Leonardo DiCaprio is going for his 3rd Golden Globe this Sunday for his role in The Revenant, where he plays a frontiersmen who survives various near-death experiences in a frigid landscape.
You’ve probably seen the trailer where a bear mauls and whips him around.
Not fun.
Some are calling it his most physically demanding role yet. As always, he has some staunch competition--Bryan Cranston, Eddy Redmayne, Will Smith and Michael Fassbender.
But in real life Leo faces even stauncher competition in his role as an advocate for the climate and ecosystems everywhere.
As emissions accumulate in the atmosphere at unprecedented rates, oceans and ecosystems become polluted and all kinds of wildlife go extinct, the world needs an environmental hero more than ever.
Leo is trying to fill that role and is clashing with the “business as usual” mentality that has become the biggest threat to the environment.
In 2014, the UN designated him a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change.
Watch this inspiring speech he delivered at the 2014 UN summit.
In 2015, he stepped onto the Global Citizen Festival stage to call for broader and more ambitious climate action.
But he’s been hard at work for much longer than this. In 1998, he founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which focuses on protecting biodiversity, oceans conservation, wildlands conservation, and climate change.
Just since 2010, the foundation has distributed more than $30 million USD in grants to more than 65 organizations in more than 40 countries.
In 2015, some of the foundation’s supported projects included:
- Expanding the Mkomazi Rhino Sanctuary
- Reintroducing Jaguars to Wetlands of Argentina
- Restoring the Tshiaberimu Gorilla Ecosystem
- Restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Coastal Forest
- Restoring Ecuador’s Pacific Lowland Forests
- Saving Amboseli’s Elephants
- Protecting Indigenous Lands of the Amazon
- Smartphone Monitoring in Liberian Rainforests
- Restoring Degraded Coasts in Somalia
- Cultural Survival and Rainforest Protection
This gives you a sense of the sheer range of LDF’s focus. It is truly Earth-encompassing. And there’s so much more that has to be done.
As the foundation points out, just 3% of global charity given goes to environmental issues.
The environment binds us all together and fosters all life on Earth. The urgency of environmental action was on full display last December, when 195 countries agreed to climate action, the largest collective ecological commitment of all time.
In 2016, the world will need more leaders like Leo to step up.
And unlike this Sunday in Beverly Hills, I’m sure he won’t mind sharing the spotlight.
You can help the environment by going to TAKE ACTION NOW to call on the UK government to create marine sanctuaries!