Climate deniers should not be allowed to hold public office, Leonardo DiCaprio has said in a thinly-veiled attack on Donald Trump, staged in co-ordination with the Obama administration.

Speaking on a platform at the inaugural South By South Lawn event at the White House with President Obama and alarmist scientist Katharine Hayhoe, DiCaprio told his enraptured audience:

“The scientific consensus is in and the argument is now over. If you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in facts, or in science or empirical truths and therefore, in my humble opinion, should not be allowed to hold public office.”

DiCaprio was there mainly to promote his new National Geographic disaster-porn documentary Before the Flood in which he tours the world by private jet talking to celebrities who agree with him on climate change – President Obama, Pope Francis, Elon Musk – and also canvassing the opinions of picturesque natives in exotic locations all testifying in a range of languages and accents that, yes, man-made climate change really is the worst thing ever and they can see its effects all around them.

Obama – watch the video if you can bear – was in full “I don’t want you to think of me of anything so boring as President of the USA. I want you to think of me more like a Hollywood movie star, like Leo, who is totally down with the kids and really cool” mode. He took the opportunity to reiterate just how incredibly important an issue climate change is – as indeed he would, given that if this isn’t the case then he has just gone and blown two whole terms of a US presidency on absolutely nothing.

Hayhoe, meanwhile, was there to lend the event the veneer of scientific credibility.

She was certainly right on one thing. The bit where she said:

“We are pouring all of our money, all of our effort, all of our prayers into a bucket and the bucket has a hole in the bottom. That hole is climate change.”

This is probably the truest, wisest, cleverest thing any climate alarmist scientist has ever said in history – even the truth only came out by accident and not in the way she intended.

But yes, the whole climate change industry is indeed like pouring trillions of dollars (and hope and effort and prayers, etc) into a bucket with an almighty hole in it.

Here, by way of a reminder, is the rough annual cost of the climate change industry – $1.5 trillion.

And here is what the combined decarbonisation efforts of the world’s industrial and developing nations are going to achieve by the end of the century thanks to the vital COP21 summit in Paris last year.

A reduction in global temperatures by the end of the century of 0.048 degrees C – ie around 1/20th of a degree C.

If this represents a sensible use of scarce resources, I would love to hear acclaimed climate expert and economist Leonardo DiCaprio explain how. Then perhaps he could go on to explain the still unexplained mystery of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s connections with a $3 billion Malaysian embezzlement scheme.