Written by Selja Snorradottir
Ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human actions have become the number one driver for climate change. The constant and growing dependence on fossil fuels and agricultural industrialization will be the cause of dangerous environmental change if actions are not taken quickly. (Rockström et al. 2009) And although global warming of around 1 degree Celsius over the past 100 years does not seem like a lot, it is a lot when put into perspective: The last 30 years have been the warmest 30 years of the northern hemisphere in 1400 years and if nothing is done, a warming of 4 degrees Celsius is expected by the end of the 21st century. (Stocker et al. 2014) Such a climate change would not only lead to various species extinction and serious health issues but it would also cause extreme droughts and floods, bringing 150 million environmental refugees to the areas not yet affected by the climate change, causing over population in the safe areas. (Orr, 2007)
With the modern, technology driven society, online news outlets, television news, documentaries and social media have become the main suppliers of knowledge. (Anderson, 2011) That is why around $500 billion is spent on advertising each year but by the time a person reaches university level, he/she has been exposed to thousands of hours of television. (Orr, 2007) Furthermore, studies have shown that people tend to listen to and trust public figures (Zimmerman, 2001) and therefore companies have used that to their advantage by having celebrities representing their brand by taking part in advertising campaigns.
In this article, I want to examine to what extent the power of celebrity endorsements can be used to “sell” climate change to people and raise awareness that the public has the power to make a difference. Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson, Pharrell Williams, Emma Thomson and Arnold Schwarzenegger are among the many celebrities that have acted as climate change activists but due to the limitations of the article I want to focus on one celebrity in particular and how he has contributed to the climate change discussion, Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Problem
Even though it has been proven by various scientists from different fields and different parts of the world that climate change is happening and that it is by and large caused by human actions, the public understanding of climate change and the risks that come with it is lacking which directly leads to the lack of action being taken to reduce pollution. Because of this lack of interest in climate change from the public, politicians and policy makers have not seen the issue as a priority and instead focused more on issues that people will care about and relate to more. One of the largest survey conducted on climate change awareness and risk perception was done in 2007 and 2008 and represented 90% of the world’s population. The results shown by the image below tell us that in the developed countries most people have heard of the term and are aware of its existence while in the less developed countries, most people have never even heard of the term. But what is more alarming is the risk perception map which demonstrates how respondents from numerous countries do not look at climate change as a serious threat. (Lee et al. 2015)
Figure 1: Global Climate Change Awareness (Lee et al. 2015
The three key factors Lee et al. (2015) has identified to increase public awareness of the serious threat of climate change are:
1. Improving education.
2. Improving climate literacy.
3. Improving public understanding of climate change.
While the responsibility of increasing education lies within each country, the other two factors can be achieved through the power of celebrities and social media.
Scientists vs. Celebrities
Scientists tend to fail to catch the public’s attention when speaking about climate change by using over complicated scientific words. They also tend to speak more about cutting edge research and overcomplicated details instead of delivering the simple message of why people should care about climate change. The image below demonstrates how scientists need to flip their usual presentation style upside down in order to get to the public. By presenting the bottom line first and then getting onto the details behind how they got there instead of doing it the other way around, people are more likely to listen. (Somerville & Hassol, 2011)
Figure 2: How Scientists Can Gain the Public’s Attention When Speaking about Climate Change (Somerville & Hassol, 2011
But even by adopting this method, scientists are still less likely than celebrities to get the public’s attention since celebrities have proven to have higher credibility than scientists due to their so called “halo effect”. The halo effect refers to people assuming that because someone excels in one area they must excel in all other measures as well. That is why people want to assume that a successful, good looking actor such as Leonardo DiCaprio must also be smart and educated and therefore know what he is talking about when it comes to science, even though DiCaprio is not a scientist. (Erdogan, 1999) The United Nations are among the organizations that have previously recognized the power of the voice of celebrities by appointing celebrities such as George Clooney and Michael Douglas as UN’s messengers of peace. And in 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio was named UN’s messenger of peace with the focus area of climate change. (The United Nations, 2016)
The DiCaprio Effect
Leonardo DiCaprio has for a long time been one of the main celebrity spokesperson for climate change. DiCaprio has stressed the importance of implementing environmental policies to prevent the doing of further damage to the environment. He has spoken to the public and tried to deliver the message that climate change is one of the most important issues of our generation and that it is up to us, the people, to make a difference. (Orr, 2007) DiCaprio, who has devoted his life to environmental issues, used the opportunity to spread the word about climate change in his 2016 Oscar’s acceptance speech where he referred to it as “the most urgent threat facing our entire species”. (Caulfield, 2016) DiCaprio’s speech had clear impact and reached 34.5 million live viewers (Leas et al. 2016) as well as having huge impact in the online community.
After DiCaprio’s speech, all the major social media platforms were filled with people engaging in the climate change discussion. For instance, a 636% increase was seen in tweets mentioning the phrases “global warming” and “climate change” compared to a regular day. Looking at other climate change discussion events, this increase in tweets is 5.3 times the amount of tweets on the topic that Earth Day received and 3.2 times larger than the United Nation’s Conference of the Parties got on a daily average basis. The increased social media engagement went hand in hand with an increase in Google searches for terms from DiCaprio’s speech such as climate change, global warming, hottest year, and indigenous.
Figure 3: Google Searches Following DiCaprio’s 2016 Oscar Acceptance Speech on Climate Change. (Leas et al. 2016
From the image above we can see the increase in Google searches including the terms and it shows us that DiCaprio’s speech had such impact that people were interested in getting more familiar with the matter but Google saw an increase in the search term “global warming” by 261% within one hour after the speech. (Leas et al. 2016)
Later in the year, DiCaprio followed up on his award speech by releasing the documentary Before the Flood. The movie covers some of the most critical facts about climate change in an interesting and easily understandable way. It was released in collaboration with National Geography and was aired for free online for the first few weeks after release. DiCaprio broke all records, but as of November 3rd, only a couple of weeks after the release, the movie had already gotten over 30 million views. This is the most views a National Geography film has gotten in such a short amount of time and the most popular a documentary has been since 2000. The decision was made to air the movie on multiple online platforms at once to reach as many people as possible and deliver the importance of the message and the results were clear, but the film trended on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. (Gerard, 2016)
Conclusion
Leonardo DiCaprio is a good example of how celebrity endorsements can be used for more than promoting headphones and sneakers but as the numbers have shown, DiCaprio’s collaboration with climate change scientists has been an important factor in increasing awareness on the topic. DiCaprio’s unexpected award speech as well as his recently released documentary Before the Flood reached record levels when it comes to both social media engagement and search terms for the climate change discussion (Leas et al. 2016). Leonardo DiCaprio’s efforts have proofed how in today’s society where people get the majority of their knowledge through media and online platforms, celebrities can have a positive impact by influencing and helping scientists reach out and educate the public on such important issues as climate change. Their contribution to the discussion can and has then inspired people to utilize search engines and online platforms to learn more about the topic and gather further, more detailed scientific information.
References
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