Leo DiCaprio: Before the Flood Documentary

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

I wish I could put a thread on ignore.

What's the matter?

[sl888]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Watching the movie now I have to say this guy is going to be very unpopular in Alberta. I knew oil created a lot of greenhouse emissions....but beef? Jesus.

Watch Cowspiracy on Netflix.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I see this argument a lot, and I don't get it. If Leo lived in a teepee and travelled by horse would you actually listen to him? Do the environmentalists who don't have don't have jets and yachts have their voices heard more easily?
He is just using the transportation that's available to him, just like you and I do (and would if we were in his shoes).

Nowhere in the film do I see him pointing his finger at the "lower class scum", clearly global warming is being discussed as a large scale global problem that needs large scale solutions, he's not absolving himself from it.

I don't see why people get so defensive about this.

Saying that he's using the transportation available. Come on man, he rented a megaboat for a sporting event that burns what you and me burn in a month in a day. He flys all over the world in a private jet. He living high on the carbon hog yet expects the rest of us to cut back.

He has a 3 building mansion. and in this picture a huge amount of cars, plus other mansions and getaways.

I'll give him credit he owns a tesla and he installed solar cells on one of his condo's. But lets not make him a savior here. His footprint is massive, yet he preaches to the rest of us about reducing ours.

He doesn't need to live in a teepee, but come on, what kind of lesson is he teaching here.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Saying that he's using the transportation available. Come on man, he rented a megaboat for a sporting event that burns what you and me burn in a month in a day. He flys all over the world in a private jet. He living high on the carbon hog yet expects the rest of us to cut back.

He has a 3 building mansion. and in this picture a huge amount of cars, plus other mansions and getaways.

I'll give him credit he owns a tesla and he installed solar cells on one of his condo's. But lets not make him a savior here. His footprint is massive, yet he preaches to the rest of us about reducing ours.

He doesn't need to live in a teepee, but come on, what kind of lesson is he teaching here.

I agree to a point. But someone using their celebrity and recognizable face to spread important messages is a good thing too. A lot of people don't pay attention to issues like this unless a pretty face is telling them about it, so at least he's lending his face to this and not his fragrance line, or custom hipster socks, or some such other stupid thing. Any time you have strong opinions about something, particularly controversial things, you probably have some pretty hard hypocrisies, and how avoidable they are is different for every person. Leo has the wealth and ability to do better for his own footprint, absolutely. But we can't be all "We're Canada! We're only a minuscule fraction of GHG emissions! Why Should we change!" and then be all over someone for their larger-than-me footprint, that is only a tiny contributor to the total problem. These types of petty arguments get in the way of progressive discussions involving many global problems. Can we just stop blaming each other, saying theyre worse so forget about me, so we can have frank discussions about a problem that involves all of us and can only be helped by all of us.

I haven't watched this yet, and I understand the whole "it was a chinook, you idiot" bit too, of course. But it has seemed unseasonably warm in the winters in Calgary for the past 5 years. The typical weather has certainly altered since I was a kid, so it wouldn't surprise me that they got some people sying things like "we've never seen this before."

I remember around the time they were filming there it was raining in February. It was the first time I ever remember that happening. And it has happened every year since I'm pretty sure. This is all anecdotal, obviously. Just seemed different to me.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Saying that he's using the transportation available. Come on man, he rented a megaboat for a sporting event that burns what you and me burn in a month in a day. He flys all over the world in a private jet. He living high on the carbon hog yet expects the rest of us to cut back.

He has a 3 building mansion. and in this picture a huge amount of cars, plus other mansions and getaways.

I'll give him credit he owns a tesla and he installed solar cells on one of his condo's. But lets not make him a savior here. His footprint is massive, yet he preaches to the rest of us about reducing ours.

He doesn't need to live in a teepee, but come on, what kind of lesson is he teaching here.

What does any of Dicaprios personal life have anything to do with the facts of the matter?

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Saying that he's using the transportation available. Come on man, he rented a megaboat for a sporting event that burns what you and me burn in a month in a day. He flys all over the world in a private jet. He living high on the carbon hog yet expects the rest of us to cut back.

He has a 3 building mansion. and in this picture a huge amount of cars, plus other mansions and getaways.

I'll give him credit he owns a tesla and he installed solar cells on one of his condo's. But lets not make him a savior here. His footprint is massive, yet he preaches to the rest of us about reducing ours.

He doesn't need to live in a teepee, but come on, what kind of lesson is he teaching here.

I'm not sure why there's so much focus on the messenger and not the message. Not sure if you've even watched the film but he clearly states this is him trying to find out more and educate himself on the issue.

Who do you think has more credibility in speaking about this issue? And even if it was someone with a smaller carbon footprint would you actually take it seriously?

What about all the people interviewed in the film? Are they all hypocrites that shouldn't speak about the issue?

[accord1999]

Message and messenger has always been intertwined; hard to imagine that teachings of Jesus or the Buddha would have been as well-received if their recorded actions showed them doing the opposite.

Great leaders lead by example, especially for things that require sacrifice or behavior changes. If climate change is supposedly the great threat to human civilization yet some of its messengers don't act like it is, then perhaps more people will think so too. Especially when the expanded use of fossil fuels is absolutely required to improve the living standards of Africa, India and other developing regions.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Message and messenger has always been intertwined; hard to imagine that teachings of Jesus or the Buddha would have been as well-received if their recorded actions showed them doing the opposite.

Great leaders lead by example, especially for things that require sacrifice or behavior changes. If climate change is supposedly the great threat to human civilization yet some of its messengers don't act like it is, then perhaps more people will think so too.

To expand on that a little, this movie is full of really intelligent, smart, articulate people describing a real problem that call for real and serious answers. Attacking the narrator is lazy, uninteresting, and doesn't call into question the validity of the facts presented.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I'm not sure why there's so much focus on the messenger and not the message. Not sure if you've even watched the film but he clearly states this is him trying to find out more and educate himself on the issue.

Who do you think has more credibility in speaking about this issue? And even if it was someone with a smaller carbon footprint would you actually take it seriously?

What about all the people interviewed in the film? Are they all hypocrites that shouldn't speak about the issue?

Come on now. You have to admit that "the messenger" in this case is not buying into "the message".

You can't fly around the world in private jets and vacation on a yacht full of 100,000 litres of diesel fuel and call yourself an environmentalist.

If the guy wants to be taken seriously, he should put his money where his mouth is.

[Tinordi]

I can't tell if some posters on this board are trying to be parodies of themselves.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I see this argument a lot, and I don't get it. If Leo lived in a teepee and travelled by horse would you actually listen to him? Do the environmentalists who don't have don't have jets and yachts have their voices heard more easily?
He is just using the transportation that's available to him, just like you and I do (and would if we were in his shoes).

Nowhere in the film do I see him pointing his finger at the "lower class scum", clearly global warming is being discussed as a large scale global problem that needs large scale solutions, he's not absolving himself from it.

I don't see why people get so defensive about this.

Using the transportation available to him like you and I do? Like commercial plane tickets? Hilarious.

The problem is that gigantic hypocrites like him disengage as many people as they enlighten.

The funny thing is, he doesn't even realize he's doing it. He moved an entire movie production half way around the world so it looked cool. How much carbon did that cost? Enough to win an Oscar?

[habernac]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Come on now. You have to admit that "the messenger" in this case is not buying into "the message".

You can't fly around the world in private jets and vacation on a yacht full of 100,000 litres of diesel fuel and call yourself an environmentalist.

If the guy wants to be taken seriously, he should put his money where his mouth is.

Exactly. If this was Ed Begley Jr, I'd be all ears.

[guzzy]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Watching the movie now I have to say this guy is going to be very unpopular in Alberta. I knew oil created a lot of greenhouse emissions....but beef? Jesus.

Ezra Levant actually worked with a group of people to breakthrough this down in his book Ethical Oil. I don't remember the number but it was something along the lines of a single hamburger uses 4 barrels of water to produce. He also mentioned the greenhouse gases produced by cattle

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I can't tell if some posters on this board are trying to be parodies of themselves.

If so, none have been quite as successful as you. What a drive-by.

[PsYcNeT]

Yeah Tinordi, your opinion is only valid if it encompasses no fewer than 3 paragraphs, 800 words, and 2 un-cited sources.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Haha. I was a bit too young to process the intent behind it, but I remember as a kid in the early-mid 80s, seeing those propaganda type commercials or info bits during cartoons, informing us young minds that the Amazon rainforest is being cut down at a rate of 1 or 3 or 100 football fields per day. Boy was I worried. I was also worried about acid rain (scary voice).

Acid rain was actually stopped by regulating Nox and Sox emissions. It and eliminating CFC compounds to fix the ozone layer along with the elimination of lead were some environmental success stories.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by jayswin

To me it depends on the person and the message. I don't know enough about Leo to know if he's being a hypocrite or not, but not likely. In most cases it's a little silly to call out environmentalists for not living off the land.

My exception is always David Suzuki, he's an example of someone who truly does preach a minimalist lifestyle and chastises people for not doing everything they can and then turns around and lives a pretty high energy life with multiple houses and tons and tons of air travel.

If you don't arrogantly proclaim that everyone should be like that though, then it isn't really fair to call them out for it.

The problem is that to fight global warming requires us to increase the cost of energy and travel. That sacrifice will not be felt by Leo and company. So he is asking everyone else in the world to reduce their standard of living in order to fight this problem but won't even take the first step because he can afford to buy offsets.

Its hugely hypocritical. I'm not asking for zero footprint. But fly coach, drive a tesla, buy greener power, do the little things to show you are making an effort to reduce footprint rather than offset the footprint. Its easy to preach about global warming when you don't care about your power bill

[CaptainCrunch]

The bottom line is if your going to preach a message you have to at least have the illusion of living the message or backing the message.

Is it increasing awareness maybe? But on the other hand the problem with celebrity messangers that preach one thing and do the other is that they actually create a backlash against their movement.

I like to call it the Matt Damon effect.

If Leo had spent as much time bemoaning the disaster that is the cali oilfields or that massive methane leak instead of just focusing on the oilsands as a stooge for Tides and Rockerfeller maybe I would take him more seriously. Instead my first instinct is a guy that doesn't seem to do his homework, specifically targets something that's in the interests of US big Oil (Canadian production) floats around in a boat with a carbon footprint of its own that's probably 10 times my annual output in days. Has what about 7 homes. Flys in private jets.

so he sacrifices very little, does very little it seems, but talks about it endlessly like a door to door salesman.

and is in the thrall of groups like Tides and Rockerfeller which were part of the end game of the US energy production strategy.

So yeah, I don't take him all that seriously.

And its funny, because I think that we need strong environmental spokespeople that can lead the way.

I also think that in the scramble for the carbon industry that things like water and air quality are not the sexy causes anymore and are getting the short end of the straw for enviro dollars.

[Tinordi]

So how about the movie and the issue it discusses?

[burn_this_city]

Watched the entire thing, it's quite compelling and informative, I thought it was fairly well done overall. He obviously cares about the issue and seems aware of his individual failings. The message overall is that tangible changes can be made at the individual level. Hard to disagree with the science behind the film, even if we believe the focus on certain aspects is unfairly targeted.