DiCaprio's Oscar speech cringe-worthy for some advocates of climate-change action

It's hard to overstate how many people were paying attention when Leonardo DiCapriowon the Oscar for best actor at the Academy Awards Sunday night.

Aside from an estimated TV audience of 34 million, DiCaprio's win for his performance in the The Revenant smashed a significant social-media record, becoming themost-tweeted minuteof an Oscars telecast with 440,000 Twitter posts in the span of 60 seconds.

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That crushed theprevious record of255,000 set when 2014 Oscars host Ellen DeGeneresset the internet ablaze by tweetinga star-studded selfieduring the broadcast.

DiCaprio used his high-profile moment to draw attentionto climate change, calling it "the most urgent threat facing our entire species."

But the way he went about it had even some of the most ardent advocates for climate action cringing.

The 41-year-old actor again highlighted his experience of a sudden change in temperature and loss of snow whilefilming The Revenant in southern Alberta as evidence of a warming globe.

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"Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow," DiCaprio said during his acceptance speech.

The incidentDiCapriodescribedwas widely believedto be achinooka weather phenomenon that occurs when warm airis forceddownward at the point where mountains meet prairies.The effect, whichis not a direct effect ofclimate change, isparticularlypronounced in southern Alberta and frequently brings sudden bouts ofsummer-like conditions in the dead of winter.

While he didn't disagree withDiCaprio'sfundamental point,Alberta-based author ChrisTurner describedthe actor's insistence on using a chinookas a caseinpoint for climate change as less than helpful.

Othersalso hadmixed feelings about DiCaprioreflectingso much of the spotlight being shone on him to a cause they believe needs attention, but using an example that isn't firmly rooted in fact.

Reactions acrossCanada

And it wasn't just Albertans who reacted this way.

Canadians from coast to coast, and even the Ontario Environment Ministry,were raising electronic eyebrows at DiCaprio's choice of words.

Losing the forest for the trees?

Others however, feltDiCaprio'slarger message shouldn't be lost in the flurry of criticism over the chinook example.

Regardless of the climate-change controversy, the Alberta government was pleasedto seeDiCapriowin the award.

"I am so proud to be able to say that another Oscar-winning production was filmed right here in Alberta,"Minister of Culture and Tourism MinisterRicardo Miranda said in a release.

"I especially want to congratulate the more than 700 Albertans who worked as cast or crew on this production, including makeup artists from Canmore, actors from Siksika Nation and production crew from Calgary. I know their work was a significant contribution to winning these awards."

Alberta's film and television industryhas generated more than $400 million in economic activity over the past five years, Miranda noted.

In addition to The Revenant, Alberta has also served as a productionlocation for major Hollywoodfilms like Interstellar and Brokeback Mountain, in addition totelevision seriesFargo, Hell on Wheels and Heartland.