Here we have climate change activist and celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio speaking at the United Nations.
We know from the work of Tim Garrett that CO2 is proportional to wealth. This inconvenient truth is the bedrock of climate change that few activists understand nor want to understand.
The only possible way to reduce the threat of climate change is to shrink the economy.
DiCaprio has a net worth of over $200 million. This means he emits over 8,000 times as much CO2 as the average global citizen. If DiCaprio really wants to do something about climate change he should start by burying his $200 million as cash in his back yard. It’s counterintuitive and an inconvenient truth that spending money on philanthropy or “green” initiatives only makes things worse. We have to remove wealth from the system to reduce CO2 emissions.
From Wikipedia we learn that “DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles, California and an apartment in Battery Park City, New York. In 2009, he bought an island off mainland Belize, on which he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort. In 2014, he purchased the original Dinah Shore residence designed by mid-century modern architect Donald Wexler in Palm Springs, California.”
From his UN speech we learn that DiCaprio has probably flown more in the last year than most people fly in a lifetime.
DiCaprio demonstrates his commitment to fighting climate change by buying green things. For example, again from Wikipedia, “He drives environment-friendly vehicles, including an electric Tesla Roadster, a Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid, and a Toyota Prius.”
An all-in life cycle analysis of these vehicles would show they create much more CO2 and other pollution than a cheap economy car, or better yet, a used car. And three “green” cars create three times the CO2 of one car. Where do you think the steel and other materials used to build a car come from, you idiot? Green cars are not built with renewable energy, they are built with fossil fuels. If they were built with renewable energy most people could not afford a car. That’s another inconvenient truth.
Like many activists, DiCaprio doesn’t care about facts.
Setting an example of austerity in your personal life is the first and only place to start if you want to take action on climate change.
DiCaprio has not taken this first step so he should shut up.
I’m sure DiCaprio has good intentions and yet his hypocrisy is so huge and common that evolved denial seems to be the only possible explanation.
It’s pretty simple and an inconvenient truth. We shrink the economy or else we die.
un-Denial 
Another “activist” who thinks that tweaking the dials of the industrial death culture will save them so they can continue to plunder the planet.
They are trying to treat the symptoms of a deep underlying psychological sickness which is humanities alienation from nature by using the same mindset that got us here in the first place.
“Setting an example of austerity in your personal life is the first and only place to start if you want to take action on climate change” Well said Rob.
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“Yes…but you pointing the finger at DiCaprio is analogous to some peasant in Nigeria pointing at you! Are you prepared to relinquish your laptop, your heated home, your phone, your imported food, your car, and your bicycle? What is the middle-class North American footprint compared to the poorest Bolivian?”
I’m following this conversation on a Facebook page that I never participate in but do follow for the occasional laugh. The December 2015 post “Extinction Goes Glam” has the above commenter dissecting the environmental sins of Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Harrison Ford, Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton, et al. Following her current mental trajectory and weighing all that finger pointing, she should now be living in the dying woods with some rags for warmth.
I like your stuff, and I like your efforts to minimize your carbon footprint. No one should ever denigrate those efforts.
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Thanks kindly. There are no doubt some very dark clouds on the horizon no matter what we do. But I think we could choose to make the future less bad. Especially in the developed world where we consume much more than is required to have happy and fulfilled lives. Perhaps if we reduced our consumption we might have a leg to stand on when demanding population control in the less developed world.
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I’m not a McPhersonite as most are on that FB page because I think we’ll be around for a long, torturous time. As a result, I prefer the company of activists in all their various forms. They haven’t rolled over and died yet as the ultradoomers have. I’m a pessimist, but that doesn’t mean sit back and whine about it all without contributing something. I like reading about life enhancers like Jose Mujica and meeting others in my community who actually lift a finger to help out somehow. So keep on keeping on, Rob!
Jose Mujica: childless, nonmaterialistic atheist who is probably an extraterrestrial here to help (with the kindest of faces):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mujica
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Thanks for the tip Connie. Jose Mujica sounds like a great man.
I am currently reading “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety” by Jimmy Carter, another great man.
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