Edward Norton promoting BP

Actor Edward Norton is currently on PBS, narrating Strange Days on Planet Earth, a documentary series about scary environmental phenomena occurring around the planet. The final episode was last night on PBS. He told Grist magazine: “I was impressed with the theme that the globe is a truly integrated biological and ecological system. There’s that old adage that when a butterfly beats its wings in China, it can cause a hurricane in Africa. The film shows how science is demonstrating more and more specifically just how intimately connected to each other we are. ”
Norton was involved in promoting BP Solar panels to low-income families, because “the subsidies available through the state and the city were substantial enough that it made good financial sense and was a way of saving money over time.”

Norton works with Enterprise Foundation, the largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing in the country, which his grandfather founded in the late ’70s.

“We had our first-year celebration back in November. My colleagues and friends who had participated in the program — Danny DeVito, Rhea Pearlman, Brad Pitt, Salma Hayek, Daryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone – came down and met with the families that have gotten systems. We got about 25 systems on families’ homes in the first year, which allowed us to qualify for a $500,000 grant that will supply 40 or 50 new installations. And more people are getting involved. Bruce Willis called and wants to put an installation on his house in the Caribbean. Larry King agreed to do it. We’re trying to go beyond Hollywood to bring in broadcasters, politicians, sports figures, and musicians. I’m hoping for a snowball effect.”

Norton told Grist he hated the Bush administration: “Their agenda adds up to complete sellout of American public interest to corporate profit. It is to the shame of this administration that amidst all that’s going on in the country and in the world right now, no one is saying that conservation and alternative energy need to be as seriously and aggressively explored as drilling in the North Slope of Alaska.”