Leo & National Geographic Release Stunning Climate Change Documentary ‘Before the Flood’

Our boy, Leonardo DiCaprio, and National Geographic, have taken boss to a whole new level. The team have dedicated a massive amount of time, love and money into showing the world how degraded our environment has become with this masterfully sickening documentary, Before the Flood. The documentary has already clocked 8.5/10 on IMDB and the best part: it’s free on Youtube.

Nine of the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 2000. Global air pollution has just surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time, with no indication of returning below 400 anytime soon. Over 50% of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been declared dead due to ocean warming. While 195 countries committed to keeping global temperatures below 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures at last year’s Paris Conference, we are well on track to reach a sustained rise of 3-6 degrees Celsius. While it sounds small, the consequences would be catastrophic.

The documentary highlights some of the fundamentally key flaws in our systems that are fuelling this degradation. We’ll let the documentary do the talking. Perhaps the most enlightening suggestion of the documentary is the course of action individuals can take to reduce our carbon footprint and strive for a healthier environment. Firstly, for Government’s to take action it has to be something wanted by the people. The more voters want to see effective sustainability initiatives, the more action that will be taken. So the more you talk about it and the more you care about this issue, the more change will happen. Sweden saw a massive uprising in collective social responsibility and the country has since generated nearly all electricity from renewable sources.

Secondly, the choices we make have a massive impact. The biggest is our consumption of beef. Little did I know how inefficient and wasteful the production of beef is – over 35% of US is used to grow corn… to feed cows, using massive amounts of water and energy to run the massive operation. A 220 gram beef burger has the same carbon emissions as driving a Prius 67 kilometres.

At the rate we are going, our children and grandchildren will not be able to enjoy the environment in the full fruition we have seen it in. There is hope. The deepest and most progressive thinkers of our time are dedicating more and more effort into raising awareness on this critical issue and the good citizens of this planet are starting to take adopt more environmentally-friendly lifestyles. Every bit helps.