LOVE ANGELES

DiCaprio Brought Solar Power To ‘Inception’ Set

 Source: Ecorazzi - Back in May, we caught wind that Warner Bros was starting to use solar-powered generators to add a bit more green to film sets like Inception and other projects. Not surprisingly, is who pushed for that to happen.

“A lot of this movie (‘Inception’) was made with solar power,” Leonardo DiCaprio said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “It’s the first movie I got to do with solar power. I had a conversation about it with Alan Horn, who’s the head of Warner Bros. The generators that we had on the set were all powered by solar energy. It’s going to be a big conversion to do stuff like that every day, not just in making movies but everything in the world.”

Those generators Horn eventually settled on are made by Pure Power Distribution. As I mentioned in my previous post, such a rig not only tracks the position of the sun for optimal efficiency, but also outputs 600 Amps/72,000 watts of “pure sine wave power with no noise, and no emissions”. That’s enough to keep about a ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each day – along with the other 40 carcinogens found in diesel exhaust.

“We do a lot of things in the world that are wasteful,” Leo added. “We keep talking about this all the time. Hopefully, fingers crossed, with these small steps, we’ll make that transition on a much larger scale in the future.”

DiCaprio, Norton Visit Galapagos For Mission Blue Voyage

Source: Ecorazzi - In 2009, oceanographer Sylvia Earle won the TED Prize — earning her the chance to have one wish realized that could help change the world. She chose to focus, naturally, on the oceans; urging for the creation and management of essential marine protected areas. She coined them “Hope Spots” and, through education and support, hoped to see a global network of such areas created.

TED took the first step to realizing Earle’s wish this week with “The Mission Blue Voyage” to the Galapagos Islands. In partnership with National Geographic, the trip featured over 100 esteemed guests and twenty-five inspiring speakers. It also had quite the gathering of eco-conscious celebrities. Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Glenn Close, Damien Rice, Daryl Hannah and Chevy Chase to name a few. According to updates on Twitter and Facebook, the 6-day event achieved its mission of inspiring collaboration and getting powerful people behind new conservation initiatives.

One such example came from the Vice President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, who met privately with celebs like Norton and DiCaprio and received backing for a conservation plan to protect the Ecuadorian Amazon from oil extraction. According to AFP, the “Yasuni-ITT initiative” would prevent more than 850 million barrels of oil from being extracted from the Amazon Yasuni park — and conceivably create a viable carbon trading industry in the process. It’s estimated that not drilling would save 410 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

If oil extraction was allowed, a spill would be devastating. One hectare of land in Yasuni has the highest estimated diversity per unit area in the world for any plant or animal group.

According to Vice-President Moreno, Leonardo DiCaprio is willing to personally visit Yasuni and get involved in the campaign. “All who were present yesterday, besides supporting Galapagos want to be part of Yasuni,” said another official.

For more on the Mission Blue project, check out the official site here.

Leo and Co. Seize the Moment

Source: CelebsGoneGood - After just donating a whopping $1 mil to help Haiti last month, Leonardo DiCaprio is already at it again!

There’s no surprise as to why he made the top 10 on our Top 20 Celebs Gone Good list back in November. He’s teamed up with Chace Crawford, Emmy Rossum, Justin Long, Jason Bateman, and more in a special video for “This is Our Moment” to mobilize the country towards working towards a cleaner, greener future.

“This is Our Moment” is the Natural Resources Defense Council’s new web-based video campaign that encourages Americans to actively participate in preserving the community by speaking to their legislative representatives via email and online videos. The campaign pushes for citizens to urge their senators to help pass climate legislation that is essential to help recharge the economy, reduce pollution and curb global warming, and create more jobs.

Seize the moment and check out what the A-list supporters have to say about how you can help to get the “Clean Energy, Jobs and American Power Act” passed in the Senate!

See the clip of Leo here:

Leo Rebuilds Town

ecorazzi - "Back in 2006, Leonardo DiCaprio had an idea to take a town somewhere in the U.S. and rebuild it using sustainable designs and green technology. Then came the destructive F5 tornado in May of 2007 that leveled the Kansas town of Greensburg. Suddenly, an opportunity arose to take DiCaprio’s idea and apply it — all the while documenting the process for Discovery Channel’s Planet Green network.

Two years later, all that work is paying off — and the people of Greensburg are suddenly finding themselves with a burgeoning tourist industry. Some of the locals that appeared on the television show even have a fan base. From The Hutchinson News,

The idea started through the nonprofit, said Daniel Wallach, executive director of Greensburg GreenTown. The goal is to provide educational tours of the town’s rebuilding effort — such as new residential, commercial and civic buildings. The group has been giving informal tours since early June and has already given 33 tours for 191 people, he said. He hopes those partaking in a tour will take back some of the ideas to their own communities. “This is a showcase of how to build sustainable and live greener,” he said on a recent trip across town to a few of the tour sites.

So far, the town has received visitors from people as far away as Australia and England. Those interested can take either a one or two hour guided tour at a cost of $5 per person. The town has also printed up some booklets for those that want the self-guided option. For more information, check out the official tour site here."