How Robert Redford spoke up on climate change and environment
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Robert Redford accepts an honorary award at the César Awards in Paris in 2019. Photo: Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images
Robert Redford, the iconic actor who died Tuesday at 89, left a legacy that stretched beyond movies into environmental activism.
The big picture: Redford, who founded the Sundance Film Festival and pioneered the independent film scene, spent decades sounding the alarm on climate change.
Driving the news: Redford died in his Utah home Tuesday morning, per the AP.
- Redford was known for his starring roles in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men," and for directing "Ordinary People" and "A River Runs Through It."
- More recently, Redford appeared in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Avengers: Endgame."
Zoom in: Redford championed environmental causes. He served as a trustee for the Natural Resources Defense Council for over five decades.
- "The environmental movement has lost a giant," Manish Bapna, president and CEO at NRDC, said in a statement.
- "Nobody has done more to shine a light on the most important environmental issues from the dawn of the environmental movement in the '70s, through the biodiversity and climate crises of today."
Here are some areas in which Redford was active:
Robert Redford and politics
For decades, Redford battled politicians over environmental causes.
- In the '70s, the actor argued for passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, leading to the establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
- Redford took on former Rep. Newt Gingrich's Republican "Contract with America" plan, which experts called a "war on environment" for suspending environmental programs and slashing local funding, the NRDC said.
- Redford's activism included support for NRDC's Stop the Pebble Mine campaign, which aimed to block the creation of a gold and copper mine near Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed. And he narrated a documentary that raised concerns about a New Mexico nuclear waste disposal site.
Redford and the Paris climate summit
Redford demanded action on climate change ahead of the Paris Climate Summit, a landmark United Nations conference that saw countries unite to tackle global warming.
- "We're running out of time. But as a husband, a father and a grandfather, I do have hope," Redford said in a video at the time. "If we want to leave our children, grandchildren and future generations a healthy planet, we've got to respond now to the challenge of climate change."
- "This is our only planet," he added. "This may be our last chance. So let's protect the most important thing in the world: our children's future."
Robert Redford vs. Donald Trump
Redford fought to preserve Utah's public lands, opposing the Trump administration's plan to shrink the Bears Ears National Monument and efforts to create the Alton Coal Mine near Bryce Canyon National Park.
- "Ultimately, the Alton Coal Mine is not only about Bryce National Canyon or Utah's wildlands," he wrote for HuffPost. "It is also about how we as a nation manage our natural and energy resources in a new century."
- Redford backed public legislation that became the Inflation Reduction Act, which aimed to curb climate pollution and lower energy costs, according to the NRDC.
In September 2024, Redford wrote in an opinion piece for USA Today that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had a better platform to tackle climate change compared to Donald Trump.
- "The climate crisis threatens the most basic freedom of all — to build a life, support a family and leave our kids a livable world," he wrote.
Go deeper: Robert Redford, cinema icon and Sundance founder, dies at 89
