Environmental scientists back DiCaprio’s climate film

  Environmental scientists have praised Leonardo DiCaprio’s new climate change documentary, ‘Before the Flood’. The film calls on the public to strongly consider environmental issues when making decisions in day-to-day life and especially with […]

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Environmental scientists have praised Leonardo DiCaprio’s new climate change documentary, ‘Before the Flood’.

The film calls on the public to strongly consider environmental issues when making decisions in day-to-day life and especially with regards to voting and interacting with political leaders.

Following a screening at the London School of Economics (LSE) last Friday, which was attended by students, professors and environmentalists, ELN gauged some expert opinions.

Bob Ward, Policy Director at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, said: “When the public hear information about climate change, they feel emotional about it – having experts who act as if they don’t feel any emotion is kind of unnerving, in fact it undermines trust in them and this film very skillfully communicates the emotion around it.”

ELN also spoke to Simon Dietz, Co-Director at the institute, who said the film did a good job of portraying the seriousness of climate change issues while remaining true to the facts.

He said the film was correct in suggesting a wide range of mechanisms are needed to fight the issue: “There doesn’t appear, at the moment at least, to be a silver bullet.”

When questioned on the potential hypocrisy of a jet-setting movie star campaigning against climate change, Mr Dietz suggested famous faces are actually needed to help the cause.

He said: “If it were hypocritical, I think that all of us as westerners would have to keep stumm about climate change.

“I think that people like Leo can most probably make a big difference and therefore it’s incredibly important that they do speak out on the issue.”

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