Actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s carbon footprint is much larger than he would have his fans and environmentalist pals believe.
Robert Rapier, a Forbes writer and renewable energy insider, took exception to DiCaprio’s Oscar award acceptance speech Sunday, particularly his comments castigating “big polluters.”
Rapier gave the content of the actor’s message a pass, as he believes carbon emission are destructive. But he compared “The Revenant” actor’s reprimanding the fossil fuel industry to congressmen who preach moral values but get caught philandering.
“We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this,” the newly-minted Oscar winner said during his speech.
The fact that DiCaprio is a man of opulent tastes who criticizes polluters, Rapier writes, essentially eats into the efficacy of his credibility as an environmentalist.
“The problem is that DiCaprio himself is one of those ‘big polluters,’ which diminishes his moral authority to lecture others on reducing their own carbon emissions,” writes Rapier.
He continued: “While DiCaprio has donated a lot of his time, money, and effort into raising awareness on the issue — as he did in his Oscar speech — he unnecessarily hands ammunition to his opponents with his own wasteful consumption.”
DiCaprio’s jet-setting ways are well-documented, especially after hacked Sony documents showed the actor chartered private jets last year, allowing him to fly back and forth from New York to Los Angeles six times in six weeks.
If jet setting weren’t bad enough, Rapier notes, the “Wolf of Wall Street” actor also borrowed a massive super luxury yacht in 2014, custom-built for Sheikh Mansour, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates — a member state of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
DiCaprio used the yacht to travel to Brazil to attend the 2014 World Cup.
Sheik Mansour’s opulent vessel, called Topaz, was launched in 2012 and is currently the world’s fifth largest private yacht. It is decked out with a gym, three swimming pools, a Jacuzzi, a movie theater and helipad.
A London-based company called Future Forests, which works to offset well-healed citizens’ carbon emissions by planting trees, estimated that DiCaprio’s carbon footprint is equal to 11 tons per year.
The average carbon emission in the U.S. is 17 tons per year, according to the World Bank data.
According to the Daily Mail, DiCaprio’s private jets pump out nearly 37 times more carbon emissions than standard commercial flights.
Rapier suspects the actor will eventually figure out he needs to be a better leader in the fight against global warming, “but right now I just don’t see the kinds of sacrifices from him that he is asking from the rest of us,” he wrote. “If you are going to ask me to walk a mile, walk two yourself to show me the way.
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