I'm really glad that I don't drive an SUV or else I might have had to take a sledgehammer to it when I recently met Laurie David for an interview in Santa Monica.

As the high priestess of the accelerating global-warming movement, David -- wife of career misanthrope Larry David of "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fame -- isn't big on gas-guzzling monstrosities. She drives a Toyota Prius hybrid and would love others to do the same. The overconsumption of fossil fuels, after all, is what's helping drive the catastrophic rise in the Earth's temperature.

And so David has made it her life's mission the past several years to spread the word about this time bomb that's poised to detonate and wreak havoc with our lives. Besides fundraisers and events, she's now involved in a pair of projects designed to stoke awareness of the issue. First up: "Too Hot Not to Handle," a primer on the effects of global warming in the U.S. that's airing on HBO this Saturday (which happens to be Earth Day) that David exec produced.

Then there's "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary feature being released into theaters in May that focuses on Al Gore's lifelong commitment to environmental causes in general and global warming in particular. David is one of three producers on the film.

Besides that, David is particularly giddy these days because her goal of "permeating popular culture" is at last coming to pass. Amidst frightening reports of deadly heat waves and the melting of the Polar ice caps, Hurricane Katrina added fuel to the campaign as an example of a climate in turmoil. There was also last month's global warming cover story in Time magazine and this month a "Green Issue" of Vanity Fair.

"They also just ran a 'South Park' episode about hybrid cars and 'smug alerts' in California," David says. "It was satire, but it made a great point."

David's point is that we've all got to get involved in the global-warming solution or risk an imminent ecological nightmare of rising seas, flooding, the spread of deadly viruses and a massive spike in extreme weather phenomena akin to Katrina.

"Scientists are the most cautious people in the world, and they're telling us we have maybe 10 years to deal with this," she warns. "The oil companies spend millions spreading misinformation. But this can't be about personal agendas and politics. We can't wait until (President) Bush is out of office in three years. It's got to happen now. Katrina, I think, was a seminal moment in this fight."

It baffles David that she has become such a lightning rod for hostility, a symbol to some of showbiz grandstanding at its most self-righteous. She's brutally attacked as a "Gulfstream liberal" for slamming SUV owners as merchants of waste while at the same time traversing the country in a private jet as a member of the wealthy class.

David prefers to focus her energies on the battle at hand rather than her detractors, but does say, "I'm dismissed as a wacko, as the wife of a celebrity. But any door my husband gets me in, I walk very proudly through. ... It baffles me when Hollywood people who work for good are marginalized and criticized."

More important to David is the cause that takes up so much of her time and has even convinced her hubby to drive a Prius. But why global warming? Why not, say, starvation in North Korea or the spread of AIDS in Africa?

"Because once you see how important this is, how it impacts every one of us on the planet so profoundly, it's clear this is the biggest issue we're facing," she believes. "I mean, without our environment, what do we have?"