Are we at a tipping point right now, to reduce the negative impacts of human’s behaviour on our plant- our home?
I knew before I saw the documentary “Before the flood” that Leonardo DiCaprio was quite engaged in climate change issues, but I have to admit being a little bit sceptical how insightful a documentary from a movie star about climate change might be.
However, when I watched it I was positively surprised. Due to his role as UN Ambassador of Peace he traveled around the world to learn more about the causes and impacts of global warming. He traveled to Greenland, where the ice is melting faster than scientist’s expected, flew over deforested rainforests in Indonesia for Palm oil plantations and oil sand manufactories in Canada, visited Abaiang Kiribati, where severe floods forced people to leave their homes behind. In addition DiCaprio talked to numerous scientist and politicians, who declared their own opinion of global warming and their most urgent concerns with it.
It is true that this wasn’t the first global worming documentary and surely no the last I will see. But I especially liked, that the viewers are not overwhelmed by numbers and scientific facts nobody can cope with. The documentary makes it easier to understand the drivers of climate change, and it showed various critical sceneries, like the smog in Beijing or floods in India.
Furthermore what really stands out by DiCaprios documentary is the attempted to not leave the viewers in the mood of helplessness, due to confronting them with such an overwhelming concern of our time. The documentary lists ways to become more active concerning climate change and inspires to think about their own behaviour. Personally, I really enjoyed that, because a couple of times I have already been confronted, with the feeling of helplessness and the question: What can I really do about climate change?
Nevertheless, I also have to address the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio is not a person with a small ecological footprint, as he mentioned in documentary as well. It is a bit hypocritical to talk about saving the earth and at the same time playing in a million dollar movie production, where the whole team is transported to Argentina just to find snow. Additionally I would be very curious what kind of environmental actions DiCaprio incorporates in his daily life and consume behaviour.
Overall, the documentary left one major question open for me : The Paris climate change agreement was an historical event, but will it be enough to save our plant?
