Forces of Nature Benefit

March 8, 2005

Leonardo DiCaprio Remarks: Thank you so much. I can't tell you how happy I am to be here today as a part of the Forces for Nature team, honoring John. He deserves a standing ovation from us all.

I've been interested in working to save the environment all my life. For the last 7 years, John has been a mentor to me in my efforts. He's helped guide me to where I can be the most help in the most effective way possible. The foundation I've established to help the environment, the new e-Activism Zone in Santa Monica aimed at education young people to make a lifelong commitment to the environment, along with many other conservationist projects I've been active with, owe a lot to his inspiration – and practical guidance.

If we look around at our country right now, this can seem like a pretty dispiriting moment. It's anguishing to see so much hard-won environmental legislation being tossed out. To look out our windows and see a steady stream of SUV's crawling along the highways. To see sprawl toxifying the visual landscape, and eating up out limited resources. To know how few of our corporations refuse to put the green of the earth above the green of the dollar.

But I'll tell you something. As long as there are people like John fighting the good fight behind the scenes none of us have the right to despair. Instead, we've got the obligation to pitch in and fight with him. The spirit he expresses in all his work with the NRDC is the best of the American spirit and it's not something that this or any other administration is ever going to defeat. I love my work as an actor more than I can say. But I never fly higher than when I feel John's spirit infuse me with the will to do my own best in this most urgent of all campaigns.

With the challenges of this time, we have to take courage from the victories that have been won in the past couple of decades. The NRDC's work to counter the effect of global warming; the wildlife and fish and plants that have been saved by legislation John initiated; the increasing use of clean energy, the parkland, forests and wetland that have been protected NRDC action. It would take all night to list the different campaigns the NRDC has launched and won with John at the helm. If you had a camera focused on earth from way-out outer space and zoomed in all the way to a tiny blade of grass in Alaska, everything in that image that's alive or nourishes life would be part of what John's trying to save. That's how huge the mandate of the NRDC is.

Don't let anyone turn back the clock. We're not the ones who've run out of time. Let's pay tribute to John's achievements so far, and let's all pledge ourselves to stand in solidarity with him for the next round of battles on behalf of our planet. Thank you very much.