Celeb activist Leonardo DiCaprio — his social cause will go on

Leonardo DiCaprio speaks at the opening of the United Nations climate summit. Photo: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

He may not be king of the world, but Leonardo DiCaprio sure got its attention. Bearded and grim, there was little of happy-go-lucky Jack Dawson to be seen as DiCaprio took the podium September 23 at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York. His message to world leaders: climate change is not a fictional plot from a Hollywood blockbuster.

The YouTube video of his speech has been viewed over one million times.

It was a star-studded week in activism. Three days before DiCaprio’s U.N. debut, Emma Watson nabbed the global limelight. She’s come a long way since Hogwarts, combining the brains and fire of Hermione Granger, with poise and eloquence, to launch the U.N.’s HeForShe campaign, inviting men to join the global fight for gender equality.

Predictably, their microphones had barely cooled before the haters started hatin’. Critics questioned their motives, their integrity and their right to speak as experts. Words like “hypocrite” (and worse) were flung about. Some even threatened to release stolen nude photos of Watson, as if that discredited her as a feminist.

The vitriol notwithstanding, there are some fair questions: What right do celebrities have to speak out on issues like climate change? And why do causes look to celebrities as spokespersons?

“Another Hollywood actor … now an ‘expert’ on climate … useful idiots the lot of them,” sneered one of DiCaprio’s Facebook critics.

Nasty, but an interesting point. DiCaprio’s expertise is pretending to be other people. He doesn’t have a PhD in Climatology. But most of us don’t. Does that negate our right to voice our fear of climate change? DiCaprio acknowledged that point, opening his speech with the disclaimer: “I stand before you, not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen.”

So why didn’t a climate scientist make the speech instead of a Hollywood actor? Let’s be honest — a speech by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wouldn’t get one thousand YouTube views, let alone one million. How many of those viewers would have known the Climate Change Summit was happening, were it not for DiCaprio?

Would you have started reading this article if his name weren’t in the headline?

Celebrities are the megaphone, helping causes be heard by ordinary people without making their eyes glaze over.

All cards on the table, we make extensive use of celebrities in our We Days. Through them, we introduce youth to other voices. For every Joe Jonas, there is an Elizabeth Lindsey, National Geographic explorer and expert on indigenous cultural wisdom. Schoolchildren come to hear Macklemore, and along the way they hear youth Ontario-based AIDS activist Ashley Murphy.

It’s easy to knock celeb activists for hypocrisy. “I bet he flew to that meeting in his jet that burnt 4000 litres of jet fuel,” said one Facebook commentator, in a swipe at DiCaprio’s climate cred.

Celebrities aren’t saints. The U.K. newspaper Daily Mail calculated that DiCaprio’s 2014 air travels have generated 40 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions. But he just amplified an important message about climate change that millions of people might not otherwise have heard. (DiCaprio has also given millions to support 19 different charities).

Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen celebrity-cause ambassadors becoming less talking head and more hands-on. Mia Farrow routinely travels to parts of Africa where many aid workers fear to tread. Martin Sheen has been arrested 66 times for participating in environmental and peace protests.

And you’d be surprised how expert celebrities can actually be. We’ve seen Farrow leave a room full of U.N. development specialists speechless at her depth of knowledge about the issues facing refugees and genocide-affected communities in Africa.

But what celebrities do best is get attention for issues that matter. They are the punchy headline in your Facebook feed that makes you want to click the link. Don’t believe us? Leonardo DiCaprio just got you to read an article that mentions climate 11 times.

Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity Free The Children, the social enterprise Me to We and the youth empowerment movement We Day.