A sold-out crowd packed into the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Tuesday night for a one-on-one about the arts, activism and the environment between Mayor Javier Gonzales and legendary actor and environmental activist Robert Redford.
Redford, dressed in blue jeans and a blazer, captivated the audience, sharing stories about his youth, the origins of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and movies that have made him one of the most recognized actors in American cinema.
While the mood was light, Redford, who owns a home in Santa Fe, also sounded an environmental alarm, saying the planet is changing and that “our opportunities are shrinking.”
“The energy companies are not going to go quietly into the night,” Redford said when Gonzales asked him how to influence policymakers or at least counter the view that “cheaper is always better” when it comes to coal, drilling and fracking.
“They’re going to fight, and they have the money to do it — I’ve been struggling with that imbalance for a long time,” Redford said. Redford touted the advantages of moving to alternative energy. Not only is it clean, he said, but it creates jobs. But that story needs to get told, Redford said.
“In looking at New Mexico, I’m thinking here’s this rich country, and if it continues going in the way that’s been in the past, which is oil, gas and coal, they [energy companies] have the power to keep the word out like that’s the way to go,” he said.
Redford described that view as short-sighted.
Energy companies are selling their message “without looking down the road and saying, ‘OK, what about tomorrow, and is there an alternative so we don’t have to rip up our Earth?’ ” he said.
Redford said he is committed to looking at New Mexico as a “rich possibility for the future” that strikes a balance and “saves some of the land that would be lost” to development...
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