![]() The film offers several suggestions to the citizens of the US to alter their lifestyle in order to prevent the disastrous impact of climate change, including eating less beef – which is “ten times more damaging to the environment than chicken” – and boycotting food products which use palm oil that is destroying the Sumatran forests in Indonesia. If we are going to solve this problem, we all have a responsibility to set an example.” ![]() They want the lifestyle that we’ve had in the United States for the last hundred years. Credit: YouTubeĪt the end of the scene, DiCaprio’s voice takes over the screen: “There are over a billion people out there without electricity. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sunita Narain in a still from Before the Flood. “It’s the poor of India, it’s the poor of Africa, the poor of Bangladesh, who are impacted today in what I believe are the first tides of climate change,” she states. Who will invest? And how will they invest?” Narain accompanies DiCaprio as he meets onion farmers in Haryana who have lost their produce to a massive flood. When DiCaprio suggests that the problem could be solved when renewables like solar and wind become cheaper as investment increases, she categorically asks, “Who will invest? Let’s be real about this. You have to think of it from this point of view. Outlining the energy problem in India and other developing countries as being as much of an access issue as that of climate change, Narain says, “Coal is cheap, whether you or I like it or not. “Electricity consumed by one American at home is equivalent to 1.5 citizens of France, 2.2 citizens of Japan and 10 citizens of China, 34 of India and 61 of Nigeria,” she says, as the scale of the US’s consumption and its carbon footprint becomes evident. “What is the US doing which the rest of the world can learn from? You are a fossil-addicted country, but if you are seriously disengaging, that’s something for us to learn from,” she says, putting the onus of action on the US. I think that’s the conversation we need to have,” even as he asks what India can do to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. In a defining moment of the film, Before the Flood, Narain, who heads the Centre for Science and Environment, says to DiCaprio, “Your consumption is really going to put a hole in the planet. One wonders if actor and UN Messenger of Peace on climate change Leonardo DiCaprio was ready for an indictment of his own country when he set out to make a film documenting the extent of damage that climate change had caused across the world.Īfter flying over tar sands in Canada and walking through the smog-filled streets of Beijing, DiCaprio meets the iconic Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain in New Delhi. ![]() Credit: shinobu sugiyama/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ![]()
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