Live like a green heroine — and hold the stuff

Leonard created and narrates the international Web documentary phenomenon "Story of Stuff," which summarizes her 20 years of global sleuthing: tracking the source of the stuff we buy and the fate of the stuff we throw away. This lively animated film makes the point that if everyone on Earth consumed at U.S. levels, we would need five planets.

Leading by example, Leonard shows how simple steps and a little patience can help people create environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, stuff-free lives.

In her cozy Berkeley home, the first clue sits in her driveway: A blue ZENN, or zero emission no noise, electric vehicle. The car is a NEV, or neighborhood electric vehicle, which is a U.S. Department of Transportation classification for speed-limited battery electric vehicles.

The car quietly sucks sun power from solar panels on Leonard's roof and only goes 25 mph, which is just fine with her. "I am always racing around, and this forces me to move at a slower pace. I need any help I can get to do that."

It's hard to picture Leonard, a verbal dynamo with a mission-driven personality, slowing down, but that is one of her primary stress-free, stuff-free strategies.

Leonard didn't go solar just to charge her car. She says she did it to save mountaintops in Appalachia. "ILoveMountains.org uses Google Earth technology to show coal mine destruction of mountains — the environmental and social devastation. It's really intense. You type in your ZIP code and see the lines of power plants supplying your house. There is mountaintop-removal coal going into my grid. I don't want any part of that."

Leonard, who never lets a teachable moment slide by if she can help it, does wish her solar power system were more visible from the street — all the better to educate passers-by.

Clotheslines and worms

Leonard knows going solar can be pricey and says government should make it easier and cheaper for people to make the transition. But in the meantime, she says, "There are other things we can do that don't cost a lot of money. Like clotheslines. Why doesn't every single person in California have clotheslines?"