About Laurie
Laurie David wants to help America’s overwhelmed families sit down to dinner in her newest book The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time.
The Family Dinner is an inspirational, practical – and, of course, green – guide to the most important hour in your family’s day, dinnertime. With input from more than 50 experts in everything from parenting to poetry to pasta, this book is chock full of fantastic family-approved recipes, dinner conversation starters, ways to express gratitude, green values for the kitchen, and a whole lot more. The Family Dinner will help families cut through the fog of computers, television, texting and busy schedules and will help overwhelmed parents re-discover the joy of this time honored ritual.
For her first film project since An Inconvenient Truth, Laurie has partnered with Katie Couric to executive produce The Big Picture, a feature-length documentary that will examine the causes and impact of the childhood obesity epidemic. Directed by Stephanie Soechtig (Tapped), The Big Picture will help change the way Americans look at food.
Over the past decade, Laurie has produced several projects to bring the issue of global warming into mainstream popular culture – including authoring the bestselling Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You! and co-authoring The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, written for kids of all ages and published in eleven languages. The New York Times writes about the Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming: “…I’ve never seen a more comprehensive explanation of the phenomenon in so few words” and it received the prestigious Green Earth Book Award in the nonfiction category.
Laurie is a producer of the 2006 Academy Award winner An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film based on former Vice President Al Gore’s thirty years of research on global warming, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and at the Cannes Film Festival. An Inconvenient Truth received the prestigious Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America, the Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary, and a rare Humanitas Prize Special Award.
Laurie executive produced the TBS comedy special, Earth to America!, which featured Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Steve Martin and Jack Black among many others, airing on November 20, 2005 to millions of viewers and won her a Gracie Allen Award. The show garnered rave reviews and sparked hundreds of TV, print and radio stories about global warming.
She also executive produced the HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle on the effects of global warming in the United States, which aired on HBO April 22, 2006 and is now available on DVD. In the spring of 2007, Laurie launched the Stop Global Warming College Tour with Sheryl Crow, where they visited college campuses throughout the South on a biodiesel tour bus, raising awareness and inspiring students to become part of the movement to stop global warming.
In 2005, Laurie founded the Stop Global Warming Virtual March at www.stopglobalwarming.org. With over 1.4 million marchers, StopGlobalWarming.org engages religious leaders, sports figures, elected officials from both sides of the aisle, business leaders, and everyday Americans to urge the United States to address the ticking time bomb that is global warming.
Declared “the Bono of climate change” by Vanity Fair, Laurie has been featured several times on the The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Fox News one hour special The Heat is On, which aired in primetime on Fox, November 13, 2005. Laurie was the first ever guest editor of the May 2006, 2007 and 2008 issues of Elle Magazine, which made history by being the first fashion magazine to devote an entire issue to the environment and print its pages on recycled paper. In the past several years, she has been profiled in People, Glamour, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Self, Elle, Seed Magazine, The New Yorker, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Wired, House and Garden, Vanity Fair, Outside Magazine and The New York Times. Laurie has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNBC, NOW, Nightline, Hardball, Joe Scarborough Country and The Martha Stewart Show. Laurie is also a featured blogger and consultant for The Huffington Post.
In 2008, Laurie received a U.S. EPA Climate Protection Award for her efforts to spread awareness about the importance stopping global warming. In 2007 she was awarded the Feminist Majority’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award, Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award and National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award Special Achievement. In October 2006 Ms. David was honored by and featured in Glamour Magazine as one of its “Women of the Year,” and, earlier that year, she was awarded NRDC’s 2006 Forces for Nature award both for her tireless work to stop global warming. In 2003, Ms. David was honored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Riverkeeper organization. When presenting her with the award, Kennedy referred to Ms. David as his “environmental hero.” That same year, Ms. David was honored by Los Angeles’ Children’s Nature Institute for her commitment to the environmental education of young children.
As a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a founding member of the Detroit Project, Ms. David has spear-headed numerous public education and action campaigns urging Congress and auto-makers to raise fuel efficiency standards and make higher mileage cars. She has been an outspoken promoter of hybrid vehicles since they were first available in the marketplace. With the Detroit Project she produced several television commercials that helped ignite a national debate about gas guzzling SUVs and how driving these impacts our national security and makes us more dependent on oil.
In January of 2004, the NRDC opened the David Family Environmental Action Center. Endowed by the David family, the Center encompasses much of Ms. David’s passion and dedication for the environment and activism to protect it. It features museum-quality exhibits on issues such as global warming, ocean pollution, everyday toxins, and green building solutions.
Before working full time on environmental and political issues, Laurie had a distinguished career in entertainment spanning two coasts. She began her career in New York City as a talent coordinator for the David Letterman show. Four years later she left to start her own management company, representing many of today’s top comedians and comedy writers. She also produced several comedy specials for HBO, Showtime, MTV, and Fox Television. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Laurie became vice president of comedy development for a division of Fox Broadcasting and developed sitcoms for Twentieth Century Television.
Laurie resides in Los Angeles with her two daughters.
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Praise for The Family Dinner by Laurie David & Kirstin Uhrenholdt
“If you can muster the energy for only one tool to raising a healthy family, make it having family dinner. This book will help you make those meals easy, fun, and of lasting impact.”
“A great fun cookbook, but it’s so much more than that — it’s an empowering recipe for joy, health, and healing.”
“I, like Laurie, truly believe in the sanctity of the evening meal, and the health benefits of eating together are the cherry on the top!”
“If you like to eat food and you like your family a lot, or even not so much, then this book is for you.”
“In a time of disintegration of our families, health, and environment, Laurie David has reclaimed the place where the healing of our planet, our families, and our souls can begin — the family dinner table.”
Praise for The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming by Laurie David & Cambria Gordon
A Kirkus Best Book of 2007
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2007 (Children’s Nonfiction)
A Rocky Mountain News Best Children’s Book of 2007
Green Earth Book Award Winner (Non-Fiction Category)
A CCBC Choices Selection 2008
Green Prize for Sustainable Literature (Santa Monica Public Library)
“I’ve never seen such a comprehensive explanation of the [global warming] phenomenon in so few words.”
(Reviewed by Hank Green,
editor-in-chief of EcoGeek.org)
“The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming…brings knotty matters down to manageable scope for youngsters ages 8 and up.”
“It’s easy being green with Laurie David and Cambria Gordon’s informative book, which helps kids understand what’s happening to our environment.”
“Funny and full of tips, the book informs—and empowers—kids and adults alike.”
“The heart of the book is in making the concept of global warming understandable for your kids.”
“Four well-organized sections define the issue and give examples of consequences in the physical world, extinctions in the animal world and what young people can do. A humorous tone, eye-catching graphics and celebrity connections lend pizzazz to this volume, but there is plenty of substance, too.”
“Dynamic layouts and abundant illustrations and photos enliven the passionate words—lush, full-bleed photographs emphasize the high stakes by portraying both the splendor of the natural world and the devastating effects of climate change. Printed in soy ink on recycled paper, this engaging and accessible guide, ideal as a gift or book-club option, inspires commitment to the planet.”
Awards and Accolades for An Inconvenient Truth
Phoenix Film Critics Society
WINNER – Best Documentary
Toronto Film Critics Association
NOMINEE – Best Documentary Feature
Producers Guild of America
WINNER – Stanley Kramer Award
Southeastern Film Critics Association
WINNER – Best Documentary
Dallas Fort-Worth Film Critics
WINNER – Best Documentary
Alliance of Women Journalists
NOMINEE – Don’t Stick Your Head in the Sand Award
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
WINNER – Best Documentary
Critics’ Choice Awards
NOMINEE – Best Documentary Feature
NOMINEE – Best Song
Washington DC Area Film Critics Association
WINNER – Best Documentary
New York Film Critics Online
WINNER – Best Documentary
Los Angeles Film Critics
WINNER – Best Documentary
Grammy Awards
NOMINEE – Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or other Visual: ‘I Need To Wake Up” (Melissa Etheridge)
National Board of Review
WINNER – Best Documentary
11th Annual Satellite Awards
NOMINEE – Best Motion Picture, Documentary
California League of Conservation Voters
HONOREE – Leadership Award: Davis Guggenheim, Laurie David, Lawrence Bender, Scott Z. Burns, Lesley Chilcott
HONOREE – Byron Sher Lifetime Achievement Award: The Honorable Al Gore
Producers Guild of America
WINNER – Stanley Kramer Award
Environmental Media Association
WINNER – Best Documentary
International Documentary Association
WINNER – Pare Lorentz Award
16th Annual Gotham Awards
NOMINEE – Best Documentary Feature
Haugesund Film Festival (Norway)
WINNER – Andreas Prize
Melbourne International Film Festival
WINNER – Best Documentary
Brisbane International Film Festival
WINNER – Best Documentary
International Visual Communication Association – UK
WINNER – Clarion Award
Film Advisory Board
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE – Special Honor: Documentary
Humanitas Prize
WINNER – Special Prize
Maui Film Festival
WINNER (Tied w/ Heart of the Game) – Best Documentary Feature
Sydney International Film Festival
WINNER – Audience Prize – Best Documentary Feature
Cannes Film Festival
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