After Leonardo DiCaprio's acceptance speech at this year's Oscars, it was almost immediately pointed out that his call to "support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters" was somewhat disingenuous. Though he has long been an advocate for the planet, DiCaprio — who owns multiple homes, flies in private jets and frequently vacations on diesel-guzzling megayachts — also leaves a rather large carbon footprint, Forbes reports.

The counterargument raised in DiCaprio's defense is that the only way to substantially curb climate change is through far-reaching government policies that put restrictions on fossil fuels, require cleaner forms of energy and so forth. With such environmental measures in place, the majority of the population, by default, will transition into an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Before this happens, it doesn't really matter if DiCaprio — or anyone — rides a bike or drives a Hummer, eats meat or only locally harvested vegetables. National and international policy is where the battle for the planet will be won or lost.

This is an argument we hear often, and it is one we like to hear. It places the responsibility on governments and distant bureaucracies to take the necessary actions that will be far more effective than any group of individuals could hope to achieve. While there is much truth to this argument, it also represents just how deeply the environmental movement is now catered to the consumer. While many labor and civil-rights movements have involved risk, danger and sacrifice, the current environmental movement is presented with a guarantee of convenience, something like: "Switch your energy source while still enjoying your normal lifestyle." It's a protest insofar as it's a consumer demand that someone come up with a new product and make it widely available.

The climate crisis is, as the Environmental Protection Agency and many others have stated, the most significant challenge of our time. Yet few people have talked about how intimately climate change is bound up with who we, as 21st-century people, are: global consumers. Our lives, our society — some might even say our very being — are based off buying stuff, that is, "getting and spending," as the poet Wordsworth said some 200 years ago. No matter how clean or sustainable the industry, sourcing and processing materials, putting them together, and distributing the finished product requires energy and requires resources. Not buying something will always be more Earth-friendly than buying it. Yet, by and large, the message is not to stop buying but to buy green, sustainable things.

The demand that governments enact policies to advance alternative energy production is similar to the demand that disposable containers be biodegradable or cars meet a minimum fuel efficiency. In these cases, what's under scrutiny and needs to be changed are not the consumer's habits, but the product. If we just had a different product, the problem could be solved.

The hope we are resting on, that technology and consumerism can provide a solution to the climate crisis that has been precipitated by technology and consumerism, seems rather naive. However, I admit to being downright quixotic in my own belief that if we want to do anything about the environment, we will have to learn how to live with less and profoundly rethink our status as consumers. How likely is this to happen in a country that is socially, economically, maybe even existentially dependent on people buying stuff? Not very. Yet I cannot shake this conviction that there is something within us that has to change, something far more radical than changing brand allegiances or calling upon politicians to change our energy sources.

In his Oscar speech, Leonardo DiCaprio said, “We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity.” He was named best actor in a leading role for “The Revenant.”

When I hear of DiCaprio's flights on private jets or Al Gore's energy-guzzling mansion, I don't doubt their sincerity or believe them to be hypocrites; rather, I see the limits of this hands-off, consumerist approach that says people don't need to change, the product needs to change. It makes me think that if those who sincerely advocate for climate policy can't cut back on the wholly unnecessary and extravagant purchases that drive climate change, how will a piece of legislation change the way millions of more apathetic, and more resistant, people are to live?

Peter Marshall is a writer living in St. Louis Park.