Thank you very much.
Actually I’ve lived in Topanga for 35 years
and my job is television director.
Mostly junk television shows
like Entertainment Tonight, things like that.
My hobby has always been the environmental movement,
which 35 years ago I was very lucky
to bump into Bob Hunter and Paul Watson,
two of the most famous people in the movement.
And being in the television business,
there are like stories made to happen.
Just like a train wreck waiting to happen.
I hooked up with them years ago and we tried,
at that time -this is 35 years ago,
it was in Vancouver, British Columbia –
we took a billboard out, which had one word on it:
Ecology, look it up!
No one knew what the word meant.
And so now, 30 / 35 years later
I can say, we have won the revolution.
At least people know what the word means,
and BP Oil wants to be green.
So the kids that are coming along next
-I’m kind of old, and semi over the hill –
The kids that are coming along next
will have to learn how to govern it,
because we have won the revolution,
as environmental groups,
we want to be good, we want to have less population
-at least I do-
we want to teach our kids to do the right things,
we want to do all those things.
And everyone has to do their part,
in the Tapestry of Life, which was on the brochure this morning.
I guess I’m the person who just can’t wait around for that
and I have to get out there and stop it right now.
I consider myself a conservationist,
and what I do in the media business is,
I take the problem to the world.
We consider ourselves an acupuncture needle.
We can stick the problem,
make a big stink,
which we do, if you know what we do,
and all over the world we’ll hear about it,
and then it’s time for everyone else,
our own selves to get in there and fix it.
And both as a small group, which I ran for years,
and as an individual, that is all we can do.
And recently – I will get to it in a minute –
but Margaret Mead told me one time,
and she obviously – it’s written out all the time,
and you hear about it-
that individuals change the world, not groups, not governments.
Nobody. It’s individuals.
And when people ask me,
"What can I do? It seems like such a big deal!"
Well, it isn’t such a big deal.
Everyone can do something positive.
It’s real easy to sit around in our couches
and football games and bitch about,
you know, the Topanga Creek being dirty, or whatever,
and not even care where our separate tank goes.
So that’s a very easy subject to deal with,
And when people tell you ‘No’,
if you find something you want to do, I tell kids especially,
if that’s something – as the lady before me was talking about their passion –
if that’s what their passion’s about: do it!
And you know, everybody in your life
is going to tell you why you can’t do it.
Your parents are going to tell you you're crazy,
your friends are going to say, Why bother?
Everybody is going to tell you why you can’t do it.
And you know what?
You’ll change the world if you do do it.
And the minute you stand up to all these naysayers,
which there'll be, because they've never really done anything themselves,
and they’re probably more afraid of failure,
or success for that matter, than you are.
But as a kid, if you see a problem,
you just tell yourself, you can do it.
And in my case, I came from a little town, Eastham, Massachusetts
I came out to Hollywood, I was a professional skier,
I got into the television business,
and I bumped into Paul Watson and Bob Hunter.
Thirty years later, BP Oil wants to be green.
Now, I don’t take full credit for it,
but I do know the people who can take full credit for it.
And those are the people who went out in front,
and weren’t afraid of what was going to happen.
I hear all the time – I have coffee at Mimosa Coffee Shop –
and I hear all the time people say,
"Gee, Peter just got back from Antarctica!
I wish I could do that!"
Well, six weeks before I left
they were sitting there in the coffee shop telling me,
Gee, I wish I could go to Antarctica, I don’t have time.
I come back six weeks later, and they tell me,
"What did you do? Nothing".
As a matter of fact, the damn coffee shop is about the same,
and probably still has the same dirty cups in the trash.
But I went and took six weeks of my time,
to do something that I believed in.
For whatever reason: I did it for myself,
I did it for the whales, I can do it for whatever number of reasons,
but the very fact is, that I did it.
And it’s very funny that after 35 years
I ended up in that stupid Whale Wars television show,
and now, all of a sudden, I’m invited to places like this to speak.
(Laughter)
You know, I could be the greatest scientist to the world,
but, hell, I wasn’t on tv last night,
but I was on television and I play a scientist on tv,
and I’ll tell you: Don’t kill whales.
(Laughter)
But it’s tv, so you don’t have to get a lot of points across,
you just have to kind of get the feeling, and I’m good at that.
Because I absolutely believe in what I’m preaching,
and so I’ll make up the facts all day long.
You know, let the other show come up with the stuff that’s right.
Just these three weekends ago I was supposed to talk here,
I forgot what the subject was going to be,
I was asked, and I said,
I’m doing something right now that could be really cool.
Now, I don’t know if you people are involved
in the environmental movement, or what the thing is,
- I kind of, for whatever reason, am -
and Paul Watson, who’s on the lam for Sea Shepherd now, for offenses,
asked me if I could put Taiji, Japan, The Cove,
where they kill the dolphins cove,
if I could stream it live to the Internet.
Because for years they’ve only done motion pictures on the thing,
it’s been on tv, you know - [but] it hasn’t saved one dolphin.
But boy, they spend a ton of money over there.
So we thought that maybe we would try to do that.
So I said, Sure!
I saw a commercial where someone is there with their cell phone,
and they took a picture of a rock and roll star,
and thre it was on a bill board!
It was on tv, I’ve got to be able to do that!
And you know, the funny thing is,
two weeks later, I did.
And we only told five people we tried it,
and the Japanese arrested 13 foreigners
in town and took their cell phones away.
The next time, when we got the cell phones back to the kids,
and we actually told a few people
that we were going to run this live,
they arrested another 13 or 14,
and took their cell phones away and broke them.
And then they spent a week cyber-attacking me, because...
Just to this point,
no one had even seen it yet. Ok?
Ten people, maybe.
Now there is 10,000 people a day tuning in,
to this thing called Easy Earth,
with the letters EasyEarth.tv ,
to watch Taiji live,
and the Japanese are just beside themselves.
And no one can understand why.
Well, we live in Los Angeles where people watch car chases,
for four hours a day. Waiting for the car wreck.
What’s better [than] watching the Japanese
to see what’ll happen to these poor,
lovely vegan women when they come in
and kill a dolphin in front of one of them? Ah!
My dad was in WW II, he would have loved
to have a platoon of those women with him
because they just turn vicious.
And so the people are watching it.
But the difference is,
they are changing their mind.
They don’t like to kill dolphins on live tv.
(Laughter)
They don’t have a problem killing dolphins
when you put it in a film, for whatever reason,
but for some reasons, they do not like it happening now.
And it got around.
And we now, we are doing it every day.
Still on my credit card, I’m thrilled.
Because with band, the more you sell the more it costs you.
So now, what we figured we’d do to really be a pain in the ass,
[was] we are going to put Antarctica, this winter, on live.
So instead of Whale Wars doing a fake TV show about it,
a year later,
you’re going to be able to tune in Christmas Eve,
if you’re Japanese, and watch the brave thing country does,
killing whales in a whale sanctuary, on Christmas Eve.
And what I’m going to do then,
is put it up on a live video screen in downtown Tokyo.
(Laughter)
And just wait for them to take it down (Applause).
But all I’m saying, I’m saying this
because I’ve got to get going here,
I see someone waving in the background,
I must not talk too long.
But all I’m saying, the bottom line is,
anybody can do it.
I just happened to get lucky
because I am involved in a film called:
Confessions of an Eco Terrorist,
so it is in my nature to do these things.
But I had enough contacts,
when someone suggested: Why not?
I didn’t say, because it’s impossible.
Everybody else said it was impossible.
It took me two weeks, it was nearly impossible.
Now it’s kind of impossible convincing my wife it was a good idea.
But that’s another story altogether.
But the thing is, it’s working
and it’s a different way of thinking.
And the kids out here especially, or anybody,
if they have an idea on how to get after something,
then I say: do it! If it’s a real idea,
talk about it with your friends.
If they all think you’re crazy,
then you know it’s a good idea!
Find someone else you can talk to about it,
And get out there, and do it.
It will change the world.
And not only will it change the world;
all of a sudden, they’ll be invited here,
to come talk in a place like this,
where you can’t see anybody out there
because the lights are in your eyes,
but you all seem very nice
and I think I’m at my time,
and I want to thank you for coming in.
Get out there and do something positive.
Thank you!
(Applause)