The Producer

No one has done more to get global warming off the science page and on to the front page than Laurie David. A trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council, David is putting together a comedy special on climate change that will air November 20th featuring celebrities such as Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and Robin Williams. She is producing an HBO report on global warming called Too Hot Not to Handle that she promises will be "the least wonky documentary anybody has ever seen on this issue." And she has organized a "virtual march" on Washington, signing up Walter Cronkite, Sen. John McCain, Leonardo DiCaprio and 140,000 other Americans to demand immediate action on global warming.

"She can get any studio head on the telephone within a few minutes, and virtually any Hollywood celebrity," says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "She's opened up new corridors of power to the environmental movement."

David is working those corridors to "permeate pop culture" with environment-friendly images. Her husband, Larry David, the creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm, drives a Toyota Prius hybrid -- both on the show and in real life. And thanks to her efforts, hybrids also make prominent appearances on 24 and Alias -- cause-related product placement designed to make the fight against global warming look cool.

David, 47, used to berate Hummer drivers at red lights for their lousy fuel economy, but she gave up the lectures at the insistence of her preteen daughters. These days, her urgency is most apparent in the virtual march, which will be featured this fall on The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. Rather than burn fossil fuels to get millions to Washington, David is signing people up online for a cross-country look at climate change's devastation. "You don't have to go to Alaska to see that global warming is real and now," David says. "You can see it in Louisiana and Florida, in New Jersey and Arizona. We have to shift the debate on this issue this year."

Her husband likes the online protest for a different reason. "The virtual march is a perfect opportunity for the lazy man to do something good without having to expend any effort," he says. "This thing was made for me."

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