Actor and climate activist Leonardo DiCaprio proposed Monday that individuals who do not believe in climate change ought to be banned from running for political office in the U.S.
“The scientific consensus is in and the argument is now over,” DiCaprio said at South by South Lawn, a White House event intended to replicate Austin, Texas’s famous art, music and ideas festival South by Southwest.
“If you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in facts, or in science or empirical truths and therefore, in my humble opinion, should not be allowed to hold public office.”
The Academy Award-winning actor made the comments during a discussion that included President Obama, who later celebrated his administration’s focus on combating global warming and reducing carbon emissions. The statement was a subtle jab at Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has not focused on environmental issues as much as progressive Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.
DiCaprio was in Washington earlier this month promoting “Before the Flood,” a new documentary he has worked on for three years, which recently opened at the Toronto Film Festival. He addressed reporters alongside Secretary of State John Kerry, who applauded the Hollywood actor’s environmental concerns.
The Oscar winner first attended the Our Ocean Conference in 2014 and has spoken out on environmental issues for years despite his reliance on a private jet, which some critics have said is counterproductive.
Obama said that the world has to “come up with new sources of energy that are clean and cheap” because “we are in a battle against time.”
He said change is not that difficult.
For example, “when I was growing up I wasn’t sure exactly sure what the ozone layer was,” Obama said. “But I didn’t like the idea that there was a big hole that was developing in the atmosphere. It just didn’t sound good. And it turned out that one main contributors of this was that everybody was using deodorant with aerosol.”
So most in society simply changed the type of deodorant they used and manufacturers just stopped using aerosol. “Companies still made money,” Obama said. And the hole has since shrunk.
“It gives you a sense of nature’s resiliency when we do the right things,” Obama said.
