The Environment Lost One of Its Greatest Champions In Robert Redford

In 1974, right as he was nearing one of the peaks of his fame, Redford fought against the construction of a huge coal-fired power plant in southern Utah. That area is now Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful scenes this gorgeous country has to offer. He turned to the NRDC for help in that victory, and that began his relationship with them across half a century. They worked together in the late 1970s to pass the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which led to the establishment of the revered Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He was the kind of guy who did not mess around when he went to Capitol Hill.

In the 1980s, Redford founded the Institute for Resource Management, an attempt to bring environmentalists and industrialists together to promote sustainable development. He also facilitated a “greenhouse glasnost” at an environmental summit at the Sundance Institute by inviting the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Robert Redford will be primarily remembered as an actor because of how gobsmackingly famous his talent for that craft made him, but the earth will remember him as one of its most tireless diplomats long before climate change arrived on most people’s radars.

Redford met Sibylle Szaggars in 1996 at his Sundance Mountain Resort and the two married in 2009. Szaggars is also an environmental activist, and in 2015, she founded The Way of the Rain where Redford served as vice president. The nonprofit is dedicated to “developing, producing and performing educational and artistic performances — themed and designed to promote public awareness to support the protection of our Earth.” Robert Redford was clearly a man who walked the walk on his environmentalism across his whole life, unlike so many Hollywood types today who do it because their publicist thought it would be a good idea.

The world lost a real giant today, and the environmental cause lost an icon. Redford remained remarkably consistent and focused on his mission across more than five decades to try to make the world a better place, and we would do well to heed his words and actions in our increasingly warming era. “This is the only planet we’ve got,” Redford would often say. “What could be more important than protecting it?”