Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is using his fame to direct the world’s attention towards the ongoing water crisis in Chennai. Rarely active on social media, The Revenant actor took to Instagram to post a picture showing many colourful vessels around a well in Chennai, and wrote a post describing the dire circumstances before signing off with – ‘we can change the world’.
Why is Chennai facing this ‘crisis’?
In the past month, Chennai has witnessed its most alarming water crisis in recent memory, after all of the city’s four main water reservoirs began to run dry. This has resulted in long queues in front of water distribution units being offered by the establishment scrambling for both short-term and long-term solutions. Most hotels and restaurants have shut down, the city’s metro lines have shut down the air-conditioning. This BBC report suggests that most officials are pinning their hopes on a generous monsoon, which might only be the only way to replenish those reservoirs at such a short notice.
Leonardo DiCpario, the part-time environmentalist
Notorious for being media-shy unless he has a movie to promote, DiCaprio has been vocal about the environment. Producing two documentaries – 11th Hour and Before The Flood, DiCaprio even went so far ahead to weave the threat of climate change into his Oscar-acceptance speech in 2016. He mentioned how his film crew had to fly all the way the Southern tip of Argentina, only to find snow as dense as Alaska.
Chennai’s water crisis is only the beginning of problems, if physicists and environmentalists are to be believed. The rapid urbanisation in most cities in India, the fate of Chennai could befall on any of the other metropolitan cities. And now that a Hollywood star has warned us, most of us will suddenly understand the gravity of it.
