Secretary of State John Kerry thinks he can convert Republicans on the issue of climate change by having them watch Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio’s new documentary on global warming.
Kerry addressed a panel Thursday night at the United Nations in New York at a screening of the documentary, a climate change wake-up call named “Before the Flood,” which opens in theaters nationwide on Friday just weeks before the election.
The film is being likened to former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” and is political, with interviews between DiCaprio and President Obama on the importance of securing the Paris climate change deal.
Kerry, speaking optimistically about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton winning the presidency on Nov. 8, said that after the election would be the perfect time for Republicans to view the film and visit NASA’s spaceflight center in Greenbelt, Md., outside Washington, to view a map depicted in the film showing how sea-level rise is affecting the planet.
Kerry said the film provides the perfect opportunity to invite climate deniers in Congress, such as his former colleague Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., to view it. Inhofe has come to epitomize what environmentalists view as the intransigence on Capitol Hill to pass a comprehensive policy to address global warming.
Inhofe and other Republicans even have starring roles in the film, Kerry said.
“As a 28-year veteran of the Senate who knows Jim Inhofe well and many of the other people depicted in the film, maybe Nov. 8 will produce a capacity for the entire Republican caucus to go to the Goddard Space Center, NASA, see that map and to see this film,” Kerry said. “It should be required for every single one of them.
“You’ve put together an extraordinarily compelling argument,” he said to DiCaprio.
Kerry told DiCaprio Thursday night that “it pisses me off” that no questions on climate change were asked at any of the three presidential debates. Nevertheless, he said he remains optimistic that the private sector will drive new clean-energy technologies into the market, so taking action to combat global warming cannot be ignored.
DiCaprio said he was “incredibly moved” by the climate scientists in the film, in particular NASA’s Piers Sellers of the Goddard Space Institute, in the film, who was at the U.N. screening.
“If anyone at this point wants to deny climate change, all they have to do is see that five minutes of you exploring the science so clearly,” DiCaprio said.
