Interview With Leonardo DiCaprio for ABC News' "Planet Earth 2000" - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents,  May 1, 2000  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

But we should also work with other countries. I tell other countries, the developing countries, I'm not asking you to give up your growth; I'm not asking you to give jobs up. I'm asking you to pursue a different pattern of energy use, which will give you more growth, more jobs, and a healthier population over the long run. So I think this really is a win-win issue here. This is not the way it used to be 30, 40 years ago. You can grow an economy and use less energy if you do it right.

Raising Public Awareness

Mr. DiCaprio. Why do you think this issue is so constantly overlooked, and why do you think people don't take it seriously enough? And for you, is it as important as something like health care or education?

The President. Oh yes, over the long run, it's one of the two or three major issues facing the world over the next 30 years. I think it's because it takes a long time for the climate to change in a way that people feel it, and because it seems sort of abstract now. That's why I think it's important that programs like this are aired, and people like you--not politicians or scientific experts but citizens-express their concern.

And then it's important that citizens know that it ought to be an issue; it ought to be a voting issue at election time. And I don't say this in a hateful way. It's just that people need to tell the politicians and the candidates they care about this; they want action. But our citizens need to follow the lead of a lot of our religious groups and other civic groups in actually doing things themselves.

Right now, if the American people knew all the options that are available to them and understood the economics, we could do much better. And of course, if my plan were to pass the Congress and we were to give the tax breaks to consumers and manufacturers of these products and technologies, we could do it even faster.

Energy-Efficiency Incentives

Mr. DiCaprio. Now, the major polluters are obviously the big industries, such as the oil companies, who are one of the most powerful lobbies in the world. How do we convince them to change the way they've been doing business for the last century?

The President. Well, for one thing, oil is a depleting resource, and I think that oil companies and coal companies should be given incentives to become energy companies and to promote energy efficiency so that the oil they have will last longer and provide them a more steady stream of income, and so that they can develop other ways of earning money. They should become--they should think of themselves as energy companies, not oil companies.

And if you look at the record, starting with British Petroleum and its leader, some members of the oil industry are beginning to come over to support action on climate change. Some leaders of the auto industry are beginning to come over and support action on climate change. They understand that this is real and that when these gases get up in the atmosphere, it takes at least 50 years or them to dissipate.