Lumley has recently become a patron of ShelterBox – a UK-based disaster relief charity that has helped over 800,000 people in 57 countries recover from disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, wars, and volcanic eruptions. 

About Lumley, ShelterBox Founder and CEO, says:

“I am so pleased that Joanna has agreed to become one of our Patrons and support our work. These are momentous times for ShelterBox. Since 2001 we have provided emergency shelter in the aftermath of 80 disasters in more than 50 countries. We have now set ourselves the goal of helping 500,000 people a year by 2013. I know that her support will help us reach our goal.”

To learn more about this groovy org, hit up Shelterbox.org!

Who says animal rights is just for young people? With stars like Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire and Miley Cyrus all rocking the veggie lifestyle, it’s easy to think that the meat-free world is a young man’s game. But there’s a whole culture of AARP reading, wrinkle cream purchasing vegetarians who still remember what it was like when soy milk came in powder form.

To help give those meat-free pioneers more of a voice, PETA has created PETA Prime – a website dedicated to the more mature members of the vegetarian movement. It’s common knowledge that vegetarians live longer than a person on the Standard American Diet and so it’s even more important that us veggies have a place to call home even after we retire. (Let’s not forget that Donald Watson – the father of veganism – lived to the ripe old age of 95.)

The only question remaining is which 55+ vegetarian celebrity should be the spokesperson for PETA Prime? Should it be Steve Martin, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Barker, Ed Begley Jr. or Joanna Lumley? What about Ted Danson, Mary Tyler Moore, Paul McCartney or Phylicia Rashad. Of course there’s always Cicely Tyson, Loretta Swit and Danny Devito to consider.

Post a comment below and tell us who YOU would like to see on the front page of PETA Prime. We know the folks at PETA read Ecorazzi so you never know what your opinion just might inspire!

Joanna Lumley, most commonly known for her work on the British television series Absolutely Fabulous, has teamed up with the dudes and dudettes at Recycle Now to help make this holiday season a little more environmentally digestible. This year, Recycle Now has set a goal to recycle 100 million of the over 1 billion Christmas cards we will write this December.

Lumley went on record saying, “A simple way to help reduce this and help climate change at the same time is to recycle as much as possible and Christmas cards are one of the easiest items to keep out of our bins.” (Did you just laugh a little at the word “bin?”)

Fridey Cordingley, who is the head of Recycle Now added, “The amount of extra rubbish (that’s a funny word too) produced over Christmas is staggering, but there are lots of easy ways to help cut this down. Recycling is an easy way to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills and help tackle climate change. The extra waste we create at Christmas produces 1.4 million tons of CO2 – the same as producing enough energy required to enable all the households in Leeds and Doncaster to watch TV for a year. ” (Leeds, Doncaster? Those Brits crack me up!)

So this year, Ecorazzi encourages everyone to find new and creative ways to help reduce the amount of holiday waste produced in the name of jolly, old St. Nick and that infamous so and so, Chanukah Harry. Oh, and I encourage everyone to find new and creative ways to use funny British words in your everyday vernacular…like bin and rubbish.