Japan, Iceland, and Norway to try and convince them to change their archaic fishing practice.

It looks like this Heroes star was typecast.

via: celebrity-gossip.net

December 7th 2007

Gardner, Panettiere Hook Up With The Weather Channel

Filed under: events: DC, green and famous — michael @ 9:56 am

Hayden Panettiere is in Washington, DC this week speaking at the Forecast Earth Summit by The Weather Channel”. The activist/actress will present on her involvement with the organization Save The Whales and the Declare Yourself to vote initiative. From JustJared,

“Created by The Weather Channel, the Forecast Earth Summit will focus on environmental education and provide interaction with numerous environmental leaders, enthusiasts and scientists. The Weather Channel recently announced the group of 22 high school “eco-ambassadors” selected through a nationwide essay contest to showcase their passion for helping the environment. The 22 winning students, representing 14 states, will participate in the upcoming Forecast Earth Summit.”

Joining Panettiere will be Guster singer — and creator of Reverb — Adam Gardner. The rock star will talk about his involvement on greening more than 650 concert events and 45 major tours. The summit starts today and will run through Sunday.

October 23rd 2007

Adam Gardner of Guster to Testify on Biodiesel to Congress

Filed under: events: DC, green and famous, politics — rebecca @ 5:25 pm

One of our favorite eco-leaders in the music industry, Adam Gardner of Guster, is headed to Capitol Hill tomorrow to testify in front of Congress. Adam & his wife Lauren Sullivan created the non-profit organization Reverb to help green the music industry.

Edward J. Markey, Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence will hold a hearing entitled “The Gas is Greener: The Future of Biofuels.” Within that hearing, Adam will be speaking on how biodiesel has been helping musicians such as Barenaked Ladies and Dave Matthews Band fight global warming.

The Hearing will take place on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 9:30 A.M. in Washington DC. You can catch the live webcast here. Rock ‘n Roll!

August 6th 2007

Green Is the Word At Weekend Music Fests

Filed under: events: DC, events: chicago, green and famous, music — rebecca @ 8:06 pm

Colin of GreenDimes recently commented, “Lolla and Virginfest both on the same weekend, and both working towards sustainable futures. Good stuff.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. (Incidentally, Green Dimes just dropped their prices. They’ll now get rid of your junk mail for a flat fee of $15 bucks.) With Lollapalooza in Chicago and Virgin Festival in Baltimore, green was spread all across the northern part of the country this weekend. Several groups - Ben Harper, Amy Winehouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Paolo Nutini - performed at both events.

Lollapalooza

Ecorazzi photographer & Chicagoan Jason Crawford was live on the scene at Lollapalooza this weekend. Lolla founder Perry Farrell headed up a “solutionists panel” aka: press conference at the event. Spinner.com quotes him as saying, “I want to be able to keep the oceans clean and snow on the mountains,” regarding their huge investment to make the festival green and carbon-neutral.

In order to cut down on trash throughout the event, and encourage recycling, attendees could collect a bunch of beer cups and turn them in for a free t-shirt. And in fact, Jason says there were so many recycling bins everywhere, but not enough trash cans…so the regular trash got tossed in with the recycling. Sounds like Lolla could have used a trash team like we had a Live Earth.

Of course, if green hair counts, Lolla fans had it covered.

Virgin Festival

And in Baltimore, there was Virginfest. We didn’t go because we don’t have any team members local to the area - why? - but we hear it was H-O-T and dusty. Live Daily has a great rundown of the event, including its green aspects.

A mall of philanthropy booths offered outreach and information on causes supporting the homeless, the hungry, children lacking healthcare, even offering Maryland residents a place to register to vote. Several fan-cooled geodesic domes scattered around the grounds were stocked with ferns and recharging massages, and a “Green Tent,” fashioned from bamboo and billowy hemp canvasses, was ground zero when Virgin-everything founder Sir Richard Branson joined actress Daryl Hannah in touting a level of environmental friendliness that made America’s Live Earth scene look like a garbage dump.

While it appeared by the end of each day’s activities that there was enough trash left on the ground to choke a couple of landfills, Sir Richard had the wherewithal to ensure almost every beverage cup, napkin, plate and utensil would be nothing more than compost by the time next year’s Virgin Festival rolls around. And Hannah, who helped coordinate the massive “greening,” also pointed out that 99 percent of the fuel used to power all the stages, vendors and site lighting was being generated with the cleanest biofuels possible.

Anya’s I’m Not a Plastic Bag even made an appearance.

The good news is: the more concerts that try to go green, the better we’ll get at it!

April 27th 2007

Angelina Takes Global Action for Children

Filed under: campaigns, donations, events: DC, green and famous — rebecca @ 11:54 am

Angelina Jolie was in the capital yesterday to help officially launch Global Action for Children. The organization has been around for almost 4 years, but the press event yesterday helped them officially launch a more formal organization and announce their new headquarters in Washington D.C.

Jennifer Delaney, Executive Director of Global Action for Children told the audience, “Angelina Jolie is a global leader on children issues. We are thrilled to have her as the honorary chairperson of the GAC Board. Her support of GAC helps us to ensure that orphans and vulnerable children in developing countries and the communities that care for them get the support they need.”

This is the same organization that received $1 million from Brad & Angie back in September.

Just Jared has some nice quotes from Angelina & the press conference:

“This is a happy day because it’s not often enough children are represented in this town,” Jolie said. “Their education and well being is an investment in our future.”

Will she run for office? Jolie smiled and said, “I surely don’t think anybody here wants that. [My focus remains] in the field.”

“In many ways it is better to think of these children one by one — each deserving of our care and attention, each being of equal value, and each being a test of whether justice — or injustice — will prevail.”

GAC wants you to get educated and then become a local activist on these issues.

Thanks for the tip, Christine!

April 12th 2007

Schwarzenegger: Environmental Movement Needs To Be Sexy

Filed under: events: DC — michael @ 9:28 am

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has obviously been reading a lot of Ecorazzi lately. Delivering a keynote address at a Newsweek-organized green conference yesterday, Schwarzenegger said the green movement will only gain a mainstream audience if it’s considered sufficiently “sexy”. From the article,

‘We have to make it mainstream. We have to make it sexy. We have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate,’ Mr Schwarzenegger said of the green movement.
Speaking at Georgetown University, Mr Schwarzenegger drew comparisons between the environmental movement and bodybuilding, which he described as ‘another passion of mine’.

‘Bodybuilding used to have a very sketchy image. As a matter of fact, so much so that some people that worked out seriously and pumped weights didn’t admit they were doing bodybuilding. But we changed that, we consciously changed that. And then all of a sudden, everyone wanted to exercise. It became mainstream, it became sexy, attractive,’ the governor continued. ‘And this is exactly what has to happen with the environmental movement. Like bodybuilders, environmentalists were thought of as kind of weird and fanatics also.’”

And honestly, that’s the movement behind Ecorazzi. Take the environment and show the glitzy side — the sexy side — that can reach a wider audience while educating and inspiring at the same time. I’m not advocating for lingerie models holding CFL bulbs seductively, but adding an element of “desire” beyond guilting people into it is important.

‘So the new environmental movement is not about guilt, it’s not about fringe, and it’s not about being overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, but it is about mainstream momentum, exactly what I talked about earlier with bodybuilding,’ he said.

Talk about taking everything you knew about a politician and spinning it on its head. I love the way this guy reaches out to people in a way that doesn’t make us all feel like idiots.

Hit the source for more of the Governor’s speech.

March 1st 2007

Al Gore: “Our Next Step”

Filed under: events: DC, politics, web — rebecca @ 12:10 pm

Al Gore recently sent out a note through his website, AlGore.com, encouraging everyone to spread the word. He will be hand delivering all of our messages to Washington when he testifies at the Congressional hearings on the climate crisis. Al’s asking everyone to find 10 more people to write messages before he goes. Write your message to Congress here. Here’s Al Gore’s entire note (also found in his journal entry):

Read the rest of this entry »

September 20th 2006

Run DMC McDaniels Honored for Foster Work

Filed under: events: DC, music — rebecca @ 12:07 pm

Darryl McDaniels of Run DMC is being honored today for his foster work. Adopted himself, Darryl set up the Felix Organization this year - to provide a summer camp for children who do not get adopted.

He only recently found out about his own adoption, as he was writing his autobiography six years ago. He writes on his website regarding himself and co-founder Sheila Jaffe, “We are the fortunate children…we got taken home. There are many children who did not. There are many children growing up without parents, in the foster care “system” or with parents who aren’t really equipped. These children do not have the opportunities we had, or parental hands to guide and support them as we did. We want to give to these children. We want to give them what so many of us are lucky enough to take for granted…new opportunities … new adventures.”

The award will be presented tonight by the CCAI, Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, at the 2006 Angels in Adoption Gala. Also being honored is Miami Dolphins quarterback Dante Culpepper, former foster child himself.

Via - StarPulse