Ed Begley Jr.: Big green man

I once tried to pick up Ed Begley Jr.

Before your mind dives for the gutter, it was 2004, not long after Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor, and I rented a Hummer to write about whether it was all that its most famous fancier believed it to be. I invited Begley, connoisseur of energy consumption, to join me. After all, at 6 feet 4-ish, he's the right size for the Hummer's hugeness. But nyet, nein, no way, he said. Never been in one. Wouldn't ruin his perfect record now.

Short of living in a yurt on the Bolivian Altiplano, Begley is as green as they come, certainly for someone inhabiting one of the biggest cities in the First World. His father was the Oscar-winning actor, and he's found his own way onto the small screen and large: from the complex 1980s hospital drama "St. Elsewhere" to "Six Feet Under," and current guest spots on "The New Adventures of Old Christine"; and film roles in droll mockumentaries like "This is Spinal Tap," the handiwork of Begley's friend, Christopher Guest.

Begley's foray into reality TV, "Living with Ed," now on Planet Green, follows the literal power struggle in Casa Begley, in Studio City, where his wife, Rachelle, tries to make peace with life a la Ed, in which you have to pedal a generator bike to power the toaster.

His latest Guest enterprise is a series of TV ads for the 2010 census. Begley is in for the count.

You're about saving the planet. So what's with promoting the census?

The idea is there's a director -- me -- who wants to do a Ken Burns documentary, "Snapshot of America" -- every single man, woman and child in America. We're going to have a big call for everybody, get everybody into makeup and wardrobe -- you can imagine how insane that would be -- and then someone goes: "Don't they know there's another way? The 2010 census. Fill it out."

Why do you care about the census?

It's very important for us in California, and in Los Angeles, to get everybody to sign on to the census, fill out the form, because that's how we're going to get our federal money.

People like Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann have been saying the census is government intrusion.

I think it's sad that it's even viewed as mildly controversial. Despite the facts of the government's purpose in conducting a census, there will be "tea-baggers" who see a plot to send in census workers in black helicopters to count and eventually confiscate their guns. I can't summon a reasonable response to that.

The video of your November set-to with a Fox News show host over global warming has gone viral.

We were talking about energy audits. Energy audits are voluntary. [The host was] going on and on about the intrusion: "Ed Begley, why do you want to come into our homes?" Nobody wants to come into your home. If you want to buy cases of incandescent bulbs and store them in your fallout shelter, give them to your grandchildren, you can. There are no black helicopters, folks. They say this nonsense about "death panels" and other hyperbole -- out-and-out lies.

And that morphed into a donnybrook. What was the fallout?

I got 50 angry e-mails an hour. The thing that made them maddest was when I said, "Don't listen to me, don't listen to this guy, just check out the peer-reviewed science."

You wonder why they had an actor on to talk about global warming; why wouldn't they have a scientist? They've had plenty of "scientists" on who believe it's a hoax. My friends were upset with me. Buck Henry said, "Why do you even go on there?"

I've been [on Fox] for the past decade, and I've never once raised my voice as I did that time. I'm a good little Alan Colmes: Yes, I understand, let's agree to disagree about climate change, but how about we clean up the air and lessen our dependence on Mideast oil and save some money in the bargain, OK? But this time I just couldn't do it.

You're not going to make people believe in climate change by getting loud on Fox; so I'll go back to Plan A, which is being very polite, and it resounds with the red states as well.

Conservative: "To conserve"? This should be their issue -- they're supposed to own the word. I've had a lot of success talking about it that way.