Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar Speech on Climate Change Makes a Difference Based on Statistics

It's no surprise how celebrities can cause a huge impact on world issues. In fact, thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar speech on climate change, it got people talking. A study done by a group of researchers from San Diego State University prove that DiCaprio certainly made an impression.

John Ayers led the research along with colleagues from the University of California San Diego and Santa Fe Institute. They studied the statistics and how DiCaprio's speech on climate change affected data analysis.

"A single speech, at a very opportunistic time, at the Oscar ceremony, resulted in the largest increase in public engagement with climate change ever," said Ayers in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post.

DiCaprio, who won the award for best actor, spoke up about climate change in his acceptance speech. At that time, 34.5 million people were watching him.

"Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous peoples of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children's children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed," stated DiCaprio.

After his speech, tweets about climate change and global warming rose up to 636%, this was higher than the average. It is reportedly the highest record in the database, which is up to 250,000 tweets. Aside from Twitter, it affected the number on Google searches. Climate change became the highest search on Google trends.

The study simply concludes that celebrities are indeed agents of change, especially when it comes to important world issues. Scientists and experts shouldn't be the only people to talk, as celebrities too can easily urge the general public to make a change.