David de Rothschild: Environmentalist, Author, Explorer, Now TV Host

Text by Daniel Grushkin

For Eco-Trip: The Real Cost of Living, de Rothschild investigates how everyday items can be environmentally destructive. The eight-part series premiered April 21 on the Sundance Channel.  

ADVENTURE: After watching a few episodes, I’m certainly more hesitant to eat salmon, but what’s the larger goal of this series?

DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD: Simply put: If you don’t know where something comes from, don’t buy it. Our role as consumers is to ask a lot of questions, to the point of being annoying. 

A: Isn’t that putting a lot of responsibility on the customer?

DDR: Yes. Being a responsible shopper means more than buying a pair of natural fiber jeans or an organic low-fat muffin—there’s a false sense of security in that. When the Greenland ice sheet slips off, organic moisturizer is going to be as useless as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

A: That’s awfully dire.

DDR: But I’m an optimist. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t.

Read about David de Rothschild’s upcoming Plastiki expeditionPlastiki expedition, when he will sail 11,000 miles in a plastic-bottle boat from San Francisco to Sydney.