DiCaprio: “I have a foundation for 20 years. I have to go to Glasgow. I got to see world leaders make some pretty big commitments, but just like in this movie, there’s a ticking clock. I think there is a global sense of anxiety that the powers that be, the private sector, the governments, are not making the transition fast enough. We literally have a nine year window.” … “Our governments, the governments of the world, must work together as a community species and we must evolve as a species to address this problem.”
In an interview with dead line, DiCaprio spoke about his career as an actor and environmental activist, since many already know that one of his great concerns is the future of the planet, as he announced in his Oscar acceptance speech in 2016, after winning in the category Best Actor for Revenant.
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DiCaprio: “I have had two great passions in my life. That has been taking action, and protecting the natural world and spreading the message about the climate crisis. I have a foundation for 20 years. I have to go to Glasgow. I got to see world leaders make some pretty big commitments, but just like in this movie, there’s a ticking clock. I think there is a global sense of anxiety that the powers that be, the private sector, the governments, are not making the transition fast enough. We literally have a nine year window.”
“And there was also, you know, a period of time where people and consumers were forced to recycle and buy hybrid cars and make changes in their own lives, which is incredibly important. But when you really start to break this down, there are 100 companies that produce 70 percent of the world’s emissions. There are massive industries that are polluting our atmosphere, and the private sector needs to step up. Our governments, the governments of the world, must work together as a community species and we must evolve as a species to address this problem.”
“As early as 1864 George Perkins Marsh, sometimes said to be the father of American ecology, warned that the earth was ‘fast becoming an unfit home for its “noblest inhabitant,”’ and that unless men changed their ways it would be reduced ‘to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, of climatic excess, as to threaten the depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species.’” —MIT professor Leo Marx
Earth “Serially Doomed” Perhaps the best summary of the tipping-point phenomenon comes from UK scientist Philip Stott. “In essence, the Earth has been given a 10-year survival warning regularly for the last fifty or so years. We have been serially doomed,” Stott explained. “Our post-modern period of climate change angst can probably be traced back to the late-1960s, if not earlier. By 1973, and the ‘global cooling’ scare, it was in full swing, with predictions of the imminent collapse of the world within ten to twenty years, exacerbated by the impacts of a nuclear winter.”
Every year, we invite readers to predict the annual temperature anomaly for the year ahead. It’s a chance for everyone to pit their nerves against the Met Office, who also issue a prediction. Sometimes the wisdom of the Net Zero Watch crowd gets the better of the eggheads of Exeter, and sometimes it doesn’t. That wasn’t going to happen this year, because the submitted predictions were broadly in the same range as the Met Office’s 1.03±0.12°C. The most common prediction was around 1°C. We have a consensus, you might say.
But does a consensus count for anything? It seems not. Yesterday the HadCRUT5 anomaly for 2021 was issued and, as the graph belows shows, the weather was a clear winner. The anomaly for the year was 0.76°C, the coolest year since 2014.
Only one person got the prediction spot on, and we’ll be in touch shortly to arrange delivery of a bottle of Scotch (or alternative hooch of your choice) and your choice of a book from the GWPF publications library.
And if you didn’t win, fear not, because there is another chance coming in 2022! Once again, the prize is a bottle of Scotch and a GWPF book, with ties decided by drawing names out of a hat.
If you’d like to take part, simply click here and enter your details on the form. The Met Office are going for 0.97-1.21°C.