“School strike week 63. Los Angeles. #climatestrike#schoolstrike4climate #fridaysforfuture
Leonardo DiCaprio met with Greta Thunberg, calling the 16-year-old
a leader of our time” and revealing the two campaigners have “made a commitment to support one another.”
In an Instagram post Leo said he hopes Greta’s message is
“a wake up call to world leaders’, adding that the schoolgirl makes him ‘optimistic about what the future holds.”
The Oscar winning actor has been widely criticized for his use of private jets despite his interest in environmental causes seems to be in contrast to Greta, who refuses to travel by plane for environmental reasons. She wrote:
“Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November… If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful.”
She had been heading to Chile but after a location change from Santiago to Madrid she has
“traveled half around the world, the wrong way.”
Greta took to her own social media pages pleading for help in getting to the United Nations’ COP25 climate change summit.
DiCaprio has been blasted for his use of private jets. In 2014, Sony emails were revealing he took six private flights in just six weeks, costing $177,550 including one from LA to Vegas, which is a very short drive.
In 2016 he hosted his annual eco fundraiser gala in St Tropez to raise funds for various conservation projects before hopping off a helicopter to board a gas guzzling private jet two days later.
And Leo also took a private jet twice in May of that year to do what? Pick up an environmental award. So eco-friendly.
According to today’s Air Mail, Graydon Carter‘s online subscription mag,
Almost 8,000 new private jets are expected to be bought by multinational companies and the super-rich over the next decade, each of which will burn 40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights, according to a report by aviation firm Honeywell Aerospace.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and world’s second-richest man, took 59 flights in 2017 travelling more than 200,000 miles, according to the study by academics at Lund University. The report estimated that Gates’ private jet travel, which he has described as his “guilty pleasure”, emitted about 1,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That compares to a global average of less than five tonnes per person. Like the Honeywell report, the study suggested that private jet travel emits up to 40 times as much carbon dioxide per passenger as scheduled commercial flights. However, other experts suggest this figure is nearer 10 times.
Demand for private jets continued to be strong across the world, but had notably cooled in Sweden due to the climate crisis awareness campaign launched by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.
“In Sweden in particular the airline travel market has decreased by 5% or so, because of Greta. From there it has moved to Europe, but by the time you get to North America and Asia it [the climate crisis] is on people’s radar but people are not as vocal and are not taking action.”
We could be Heroes…
Greta was just on Ellen where she walked out to David Bowie‘s Heroes. Ellen asked her about Trump‘s tweet that mocked her UN speech and wondered whether the teenager would ‘sit down’ with him to ‘explain’ climate change.
Greta replied:
“I don’t understand why I would do that. I don’t see what I could tell him that he hasn’t already heard. And I just think it would be a waste of time, really.”
Ellen asked Greta how she became so passionate about climate activism,
“I just couldn’t really believe it, because if this was really true then surely someone must have done something, then surely we would take it seriously.
But no one took it seriously, so I started to read about it and of course the more I read about it and the more I understood and once I fully understood I couldn’t just look away anymore.”
Ellen said she had been trying to get Greta on the show for two months but had to wait while she traveled by boat for two weeks across the ocean to New York and then caught a train to Burbank, California.
She is currently touring North America drawing huge crowds at environmental rallies. She wrote on Twitter.
“So today is Halloween. I don’t celebrate it back home, but I thought I might give it a try. And apparently when it comes to scaring a bunch of angry climate crisis deniers – I don’t even have to dress up!”
Earlier this week Greta turned down a £40,000 environmental prize, saying politicians to listen and that the movement,
“does not need any more awards”
Her campaign began just a year ago in 2018 when she started skipping school once a week to stage solo protests outside Sweden’s parliament. The protests quickly drew support and thousands of people have turned out at three climate rallies she has attended in North America.
For more info on where a rally is near you, follow Greta on Instagram.
(via Daily Mail)
