Eco-Friendly Competition: Who Can Go Greener?

July 25, 2007 — -- In Hollywood, where the streets are supposedly paved with gold, actor Ed Begley is all about green. His passion about energy use and the environment serves as the plotline for his new reality show, "Living With Ed," videotaped at his California home.

But something is happening in his little corner of the Hollywood Hills, and Begley is feeling the heat. And it's not from his thermostat.

Begley made it in Hollywood playing Dr. Ehrlich on the 1980s hit series "St. Elsewhere," but in his new show, he's not acting. A devout environmentalist, Begley has practiced what he's preached for nearly four decades, and is often cast as that electric-car driving, wind-turbine and solar-panel pushing Hollywood kook. But suddently he's no longer seen as an eco-nut but as the guy who got it right.

"I'm shocked that people seem to view it that way, but it's fine by me," says Begley. "It always made sense to me to conserve, to not waste anything -- why would you waste energy? It's too precious."

But is Begley the greenest of them all?

"There is a man down the street who is trying to keep up with the Begleys. I don't know that he's succeeding, but you decide. He's a nice man," says Begley.

That nice man is Bill Nye, the "Science Guy."

Nye is Begley's neighbor, who, Begley says, is "a very nice fellow who started this competition, I suppose, to see who could have the lowest carbon footprint."

That's right. Call it enviro-smackdown, or battle of the nerds, but Nye is taking on his neighbor.

Nye is a Boeing engineer turned television personality who made science cool in his popular PBS program in the 1990s.

He moved onto Begley's street a year ago, started looking over the fence and built his own solar power system. Nye is not just trying to match Begley -- he's raised the stakes by putting in a state-of-the-art system.

"Without Ed down the street pushing all of us to live a more environmentally-responsible lifestyle, I wouldn't be so motivated to crush him like a bug," says Nye.