

“Try to talk to anyone about climate change and people just tune out.
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The film is named after the middle panel- Humankind before the Flood-which, he said, acts as an allegorical warning to the world of what could come next, if it fails to act on climate change.ĭiCaprio then sets off around the world on his quest for answers: “I want to see exactly what is going on and how to solve it.” But self-doubt looms large from the off, even after he is named by Ban Ki-moon as the UN messenger of peace on climate change. Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights was painted more than 500 years ago, but it speaks to today, he said, with its “twisted, decayed, burnt landscape.” DiCaprio said the triptych‘s final panel shows a “paradise that’s been degraded and destroyed.” “I would stare at it before I went to sleep,” he explained, noting some of its themes-”over-population, debauchery, exodus.” It opens with a surprisingly personal monologue by DiCaprio in which he talks about the “nightmarish” painting which hung over his crib as a child. DiCaprio has made maximum use of his global star power to bring together some of the world’s leading voices and experts on climate change and package them up into 90-minute narrative which drips with urgency, insights and emotion. In terms of box-office draw alone, Before the Flood is the most significant film about climate change since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was released a decade ago. Here, Leo Hickman, Carbon Brief’s editor, identifies seven key scenes in Before the Flood… We need to use our vote … We cannot afford to have political leaders out there that do not believe in modern science or the scientific method or empirical truths … We cannot afford to waste time having people in power that choose to believe in the 2 percent of the scientific community that is basically bought off by lobbyists and oil companies. It’s gone beyond, as we talk about in the film, simple, individual actions. These are the things that are really going to make a massive difference. Basically, sway a capitalist economy to try to invest in renewables, to bring less money and subsidies out of oil companies. We bring up the issue of a carbon tax, for example, which I haven’t seen in a lot of documentaries. “We wanted to create a film that gave people a sense of urgency, that made them understand what particular things are going to solve this problem. What’s incredibly terrifying is that things are happening way ahead of the scientific projections, 15 or 20 years ago.

I’ve been studying this issue for the past 15 years, I’ve been watching it very closely. The journey for me was to try and make a modern-day film about climate change. An individual doesn’t feel like they can make an impact. I think people grasp it, but it seems something distant, far off, intangible and almost otherworldly. “I’ve been incredibly moved by so many climate change documentaries in the past, but I never felt that I saw one that articulated the science clearly to the public.

All that we witnessed on this journey shows us that our world’s climate is incredibly interconnected and that it is at urgent breaking point. We went to every corner of the globe to document the devastating impacts of climate change and questioned humanity’s ability to reverse what maybe the most catastrophic problem mankind has ever faced.

“ Before The Flood is the product of an incredible three-year journey that took place with my co-creator and director Fisher Stevens. Before the screening in London began, DiCaprio took to the stage to introduce the film. NASA / Goddard/ Rebecca RothĬarbon Brief was invited to the European premiere of Before the Flood last weekend. Leonardo DiCaprio visits the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center to discuss Earth science with Piers Sellers. His collection of interviews in the film-ranging from President Obama and the Pope through to Elon Musk and Piers Sellars-cover the science, impacts, vested interests, politics and possible solutions. The Oscar-winning actor and environmentalist has spent the past three years asking a wide variety of people around the world about climate change. Before the Flood, a new feature-length documentary presented and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, is released in cinemas today.
