Manila welcomes Asia’s first big biodiesel plant, Daryl Hannah Speaks Out

Manila welcomes Asia’s first big biodiesel plant
Financial Times - London,England,UK
The Philippines yesterday inaugurated Asia’s first large-scale biodiesel plant, which can produce up to 60m litres a year of the alternative fuel from ...
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Daryl Hannah Speaks Out
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
... She slugs it back without a moment's hesitation. "It's kind of gnarly to drink oil," she told me later, recalling the taste of biodiesel. ...

A matte-black El Camino roars into a filling station, dust billowing as crashing guitar chords compete with the sound of squealing tires. Out steps Daryl Hannah. She flips open the gas cap and starts fueling up. Then she pours herself a tall glass of the viscous green fuel, straight from the pump. She slugs it back without a moment's hesitation.

"It's kind of gnarly to drink oil," she told me later, recalling the taste of biodiesel. "But it's not going to kill you -- that's the point."

This arresting scene -- from a short film about biodiesel featured on her video blog -- is part of Hannah's new identity. Best known as a movie star for her roles in megahits like "Blade Runner" and "Splash," Hannah has long been committed to environmental living. But she's only recently started sharing her passion with the world.

"I want to be the good news," Hannah told me over the phone from the set of her latest movie, filming in Vancouver. "I want to show inspiring people and inspiring solutions."

So between takes on the set, Hannah retreats to her trailer with her dog Toto and video editor Katie Flint. There, they edit segments for Hannah's video blog -- the latest addition to her growing advocacy portfolio. The vlog, which features a new segment every week, chronicles Hannah's personal explorations of the latest in green living. Topics have included green building, vegan diet, gorillas in Rwanda and biodiesel -- one of Hannah's favorite topics.

"I haven't been to a gas station in years," she said. "It feels so good not to be a slave to gas, playing the whole game of war for oil."

Her vlog entries have a fun-but-serious tone that conveys the importance of making sustainable choices -- while underscoring the fact that such choices don't have to be sacrifices. On the contrary: Green choices enrich Hannah's life.

The past year has seen a mini-boom in green celebrity: Cameron Diaz, Leonardo di Caprio, Ed Norton, Matt Damon and others have lately joined the eco-celeb pantheon that has long included a handful of activist-actors like Woody Harrelson and Ed Begley.

But Hannah's commitment is longstanding. She's been a vegetarian since she was a kid. Her two houses -- one in the Rockies and one in Southern California -- have been off the grid for a dozen years, relying on solar panels and graywater systems. She buys carbon offsets for all her travel.
"I've carbon neutralized myself so many times," she said, "that I've got a carbon surplus. But I still continue to do it."

That kind of personal, lived environmentalism has always made intuitive sense to Hannah. "One wouldn't think that you would have to become an environmentalist or a humanitarian," she said. "It's just natural to treat people and other creatures on the planet with respect."

But in spite of her strong conviction, for most of her life Hannah did not advocate publicly for environmental causes.

"I never had come up with a really profound and strong gesture -- nothing like Julia Butterfly's," she told me. "So I figured the best thing I could do was live by my beliefs. That's probably the most profound thing that anybody can do."

But in the wake of Sept. 11, Hannah realized that simply tending her own garden wasn't enough. As the nation tumbled headlong into an ill-conceived petroleum war, Hannah was driven to speak out. On the first anniversary of Sept. 11 she went on Fox's "O'Reilly Factor" "to talk about our biofuel options -- that we don't have to go to war for oil."

Hannah said she is at heart a very private person and she found it difficult to speak out. With a natural aversion to telling people what to do, Hannah prefers to use her platform to lay out the facts.
"People have to know that there are options available to us today," she said. "There is another way, and it is practical and applicable now."

Hannah's message has been resonating -- she even got Bill O'Reilly to agree that biodiesel sounds like a good idea. Now she says she's glad she was moved to speak out.

"I had no will of my own -- I just went and did it," she said. "It just felt right to take the opportunity when it arose, and ever since then I've felt compelled to speak out."

Despite her 40-plus roles in Hollywood movies, including one in a film coming out next week which she never even mentioned to me, Hannah is most passionate about her green pursuits. "I've been thinking less and less about Hollywood," she added. "This other work seems to be taking much more of my energy now."

Hannah is a great example of someone with strong environmental convictions who does not happen to be a full-time activist. She has been making a difference on a individual level while tending to all the rigors of a full-time career. And now that she's speaking out more, she's showing the way for the vast majority of Americans who think there are better ways for the country to address its appetite for energy, yet so far haven't raised their voices.

Hannah's focus on solutions reaches people in a way that confrontation can't.

"Especially when I talk to people who don't really know what's going on, the unconverted," she said, "I really try to stay focused on the positive and fun. The more we show the world the way we want it to be, the more likely it is we'll get there."

All she wants is for people to give it a try.

"Basically, anything you do sustainably feels so good that you're a full-on addict as soon as you try it," she said. "If you eat only vegetables and fruits that you grow yourself from your garden, or organic food, it tastes so much better and is so much better for you, you can't really go back."
Hannah sees those kinds of lifestyle choices as a gateway to much bigger issues.

"It's really important to me to show the interconnectedness of things," she said. "I always try to illustrate how environmentalism, humanitarianism, animal rights -- all those things -- are one and the same."

But for Hannah, speaking out means moving beyond simply using her celebrity status to spread the word.

"I've never been a fan of celebrity," she said. "I know most of the other people who would be considered environmentally conscious celebrities, but unfortunately there are a lot fewer of them than you would think. Most actors are so self-involved they don't really look outside themselves."
Hannah said the problem suffuses Hollywood. "They make hundreds of movies every year, yet there's only a handful with environmental themes. It's unfortunate, because you would think they would want to use their voice and the power that they have to do something positive."

"But Hollywood has never tried to make films to change people's minds or hearts," she added with a shrewdness clearly drawn from decades of experience. "It's loyal only to the bottom line."

So instead, Hannah has been exerting her efforts on hard-hitting environmental storytelling outside Hollywood. She's currently hosting "Sierra Club Chronicles," a documentary series produced by the Sierra Club for LinkTV that tells the stories of ordinary people fighting for environmental justice.
"I saw their proposal and I just thought it sounded incredible," said Hannah.

She said she found the first episode particularly moving: a look at Sept. 11 first responders struggling with chronic health problems, thanks to government lies about conditions at ground zero. "It's unbelievable when you see those big guys who are just so proud and strong and they break down," she said. "Oh, it just kills me."

These kinds of personal stories are so moving, said Hannah, because people can relate to them intuitively -- they get beyond what Hannah calls environmentalism's messaging problem. "There's no really good word for 'environmentalist' or even the things I'm talking about right now. What is my blog about? Is it about 'green lifestyle?' What the hell is that?"

"'Environmentalist,' 'environmentalism' -- they're bad words. They've been marginalized," she continued. "That's something that we really have to fight against -- it diffuses our ability to do the work that we need to do."

Hannah believes that this cumbersome language makes it difficult to tell stories that are, at their core, affectingly human.

"It's been very distressing," she said. "The fact that there's not any really progressive green show on television right now is bizarre. There are a lot of people in the TV industry who are interested in the field, but when I approach them about doing something, everyone's like, 'Oh, it's a niche market.' Well that's bull--."

So Hannah is taking matters into her own hands. Through her production company, she is developing a series of full-length documentaries about what she calls "extreme activists."
The first episode, which she's nearly finished shooting, is about people who go undercover to disrupt human trafficking networks around the world.

"I went with them on a bunch of missions to rescue sex slaves," she said, clearly in awe of their selfless dedication. "It's the more hard-core side: These are people who got to that point where they just can't take these really upsetting issues anymore. They just have to do something about it."
Which sounds like a good description of Hannah herself.

"When I hear about all of the terrible things that are going on," she said, "it makes me want to fight. I don't have a choice."