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- Uma Thurman narrates the four-part PBS docuseries The Future of Nature.
- The fourth and final installment of The Future of Nature airs Wednesday, April 16, at 10 p.m. ET.
- The Oscar-nominated actress tells PEOPLE she considers herself “a nature lover” due to her “love of life and the love of people and the desire to see a happy, healthy world.”
When it comes to the future of the environment, Uma Thurman tries to be optimistic.
“Doomsday thinking is nothing but destructive,” Thurman, 54, tells PEOPLE. “Doomsday thinking doesn’t lead to action.”
As a result of this point of view, Thurman signed on to narrate the PBS docuseries The Future of Nature. “It takes you on an amazing adventure around the world to see how different people and different cultures are making positive moves, and it also teaches you incredible stuff,” she says of the four-part series that concludes on Wednesday, April 16.
The first three episodes cover oceans, grasslands and forests, and the final installment will tackle humans’ contribution to the ecosystem.
Thurman enjoys the series so much that she’s been “sending it to all my friends to watch for their kids because children are so worried about the environment,” she says. “I don’t think parents quite understand how much their children are internalizing and how much they are aware of the environmental threats. Kids see climate change with their own eyes and parents can either validate it and not care or care and validate it, or they can try to not validate it.”
The Oscar-nominated actress knows her own children, Maya and Levon Hawke (with ex-husband Ethan Hawke), 26 and 23, and Luna Thurman-Busson (with ex Arpad Busson), 12, worry about the state of the environment, too.
“It’s been really quite impactful to me as a parent to be shocked by how much more conscious and first position the environment is to younger generations,” Thurman says. “I have heard my kids and their friends say that the environment is the No. 1 issue as far as what they feel their politics would be. Maybe they’re a bit of a bubble, but I think they’re pretty smart in understanding what the greatest threat to the prosperity of their generation really is. And the greatest threat to it is the environment to be destroyed.”
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The Pulp Fiction star believes the “younger generation” feels “really scared” by climate change and the threat it presents to the future of their planet.
“That’s a sign of intelligence,” she says. “Even if we think that we’re busying them in making them practice the violin or play tennis or do a team sport or arts and crafts or whatever we think we’re doing to enrich our children’s lives, there is no way to distract the younger generation from the truth about nature and how it is directly, perilously changing the way of life they want to have. They can see it with their own eyes.”
Thurman says she considers herself “a nature lover,” which comes from her “love of life and the love of people and the desire to see a happy, healthy world.”
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“I love hiking and walking in nature,” she continues. “I have a very special hike near a very small stream, which is apparently one in which trout indigenously breed. Having walked along this path for 25 years, knowing it was a trout breeding stream and always being like, ‘Yeah, but there’s no trout there.’ I finally saw one! That made me feel really hopeful and really positive”
She wants future generations to experience similar moments of excitement like that in nature. “I feel personally, like, God, how do we let down the next generations?” Thurman adds.
Accordingly, she practices what she calls “micro-change environmentalism.” She describes it as “looking at how you relate to food and how you choose food, looking at the packaging of the things that you buy and what you do with that packaging and awareness of water and electricity.”
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Another practice Thuman has adopted: washing Ziploc bags.
“People might think I’m gross,” she acknowledges. “I wash them if they’re a little grubby with soap and water and hang them up to dry. If someone marinated chicken in it or something, I do draw the line. I’m not trying to poison people. I’m not trying to harm the community around me, but I wash Ziplocs.”
Thurman recently found out she’s not alone in that.
“I gave someone some food from my house the other day and I took out a Thurman-washed Ziploc and put the thing I was giving them in it. I was like, ‘Trust me, it’s fine,’ ’cause they get milky looking when you’ve washed them,” she says. “And it was so cute ’cause they were like, ‘I wash my Ziplocs all the time.’ And I was like, ‘Great!’ That thing I gave you, it’s going to go home with you, and it’s going to also get reused. That’s what I want.”
Even small acts like that make Thurman feel positive about her contributions to conservation efforts. “Every micro-change that you can do, it feels good because you’re loving life, you’re loving your community and you’re loving the planet,” she says. “I think there’s a way that people can feel that everything they do can contribute in a positive way.”
Thurman hopes that when people watch The Future of Nature, they see “the sheer beauty of these very diverse different places and ecologies around the world.” She adds, “It’s a real treat. It’s like getting on a ship and flying around the planet.”
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The Future of Nature finale airs Wednesday, April 16, at 10 p.m. ET on PBS.