By Douglas Fischer for The
Daily Climate
Nothing
sells quite like celebrity.
And
Leonardo DiCaprio is working hard selling climate change.
The
A-List actor has crisscrossed the globe to raise awareness of the long-term
health and wellbeing of our planet. Part of those travels aired Sunday on
National Geographic: An hour-and-a-half long documentary looking at the impacts
of—and alternatives to—our fossil fuel addiction.
"Before the Flood" remains
available for free on multiple platforms, and DiCaprio's star power is having
an impact. Almost 2 million have watched the full movie on YouTube as of Monday
afternoon (and 2.3 million have seen the trailer, embedded here).
DiCaprio
takes us to Alberta's tar sands, to smog-choked Beijing, to Elon Musk's battery
factory. President Obama gets three minutes an hour and 12 minutes in;
DiCaprio's audience with Pope Francis comes 10 minutes later.
The
timing isn't coincidence. Both shows aired on National Geographic, and CEO
Courtney Monroe, in an email to E&E News,
said the outlet believes "it's our duty to inform voters" before the
Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.
Said
DiCaprio, in a statement: "We sought to make sure that voters know this
could be the last chance we have before it is too late to elect leaders who
believe in science."
But
do these films move the needle? The most famous of these climate documentaries,
Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" came out a decade ago, when the
public's acceptance of climate science was on an upswing and both Republicans
and business leaders (including Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump) called for
change.
Today's
fractured, polarized media landscape makes the messaging harder. The first
season of "Years" won awards but had a miniscule audience on
Showtime. DiCaprio's film has won critical acclaim—and a 70 percent rating on
Rotten Tomatos’ Tomatometer.
But as The Playlist critic
Gary Garrison noted, the film "is a well-crafted, well-intentioned
attempt to highlight a dire problem that all of its viewers will already
understand."
(The
answer to that question can in some ways be found on YouTube's trending list Monday
afternoon, where "Before the Flood" was fourth—behind a John Oliver
skit on school segregation but ahead of the Cubs' World Series Game 5 win.)
DiCaprio,
of course, has both a global platform and a global audience. He became a
household name in 1996 playing Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo +
Juliet," then followed it a year later starring opposite Kate Winslet in
"Titanic," a film that demolished all box office records at the
time.
He's
used his platform more than most stars. In 1998, he launched the Leonardo
DiCaprio Foundation, focusing on wildland and marine conservation, climate
change, indigenous rights, among other causes. The foundation has given out
more than $60 million since then.
In
2014 DiCaprio was named a United Nations Messenger of
Peace. As such, he opened the signature ceremony for
the Paris climate accord at the UN earlier this year. He filmed
"Flood" while juggling work on Alejandro Iñárritu’s "The
Revenant," for which he won the 2016 Academy Award for leading actor.
DiCaprio
leads a pack of Hollywood celebs using their star power to push for
environmental and social change.
Movie star Mark Ruffalo has fought fracking in
upstate New York and last week helped deliver solar panels on trailers to the
Standing Rock Sioux tribal elders standing against the Dakota Access Pipeline
in North Dakota—where Shailene Woodley, who stars in the Divergent series, was
arrested earlier in October.
Singer Akon is bringing solar energy and lighting
to Africa, where 600 million don't have access to electricity.
Emma Watson, the
face of the UN's #HeForShe campaign,
seeks equal rights for women.
All
of them are hoping to galvanize their considerable fan base into action.
"Our
goal was for audiences to be informed and inspired to take action, to stand up
and do their part to act as stewards for our shared planet," DiCaprio
said. "It doesn't stop with electing leaders."
21st Century Fox
and National Geographic will together donate $1 to Pristine
Seas and $1 to the Wildlife Conservation Society—up to $50,000 to each
organization—for each use of #BeforeTheFlood across Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram through Nov. 18.
Douglas Fischer is director of Environmental Health Sciences,
nonprofit publisher of EHN.org and DailyClimate.org.
The Daily Climate is an independent, foundation-funded news
service covering energy, the environment and climate change. Find us on Twitter @TheDailyClimate or
email editor Brian Bienkowski at bbienkowski [at] EHN.org
Top photo - António Guterres, credit United States
Mission Geneva/flickr
