Saving the planet, one lawsuit at a time
ANDREW REICH
Andrew Reich is on a mission to help save the planet, and he’s told more than a few jokes along the way. He’s a 30-year member of EarthJustice, a nonprofit environmental group whose legal team fights to keep our air clean and water pure as well as fend off actions by the Trump administration.
“I’ve been passionate about [the environment] as long as I can remember,” Reich said last month at the Chronicle.
He’s also funny. Early on, the New Jersey native honed his comedic chops watching the Marx Brothers and Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” Later, he would hone his comedic skills as part of an improv student comedy group while at Yale.
The group took their show on the road, including to schools on the West Coast, where Reich would settle, graduating from Yale with an English degree. An avid reader of contemporary fiction, he found a job at a literary agency that had once represented Raymond Chandler and F. Scott Fitzgerald. “It was such a cool first job,” Reich recalled.
But he had a dream of screenwriting and, with his former roommate, wrote a spec script for “The Simpsons.”
His former roommate, who was now studying law at Harvard, “didn’t want to be a lawyer, and I didn’t want to be an agent,” he said.
In what can only be described as a true Hollywood ending, their script was picked up, and after a few short-lived network shows, Reich was hired on the fourth season of the hugely successful sitcom “Friends.” Over the next seven years he rose from executive story editor to executive producer, winning an Emmy for Best Comedy along the way.
He would go on to sell over 20 TV network pilots, which led to his comedic podcast, “Dead Pilots Society.”
His most recent project, near and dear to his heart, is the documentary “Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story.” It tells the story of the influential Los Angeles band of the same name and includes interviews with members of Pearl Jam, The Go-Go’s and Black Flag, among other musical influencers.
As Reich’s success rose, he found his way to EarthJustice.
“Their strategy of using courts made sense to me…I saw it was a really powerful force behind the scenes,” he said.
While the group is funded in part by large donors and foundations, small increments of $20 and $50 that pour in from the public add up—they have increased threefold since Trump was first elected in 2016.
“It has grown to meet the moment…and I feel it will make a concrete difference,” said Reich.
“So many of these things have to be fought in court. Justice still wins in a lot of cases.”
He remains optimistic despite the current climate in Washington.
Today there are many alternatives to the fossil fuel economies—off-the-shelf solar panels and batter energy storage systems, for instance. And public opinion still matters. A proposed huge sell-off of private lands was removed from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill before the bill was signed into law July 4 due to public outcry.
“People get overwhelmed by the problem. But doing something is better than doing nothing,” Reich said. “A lot of people go from apathy to despair and they skip over doing something in between… If everyone just found one little piece of the problem…”
For Reich that was serving nine years on EarthJustice’s Board of Trustees before his current spot as co-chair of EarthJustice Council. He is also a member of other environmental groups, and he attends meetings held by Southern California Air Quality Management, the governing body that makes decisions about the air that we breathe.
Reich lives with his wife, Christine Lennon (home and design editor for Sunset magazine), in Windsor Square. Their twins, a boy and a girl, are leaving soon college.
Reich is a hiker, backpacker and swimmer. “I like the outdoors, which is part of the reason why [I] care about these things…and it’s one of the great things about living here,” he said, citing trips he’s taken to the Sierras and the San Gabriel Mountains. He walked the five or so blocks to the Chronicle for this interview, leaving his EV at home.
“In my mind every gallon of gas you buy is like you’re donating it to Trump.”
Besides, in terms of making a difference, driving an electric vehicle is the “highest leverage action in the big picture.
“If you buy an electric car they’ll make another electric car and one less gas car. It’s a very exciting time,” he added.
“There are all these incredible solutions that people are coming up with. The thing that can’t make a difference is doing nothing.
“It’s never been an easy fight, but if you only are interested in easy fights you probably aren’t going to achieve that much… You have to be a bit of an optimist to work in this field, but there is a lot of good news.”
Category: People
