HARRELSON: INDIVIDUALLY, WE MUST EASE UP ON EARTH

Woody Harrelson meets a lot of people. When you're a handsome, likable
actor with major successes in both TV and film, it just happens.

"Every time I go to the airport I meet 20 people," he says. But, he
says, his conversations tend to move quickly past the gushings of fans
on to more substantial subjects.

"We talk, and they feel dissatisfied," he says. "They know they're not
being represented in this economy and this government."

Like Harrelson, they feel that the mass culture, particularly as
regards its industries and their impact on the environment, has become
a nature-destroying juggernaut, what Harrelson calls "The Beast."

"We have to ask ourselves, 'How are we feeding The Beast on an
individual, daily basis?' " he says. "I'm talking about our individual
footprint. Do we have a light footprint on the Earth?"

It is with those people in mind that Harrelson, 39, is putting the
rubber to the road.

But no airports this time. Instead, Harrelson and a group of five
friends are taking a month to ride down the West Coast, covering 1,500
miles from Seattle to Los Angeles, hoping to raise awareness of the
importance of what he calls "simple organic living."

Today, Harrelson and his crew will be riding out to Sac State in time
for Harrelson to give a free talk at the University Union at noon.

Harrelson's devotion to both the practical and the pleasurable uses of
the hemp plant -- the bus that is supporting his riding crew runs on
hemp oil -- has earned him notoriety. It has also led some to consider
his views somehow on the fringe. He begs to differ.

"I think it's already a fairly popular consciousness in this century,"
he says by phone from Arcata, a few days before he reaches Sacramento.
"There are groups of people all over this country, all over the world,
that are talking about sustainability. They are people who want a
change, they're not happy with how society is, they want to get off
the grid, to live outside of that."

Harrelson says that on his coastal ride, he's meeting a lot of people
like that.

"We're meeting up with a lot of different people, from lumberjacks to
Ken Kesey (the countercultural rebel of the '60s)," he says. "I
stopped yesterday and there was this guy who chisels wood with a chain
saw, and the art was amazing, you'd have to see it, I can't describe
it. He does all these different animals, and the sound of this chain
saw ... well, I never equated a chain saw with art before."

But Harrelson says that he's also seen some of the damage that can be
done with a chain saw.

"Riding along, we passed all these trucks going this and that
direction with all these corpses of what were magnificent trees," he
says. "And all I could think was, 'This is so unnecessary.' Up until
the 1800s, 90 percent of paper was made from hemp, from stuff that was
agricultural waste, not these gorgeous, irreplaceable trees."

But the ride, and the lecture, are not just an occasion for Harrelson
to bemoan ecological destruction. He wants to propose, and model,
alternatives. A big part of that model is hemp, which has numerous
uses, but fell out of favor when its cousin, cannabis sativa, or
marijuana, was made illegal.

Harrelson says he wears hemp clothing and that the bus that runs on
hemp oil is doing just fine. Electricity on the bus is provided by
solar panels, and the floor is sustainably harvested cork.

"It's a model," he says. "There are models for simple, sustainable
living out there. I'm encouraging kids to find that model within
themselves."

Harrelson says that he tries to be a model, noting that he lives in
his truck in Hawaii with solar electricity, but he also admits, "I'm
not part of this group of people who isn't knocked out by the
stimulating carnival of events that surrounds us all the time. I'm no
Ed Begley Jr. (an actor acquaintance who Harrelson says is religiously
environmentally conscious). But I try."

With the idea of empowering individuals, and of uniting people with
environmental concerns, Harrelson has started a Web site,
www.voiceyourself.com. On it, he is currently keeping visitors updated
on the bike tour's progress, but it also features information on the
tour bus. Eventually, the site will feature "Wood's Goods," what he
says will be "a virtual store for small businesses that are making
great alternative, sustainable products."

And, he adds, when enough people are involved with the site, "I want
to start boycotts against multinational corporations who are
destroying the environment."

But for now, Harrelson says that the change that needs to take place
is spiritual as well as practical.

"I do think we have to change in a lot of outward ways," he says, "But
I think that personal transformation equals political transformation.
There needs to be a love revolution, really."