Last night, we streamed National Geographic and Leonardo DiCaprio's brand new climate change documentary, 'Before The Flood', right into your feed through Facebook Live. This was us yet again dipping our proverbial toes in the water when it comes to using our page as a form of TV channel, much like we did with the boxing the other evening. And, yeah, it was a massive success by all accounts. More than two million people watched, 11,000 people commented and 17,000 people "engaged". That means that 17,000 people clicked one of those new-fangled little emotion buttons to let us know that either a) they were into it or b) DiCaprio's flat-cap was enough to warrant a crying smiley or one of those little angry red-faced chaps. Reasonable.
No, but really, it was great that amidst what seemed like a mass movement to /closechat, people were getting involved and inspired. Folks from all over the world and of all ages, too. If you have a moment, skim through the comments. Some will get you pumped, some will probably make you cry with laughing.
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On the whole, climate change seems to be something you guys care a lot about (except for this one guy who hates the environment more than he could possibly hate anything) and it's an issue we care a lot about, too. Every time we post anything asking what matters to young people right now, this subject comes up. In fact, alongside mental health, this seems to be the one that matters the most. Luckily, much like mental health, there are things we can do to make the situation better for us all. I suppose we just have to do them, really.
Sure, it's easy to joke that "climate change is class mate. We can wear speedos all year long and eat ice-cream in December" - which, if you think about it, there's actually nothing stopping you from doing right now - but there's a lot more to it than that.
Before the movie came out, we got digging into the issue and what's going on is absolutely shit-the-bed terrifying. For instance, did you know that climate change could displace more than 250 million people by 2050? If you take into account that the war in Syria has only displaced a little more than 11 million, then those numbers really begin to look staggering. That's more than 20 times the amount. Scientists and politicians are also linking climate change to everything from global terrorism to mental health issues to rising cancer rates. There are so many sides to this crisis that it's a little overwhelming to know where to start. And we get that.
But a good start is probably to do what 2.5 million others did and watch this movie. Get involved in the debate, on our wall and in real life. This is real and it's happening, so why don't we do something about it?
Topics: Global Warming, climate change, Leonardo DiCaprio