Leonardo DiCaprio Gushes About Climate Change, Routinely Uses Private Jet

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar Sunday night and he used the opportunity to lecture millions of viewers about the dangers of global warming. But he failed to mention his own affinity for private jets and fossil fuel sins.

DiCaprio won the academy award for best actor for his role in The Revenant, and after accepting the award, launched into a rant about the need for government action to counter climate change.

“Climate change is real; it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating,” he said. “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.”

DiCaprio went on to claim that climate change forced filmmakers to have to change shoot locations because of a lack of snow. “Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow,” he explained.

While The Revenant did have to alter its shooting location, it wasn’t because of climate change. The event DiCaprio described is called a chinook – a weather phenomenon that happens when air is forced down a mountainside and heats up before entering the prairies below. It generally melts snow and ice in its path and is a common occurrence in Alberta, where the filming took place.

Despite Leo’s apparent misunderstanding of chinook winds, the would-be eco-warrior’s enthusiasm for saving the planet from climate change is a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” During just six weeks in Spring 2014, the movie star took six roundtrip private jet flights between New York and Los Angeles. Just last month, DiCaprio flew by private jet to the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Davos, Switzerland – again to decry fossil fuels and the “greed” of the energy industry.

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