Who’s Who in Green: Daryl Hannah

You could say that Daryl Hannah is sort of a green rock star. She drives around in a matte black 1983 El Camino, got herself arrested for protesting the bulldozing of a South Central urban farm and has joined ‘conservationist pirates’ in defending whales from Japanese whalers. She may be a pretty blonde actress known for roles like the mermaid in ‘Splash’, but she’s as hardcore of an environmental activist as any other and she’s as genuine as they come.

Hannah lives on a solar-powered off-grid ranch in the Rocky Mountains, where she grows her own organic food and biofuel. She buys carbon offsets to make up for flying, and says she has “carbon neutralized” herself so many times she’s got a carbon surplus but continues to do it anyway. Of her home, she told Central Florida Green Guide,

It’s a small but beautiful house made with salvaged materials. It’s both passive and active solar, meaning it faces southwest. It is bermed into the landscape and uses the natural movement of the sun and the insulation of the earth to heat/cool the structure. The power is amended by solar panels. I have most of the modern conveniences, but I choose not to have a TV. I have a friend who is an amazing mosaic artist, and as I have radiant floors, I had him make a mosaic with sea glass and shells I’d collected over the years. All of the materials that were removed from the ground when we bermed the structure were incorporated into the house - thus the living couch. Moss can go dormant for several months so it doesn’t need to be watered very often.

The vegetarian actress has been an environmentalist for decades, but wasn’t spurred to make it public until after the Iraq war began, when she says she realized simply living a privately sustainable life wasn’t enough. She appeared on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” and extolled the virtues of biodiesel, hoping to show people that they didn’t have to consume fossil fuels.

Hannah also hosts ‘DH Love Life’, a weekly video podcast that explores inspirational and cutting-edge developments in green culture and lifestyle. Episodes are fun and quirky, including one in which she visits the Cyclecide fair, a travelling exhibit that uses their customized bikes to provide pedal power for their fair rides. Check out the episode below, ‘Worm Poop’, to see Hannah visit the Terracycle factory run by Tom Szaky, a previous ‘Who’s Who in Green’ here on EarthFirst.

In perhaps her most famous example of environmental and social activism, Hannah climbed up into a walnut tree in a South Central urban community garden to protest plans to bulldoze the land. She lived there for three weeks along with noted activist Julia Butterfly Hill, hoping to save the community garden from plans by the new landowner to replace it with a warehouse. Sadly, the farm was shut down and razed the day after Hannah and around 50 others were arrested, but she says he did what she believed was “morally right”.

Hannah has also worked to raise awareness of contamination caused by the oil industry in the Amazon, fought to keep Rwandan gorillas disease-free and has donated to a number of charities and causes. She also co-founded the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to developing practices for sustainability in the U.S. biodiesel industry.

Keep up with Hannah’s latest news and get her tips and alerts at Dhlovelife.com.

Daryl Hannah’s Green Score: 47,503

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