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Jenny Evrard is
Editor in Chief of the DePaulia, and editor of fhi’s herstory
department.
 It’s
easy to envision this issue’s Woman of Style decked out in
a Wonder Woman costume, balancing the weight of our earth
on her shoulders, probably without even breaking a sweat.
No, she is not Atlas reincarnated; she is Laurie David, a
Hollywood producer-turned activist driven to stop global warming
in its tracks.
David spearheads a number of large-scale projects devoted
to the global warming cause, one of the most recent being
the Stop Global Warming Virtual March (stopglobalwarming.org).
Partnered with Senator John McCain and Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr., the nonpartisan initiative urges government, business
and religious leaders, as well as average Americans, to take
notice of the immediate ramifications of global warming in
this country and abroad.
“What’s driving everything is that we have a crisis,
we’ve been warned about this for two decades now, and
no one is paying attention,” David said [in an HBO interview].
“And seriously, what other issue is going to impact people’s
lives more? Not terrorism, not Iraq, not Social Security—it’s
global warming, and it’s here now, and we really need
to wake up and start dealing with it.”
David also authored a book this year, titled
Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You!, which addresses
the threat of global warming while urging readers to shift
their everyday behaviors so that we can all be a part of the
solution. David suggests that it isn’t about doing everything…it’s
about doing something.
You might recognize David’s name from her work with
Al Gore on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. David
is a producer for the film, which was awarded a Humanitas
Prize Special Award and numerous accolades from film festivals
around the world. David also produced HBO’s Too Hot
Not to Handle, a documentary on the effects of global
warming in the United States. According to the film, a quarter
of the world’s plant and animal species could face extinction
by the end of this century because of global warming.
In October 2006, David was honored by and featured in Glamour
magazine as one of its “Women of the Year” for her
work in stopping global warming. She received the prestigious
Gracie Allen Award for Individual Achievement by the American
Women in Radio & Television. David has also led a number
of public education and action campaigns urging Congress and
auto manufacturers to work together to raise fuel efficiency
standards and design higher mileage cars.
Before she got her start saving the world, David was a producer
for HBO, Showtime, MTV and Fox Television. For a time, she
was vice president of comedy development for a division of
Fox Broadcasting, and developed sitcoms for Twentieth Century
Television. Now, however, her sights are set on stopping global
warming before we are left without hope.
“The big problem with this issue is getting American
people to demand changes,” David said. “We have
to build this movement where the American people say, ‘We
want solutions now.’ Government doesn’t change until
the people demand it, so we need to shake everybody up and
say, hey, this can be dealt with, but we’re going to
have to start right now.”
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WINNER
- Website of the Year 
