How to react to celebrities speaking out about global warming?

[Ottawa Mike]

Our (Canadians) very own Neil Young recently got national news coverage for his tour to promote awareness about global warming, native rights and the Alberta oil sands. And by awareness I mean complete opposition and a funding drive to launch a lawsuit against the oil sands with David Suzuki at his side.

However, this national coverage also brought to light comments he made a few months ago about the oil sands town of Fort McMurray, Alberta:

“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuels all over – the fumes everywhere – you can smell it when you get to town. The closest place to Fort McMurray that is doing the tar sands work is 25 or 30 miles out of town and you can taste it when you get to Fort McMurray. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on...e14213233/

Well the residents of Fort McMurray, if they weren't aware of his rant back in September are certainly aware of it now. And they have lashed out in several places like Twitter using the hashtag #myhiroshima: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23myhiroshima&src=tyah

And there are plenty of news articles in a similar vein to this: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/18/...reloaded=1

There are quite a few ways I could go with this question and I expect comments regardless of what I ask. But I am truly curious about this:

When a young environmentalist who has either gone to see Neil Young (and David Suzuki) at a concert and maybe contributes a few bucks but then finds out what the residents of Fort McMurray have to say, what goes through his/her mind? Do they just block out the Hiroshima reference and stick with the "oil sands are bad" meme? Do they consider what else Young (and Suzuki) might be exaggerating or even lying about?

Do celebrity rants like this actually change anybody's mind or just reinforce the already committed?
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Here is the recent national news coverage: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ne...-1.2502895

"Keep on rockin' in the dumb world,"
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Another common celebrity eco-activist theme:

"While Neil Young spoke to a Calgary news conference at the Jack Singer Concert Hall prior to his Sunday night show, five rock star-style motorhomes were left running outside, spewing fumes into the Calgary air, even though they were mostly unoccupied." http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainme...story.html
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@JeffM: Well, I am certainly concerned about people's health whether it's oil sands or wind farms. Like here: http://rt.com/usa/cape-cod-wind-turbine-syndrome-560/

A responsible rant would be a concern for health listing both oil sands production and wind farm operations as examples.

An irresponsible rant would be cherry picking oil sands and throwing in a "Hiroshima" reference while leaving five luxury buses idling while you do it. Do you see the difference?