Frank talk: DiCaprio takes swipe at Donald Trump

Actor says politicians who deny climate change should not hold office

While moderating a panel discussion at The White House’s first South by South Lawn event, actor Leonard DiCaprio took a swipe at politicians who deny that climate change is real, claiming that, they should not be able to hold public office. The Titanic star was moderating alongside US President Barack Obama and Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, in connection to his upcoming documentary Before the Flood.

According to Variety, this was an apparent dig at presidential candidate Donald Trump, who said that climate change is a hoax, even though he denied saying that when his opponent Hilary Clinton brought it up at the presidential debate last week. “If you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in facts or science or empirical truths and in my opinion, you should not be allowed to hold public office,” DiCaprio stated.



Part of the panel was devoted to Obama and his administration’s accomplishments on curbing climate change, including an international agreement reached in Paris in December. But the current president also warned that climate change is happening at a faster rate than what was predicted even five or 10 years ago. “We’re in a race against time,” Obama said.

Fortunately, he also tried to give hope that actions like a carbon tax or switching to alternative energy will be meaningful. Obama cited past efforts to solve environmental damage, like the reduction of acid rain and recent signs of restoration of the ozone layer. The latter, Obama said, came about because, “all it took was people not using aerosol deodorant! It was also a few other things.” He went on to recall his first year of college in Los Angeles back in 1979, when he thought that the sunsets were “spectacular” and looked almost “psychedelic.” But that was because of the heavy smoke, which has since been substantially reduced.

DiCaprio noted that in this “unusual election year, to say the least,” environmental concerns rank low in polling on issues top on the minds of voters. Obama said that climate change was “almost perversely designed to be really hard to solve politically.”

When it comes to communicating about the issue, he said, “We have to make it visual and make it vivid in ways that people understand.”

Hayhoe shared that, too often, assumptions are made about who will care about the issue. “One of the most insidious myths is, ‘I have to be a certain type of person to care about climate change.’” She cited the huge growth in wind energy in Texas, including small towns that are fast moving to new energy resources.

The South by South Lawn event was modelled on South by Southwest, where Obama spoke earlier this year. It featured a day of panels featuring artists, tech entrepreneurs and film-makers.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2016.

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