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How disappointing. I thought she came from a decent, traditional, loving family. Turns out she's an utter fool. Oh well - - good riddance.

she's hollywood-privileged... she can afford to believe that utter nonsense... she's above the masses... (i've always admired her mother Blythe Danner as an actress)...

When the Paltrow family moved to Santa Monica, working along with then Mayor Goldway and Gary Peterson (then with Ecolo-Haul Recycling), Blythe became involved with starting curbside recycling. Going from door to door she explained how a well-run curbside pickup program could eliminate masses of garbage while becoming a moneymaker for their community. She got help from Ed Begley, Jr., who was then a cast member of her husband’s show, St. Elsewhere. He came to Santa Monica to help publicize the need for this program. Ed was also responsible many years later in helping Blythe procure an electric car, a Toyota RAV4, which is powered by energy from her solar home. Ed is Blythe’s environmental hero.

When asked how she incorporates her environmentalism into her daily work life as an actor, she tells that while working on last season’s Presidio Med, she asked whether instead of the Mercedes Benz her character was meant to drive she might instead drive her RAV4, and was delighted when given a “thumbs up.” She was even happier when the cameraman was able to linger for a moment on the “electric vehicle” printed on the side of the car as she drove up into the shot. She says, “there are all kinds of opportunities for environmentally active actors, writers, etc. to sneak in a good idea or two to get out the message subliminally or otherwise,” and she thanks EMA for making this one of their top priorities. At home she confesses to drive family and friends to near distraction with the rules of the house, i.e. recycling, composting, water usage and on and on. “I can’t help it, it’s not a choice it’s an obsession,” she says.

She shared one of her proudest moments with her husband and daughter, when she and Bruce produced with EMA and the Union of Concerned Scientists a series of PSA’s starring their daughter Gwyneth and Cameron Diaz. The message was: “Do all you can to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.” It was the last project Bruce directed before he died last October.

Her biggest concern now is this country’s massive unconcern about global warming. She is this year’s “National Honorary Chair” for the “Race to Stop Global Warming,” and says, “can we really be so uncaring as a country to refuse to accept our responsibility for global warming when the United States is the largest contributor to this problem? It breaks my heart to read everyday of another environmental law that is being chipped away, eroded by this Administration, and we’re not being provided with incentives by Bush to cut back on our shameful waste of energy. My husband, Bruce, wrote in one PSA that during World War II the government asked everyone to make sacrifices for the common good. We must demand this of our Administration today for we all have an obligation as citizens of this earth to leave the world a healthier, cleaner, and better place for our children and future generations.”

People in this country just don't want to sacrifice their gas-guzzlers. I'm proud to say that I have an electric car and solar panels on my roof, so I charge my car completely on my own energy. I'm an active composter and recycler, recycling with many other volunteers in New York and in Santa Monica.

But I'm really proud of these PSAs because they're playing them a lot now on CNN, and we've been told they've been played more than a thousand times so far. I think people are going to start seeing more and more. They talk about "What are you doing to help make us independent of Mid-Eastern oil and what are you doing? Are you turning out your lights?"

[We] have a very cute spot about that: turning out your lights, turning off the water when you brush your teeth. Cameron says, "Oh Gwyneth, I bet you don't turn off the water when you brush your teeth!" And Gwyneth says, "I bet you don't turn the temperature in your house down." And then Gwyneth says, "Oh, go buy yourself a hybrid car!" And Cameron says, "I have one." Then they both turn to the camera and say, "And what are you doing to make us independent?" So, I'm really proud of those. I think that they're good, and I hope they get a lot of play, and I'm proud that my daughter's really very concerned about the environment and doing more.

I think that you have to get this message across with humor, because if you're overly serious about it or preachy, people just tune out, even though you'd think this time…. I don't know why in this country people don't want to make the sacrifices that we have to do to really address the crux of the problems. It's so obvious, isn't it?

We are. [This is] a big throwaway society, and you'd think that after last year we'd have a wake-up call, and we do to some degree. But they're still buying those gas-guzzlers and advertising them like crazy.

When Blythe Danner collects empty soda cans at the airport, it's not because she's fallen on hard times - it's a sign of her commitment to the environment.

"I get a little bit nutty sometimes," the actress tells US Weekly.

In addition to collecting and recycling empty cans at airports - some airlines don't have recycling programs - Danner has gone door-to-door backing environmental causes, and has used an electric car to get around.

"I would pull up behind a car that was polluting, and I felt so holier-than-thou," she said. "I felt that I was in the real car and they were all in horse and buggies."

The actress, who says she's "delighted" that daughter Gwyneth Paltrow shares her environmental concerns, expresses frustration that global warming didn't come up much in the presidential election.

"I mean, people say it isn't a sexy issue. But that isn't true."

As Paltrow, dressed in a sleeveless black sheath with ankle-high black spike-heel boots, addressed about I80 EA members in a New York ballroom, it was clear that she had inherited her mother's political bent as well as her lithe grace. She gave a short speech in which she sheepishly admitted to owning a gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle and said that confessing before EA members was as good as an alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon going to an AA meeting. "I was young and ignorant when I bought it," she said over a chorus of boos. ~And I didn't bought it." she said over a chorus of boos. "And I didn't know then that these monsters add 3 per cent to the level of pollution or that Americans burn 4,000 gallons of fuel per second, creating the lion's share of the greenhouse gases in the world. I promise never to buy one again!"

Later, Paltrow told Us Weekly that she was trained in conservation even before she could speak. "I can't remember a time when my mother wasn't active on behalf of the environment. From the first time I brushed my teeth, I was taught to turn off the water. I was also taught to turn out the lights. To recycle. I remember going to the recycling center when nobody had ever heard of recycling. It's always been very much a part of our family. And I think people are starting to understand that our actions do have consequences for our health."

Danner recalls that Paltrow was a persuasive activist from a very young age. "My daughter and I used to drive around L.A., and when we'd see one of those big trucks with exhaust coming out, we'd hold up a handmade sign that said YOU ARE POLLUTING. Gwyneth could barely talk then. She said 'po-wute.' One day, we pulled up behind this truck with a big, macho, tattooed guy in the cab, and you could see the diesel exhaust pouring out. We stopped at the light next to him. I probably told her to put up our sign. But instead, she rolled down the window and shouted at him, 'You're po-wuting!' And I thought, Oh my God, he's going to climb down out of his cab and turn our car over. But instead, he turned into this little cartoon character. He looked down at her and said, 'I am? Oh, I really ought to get to the garage and get it checked!' She had a way about her even then."

Paltrow, a disciplined and complex woman who does ashtanga yoga every morning at 4 a.m. while on shoots, keeps a strict macrobiotic diet, and describes her spiritual life as "half WASP, half Jew, with a little Hindu thrown in." She is fiercely protective of the environment and would like to see Ralph Nader become president. But privacy is perhaps Paltrow’s greatest passion. "You are never going to see me walking down a red carpet holding anyone’s hand again, unless it’s my grandma’s or my brother’s," says the star. "I could be married and have three kids, and I still won’t talk about [my personal life]."