2000 Advocate Awards

Gwyneth Paltrow Hosts Environmental Advocates' 2000 Advocate Awards

Environmental Advocates honored three exceptional individuals at the 2000 Advocate Awards: Celebrating the Many Shades of Green, the group's annual New York City Gala, at the Fifth Avenue Ballroom in Greenwich Village. The event was hosted by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who stepped in as host when her mother, award-winning actress and long-time Environmental Advocates Board Member Blythe Danner, encountered a last-minute conflict (the London premier of Duets, a film directed by husband Bruce Paltrow). After reading a note of greetings from her mother, Paltrow sheepishly admitted that she owned a sport utility vehicle. "I was young and ignorant when I bought it," she confessed, "and I didn't know then that these monsters add 3 percent to the level of pollution or that Americans burn 4,000 gallons of fuel per second, creating the lion's share of the greenhouse gases in the world. I promise never to buy one again." Paltrow spoke of her own environmental concerns, including the relationship between diesel bus and truck traffic in New York and the city's asthma epidemic. "Why don't we have a clean-fuel bus fleet like Sacramento and Tulsa, especially since New York City has one of the highest asthma rates in the country," Paltrow asked. "East Harlem has the highest, we believe because of the high concentration of pollution, traffic, and all the diesel bus depots."

The 2000 Advocate Award recipients were Majora Carter, Dr. Philip Landrigan and former Congressman Richard Ottinger. Carter is Associate Director of Community Restoration at the Point Community Development Corporation in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Landrigan is Director of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Center for Children's Health. Ottinger is Dean Emeritus of the Pace University School of Law. They were recognized as representatives of the partnerships built by the environmental movement to develop policy solutions to some of New York's toughest environmental problems. The evening was also a celebration of one of the most successful legislative sessions in years. Among the highlights of the year are: passage of the pesticide Neighbor Notification Law; local control of, and stricter pollution control on, jet skis; the phase-out of diesel busses from the New York City transit fleet; the state's first steps to do something about the waste tire crisis; an attempt to keep Con Edison from passing along the costs of its nuclear mistakes to ratepayers; and tax credit support for green buildings (for more information about the 2000 legislative session, see the Voter's Guide on the Web).

Multi-Grammy nominated performer and Environmental Advocates member Tom Chapin entertained the crowd with a live performance of This Pretty Planet. Also in attendance were two EPL/Environmental Advocates 2000 Voters' Guide award winners: Legislator of the Year Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, of Nassau County and Environmentalist of the Year Tina Williams, whose family was poisoned by pesticides used in their home.

View more pictures from the 2000 Advocate Awards.