What Working On An Oil Field Taught Robert Redford About Climate Change

Before he was a Hollywood icon Robert Redford, who died on Tuesday at the age of 89, was a teenager working on an oil field in California hoping to save up enough money to travel to Europe and study art.  It was an experience that would shape his lifelong commitment to climate action. “Even at the age of 16, it bothered me because I could see what was happening up there [was] that the propaganda of oil companies, and the lobbyists they hire, were selling the idea that it was going to be great for the economy, great for everybody. And I saw it differently,” he said in a 2010 video for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  In the video, where he reflected on the Deepwater Horizon disaster that had occurred a few months earlier, Redford spoke of the oil spill’s human cost—11 people were killed in what is considered to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Redford noted that he knew firsthand the challenges faced by oil workers. “I know what it’s like when a person’s job, their own livelihood, depends on having to hold that line and how difficult it is when the ethic of a company goes against some of the dangers attached to it,” he said. “That’s tough because that’s the job you’ve got, and it may be the only job you can have.” His experience on the oil field fueled a lifetime of climate activism for the actor—including his strong advocacy for clean energy policies in the United States. In a piece for TIME in 2018, he urged policymakers to allow solar companies to coexist with utilities in order to enable more Americans to affordably transition to solar power. “Time is running out. Our window of opportunity is narrow. I believe there are true limits to the resources of our planet, but there is no limit to the human imagination and our capacity to solve the biggest challenges of our time,” he wrote.   In Utah, where he resided for most of his life, he successfully campaigned against a six-lane highway that was proposed to run through a canyon, as well as a proposed coal-fired power plant. He co-founded the Redford Foundation in 2006, which aimed to support environmental impact filmmaking and served as a trustee for the NRDC for three decades. In 2009, he testified in front of the House Natural Resources Committee on America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, which called for the protection of Utah’s wild lands. While Redford might have shied away from calling himself an activist, he was fiercely dedicated to pushing for a world that was habitable for all. “Unless we move quickly away from fossil fuels, we’re going to destroy the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the health of our children, grandchildren, and future generations,” he told the United Nations during a 2015 event. “No country can solve this crisis alone. We’ve just got to do more.”