The troubles of this carbon-plagued world weigh heavily on Leonardo DiCaprio, who uses every tool at his disposal to save the planet from global warming — tools that mostly consist of CO2-spewing private jets, jumbo yachts, energy-gobbling private palaces and his own hot air.
Don’t tell my wife but I’ve had a man-crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. At this bit in Titanic, I just couldn’t take my eyes off him:
Kate: Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls. Wearing this…
Leo: All right.
Kate: Wearing only this….
But now my man-crush for Leo is over. If I could live my life again, I’d be kinder to my mother, but I wouldn’t see Titanic.
My about-turn came after reading DiCaprio’s speech to the UN gabfest on April 22 pledging more gabfests. He doesn’t just talk about warming’s armageddon. He wants you and me to catch a bus, while he gets around on his private jets and mega-yachts. And the media reports his frothings in a reverential way, as if he were the Dalai Lama or Gillian Triggs.
At the UN he conflated 19th century slavery in the US with current global warming (under 1degC in the past 100 years) as “the defining crisis of our time… a runaway freight train bringing with it an impending disaster for all living things.” Quoting Abraham Lincoln, he concluded:
“The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation… We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. That is our charge now – you are the last best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it. Or we – and all living things we cherish – are history.”
Two years ago, Ban Ki-Moon appointed DiCaprio as the UN’s climate-change Messenger for Peace, saying, “Mr. DiCaprio is a credible voice in the environmental movement. I am pleased he has chosen to add his voice to UN efforts to raise awareness of the urgency and benefits of acting now to combat climate change.”
Six months later, DiCaprio was paparazzi’d lounging between parties at Cannes on his 140-metre superyacht, Rising Sun, borrowed from Dreamworks Studio co-founder David Geffen. It’s the 11th largest yacht in the world, cost $US200m, takes a crew of 45 and runs on 48,000 horsepower-worth of diesels.