Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo have teamed up in a bid to widen access to clean energy.
The movie stars launched “100%,” a campaign aimed at making energy from renewable sources available to everyone — and making it affordable.
DiCaprio has spent much of the last few years involved in environmental and animal conservation efforts. At Thursday night’s event, the actor said the clean energy movement was no longer about politics, but humanity.
“This is a grass-roots [level of] people’s movement, but the ambition of this movement is absolutely revolutionary. Clean energy grows local economies,” he told the crowd.
The event was held at a community garden in New York City. Musicians and dancers entertained the crowd while a solar-powered pizza truck provided food. A solar-powered cell phone charging station was also available.
Ruffalo — a co-founder of the campaign — called it a “serious issue.”
“This is really mankind’s greatest threat, and it should take some serious problem-solving on all of our parts,” he said. “And we don’t really have to give up anything to do it. ... We will be collecting the sun and the wind that falls on us every single day.”
But he also provided a little good-natured trash talking about New York state’s clean efforts versus that of California.
“I just came in from Los Angeles, where I was doing some press and they think they’ve got something on us concerning renewable energy ... they’ve got nothing on us. We are coming for you Governor [Jerry] Brown.”
This event comes on the heels of Pope Francis’ urgent plea on Thursday for the world to clean up the environment, likening it to a moral issue.
