Leonardo DiCaprio, academy award-winning actor and outspoken environmental advocate, stars in a new climate change documentary debuting in October. "Before the Flood" brings DiCaprio and the production team across the planet to view the physical effects of climate change and the threats that we face, to hear practical solutions from other nations, and to feature world leaders speaking about the importance of this worldwide issue.
Directed by Fisher Stevens, the film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in early September with the official trailer released weeks later. "Before the Flood" will open in select New York City and Los Angeles theaters starting on Oct. 21, with a global release on National Geographic starting Oct. 30.
"Before the Flood" documents DiCaprio's mission to witness and understand how far humans have gone in affecting Earth's climate, including whether or not we've gone too far. He stresses to the audience that we have known about climate change for decades, that we have the power to enact political and community actions necessary to significantly decrease our carbon footprint. However, there are various policy and institutional obstacles in the way, which DiCaprio attempts to understand as well.
Seen from the trailer, "Before the Flood" shows us images of enormous Arctic ice blocks melting rapidly as they fall into the ocean. We see fracking wells, oil drills, smoggy wastelands, deforestation, mass flooding, and multiple other forms of environmental destruction associated with widespread fossil fuel use. Most importantly, we see the solutions. We hear from world leaders and innovators such as Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Ban Ki-moon, and many others.
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Learning about climate change and the devastation associated with it is only half of the battle. The other part comes from exploring the solutions. The innovations brought forth by human ingenuity are priceless when our only home in the universe is on the brink of a long-term disaster. As Bill Nye said in his own call for climate action, "if your car were headed toward a cliff, first thing is to take your foot off the accelerator".
"Before the Flood" seeks to cover both of the major parts of this struggle for our survival. It shows us the cliff that is right in front of us, attempts to assess exactly how far we are from the edge, and challenges us to decide whether or not we will take our foot off the accelerator.
This documentary had taken three years to produce and was timed appropriately prior to the 2016 Presidential Election and down-ballot races. It is indeed a time to elect politicians who accept the reality of climate change and who will be ready and willing to hold the responsibility of creating a habitable planet for ourselves as we age, and for our descendants. "Before the Flood" also releases shortly after it was revealed that atmospheric CO2 has recently and permanently exceeded the 400 parts per million threshold.
At this point in scientific data revelations, the time to deny climate change is long over. This is no longer a time to debate. Instead, this is a time to act, to elect policymakers who accept science and to make changes within our own lives and communities to seriously mitigate the impact of our carbon footprints.
We know the problem, we have the solutions, and we must gather the will and courage to explore new solutions and combine our efforts in order to say that our species acted when we needed to. In the eyes of our descendants, we could either be the generation that made the critical last minute decisions to protect the planet as they know it, or merely another generation that ignored the warnings.
