Oh, we have a wide selection today. Tamino provides a chuckle extraordinaire, plus we have two cartoons from Josh. [Plus, I’ve added something from Steve McIntyre.] Happy Friday everybody!
see www.cartoonsbyjosh.com for more.
Now get this bonus extra from Steve McIntyre:
Somehow I missed this one. I must have been too busy laughing at Tamino to notice.
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An article in Smithsonian Air& Space magazine November issue called Forbidden Planet about Venus says the runaway greenouse effect caused by CO2 and with high atmospheric pressure has made it hotter than a self cleaning oven. Thought I would add to the humor theme.
Here’s one:
http://comics.com/pickles/2010-10-14/
Ahhh, maybe it’s because the solar wind is not too strong, not too lite … Just right.
Josh is not very funny. For good climate change cartoons see:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2fgn3xZDtkI/TLNcc7QqFZI/AAAAAAAAC98/22KeekvaBBg/s1600/WattsSTRIP%28web%29.jpg
REPLY: Well I’ll point out that Revkin hotlinked at Dot Earth first, and I followed, using the source Revkin provided. When Mr. Roberts asked, I immediately fixed it for him. It really is unfortunate that WUWT is so traffic laden that it hurt his old website. It was unintentional. I figured if it was on NYT, he could handle the load. Copying it locally risks copyright issues for original artwork, so I didn’t want to do that. On the plus side, he’s now upgraded to a blogger based website, and he can handle the traffic now. Steve McIntyre suffered from the same problem on a single box server, and now uses wordpess.com like I do.
Oh and rather than hotlinking to the strip direct, here’s the real link so his hit counter will work properly
http://throbgoblins.blogspot.com/2010/10/butterflies.html
– Anthony
Nice ‘toon, but the best was the story at CA! Really? Now we can absolutely say this is a Marxist plot! hahahahhahhahaha
The same photo that is posted at CA is in the dictionary next to the phrase “Soviet Kommissar.”
Anthony,
I wasn’t accusing you of anything, although you act like it. That particular cartoon (the one about the 10:10 campaign) was linked all over the web, and for good reason, it was funny. This is in contrast to all of Josh’s cartoons. Marc’s cartoons are consistently funny. Josh’s are not. That was my point.
BTW, the main point of this one was in the last two frames.
REPLY: No worries, but I do owe a debt to Mr. Roberts, and now that his new site is up and running, I’ll give him some notice. I think cartoons that appear funny to some do not appear funny to others, based on their world view. For example, I never found the comic strip “Cathy” funny, but some gals I know thought it was a hoot. – Anthony
Here’s another funny: New York Times talks about people flunking climate change 101. If anyone knowledgeable who could debunk it would be nice.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/in-u-s-survey-52-percent-flunk-climate-101/
I remember during the 70s the big debates about a possible ice age. I don’t know what percentages of scientists thought it might happen, but you’d never have known it from all the debate that went on.
Much humor to be had at the people’s cube. Here is the link to their global warming section:
http://thepeoplescube.com/Global_Warming.php
Enjoy.
Tim
Yeah, well “Cathy” always sucked. I also thought that “Garfield” sucked and I love cats.
However, Marc’s cartoons always have a punchline which is not so inside baseball as Josh’s. Marc generally provides a setup in the first couple of frames with the payoff in the last couple of frames. Josh is trying to be a one frame political cartoonist, but single frames need to single frames need to play off of social awareness of the issues involved. Playing inside baseball does not work for getting you message across. Check out any of Tom Tole’s climate cartoons for an example of how the game can be played.
REPLY: I think then it must be harder to “set up” humor in a single frame as opposed to a strip. All of Josh’s work is single frame. But I think you’ve made a good point and I’ll suggest it to him. – Anthony
Just for the record, I like the cartoon. I especially like the meter. Earth is stuck on normal when compared to the climates of other planets. I can’t quite figure out the elitist critisism.
REPLY: I think then it must be harder to “set up” humor in a single frame as opposed to a strip.
Well, I don’t think the difference in quality between Josh’s and Marc Roberts’ cartoons can be explained in terms of single frame vs strip. Rather, Marc Roberts, although he is on the wrong side of the debate, displays greater intellectual depth and outrage than Josh does.
Does this cartoon look familiar to those who make comments on some Climate related blogs?
A Day in the Life of an Internet Commenter
http://gizmodo.com/5665194/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-internet-commenter
Rough crowd today. I like Josh’s cartoons just fine. I never once understood a serious critique of a cartoon. Jeez guys.
It is clear that Josh is hitting the spot with his cartoons now that we have such derogatory remarks about them from Rattus N.
Congratulations, Josh, keep up the good work.
I think you will find that Venus is hot due to adaibatic compression not CO2, and being closer to the sun.
I actually enjoy criticism of cartoons, my favourite site being xkcdsucks. Even there though they realise that their blog is nothing more than “[a] vitriolic and bitter collection of unwarranted nastiness about a silly and harmless comic.” All that said, I like Josh, he manages the single format panel well. He shows it, not says it, he keeps it simple and the artwork is quite acceptable. He often lacks punch and directness, and sometimes is too obscure or uninteresting to those less informed on the issue but it does work well for the intended audience and when it is direct and punchy it is a work of genius, such as the 10:10 doorbell salesman. Overall, I give Josh three and a half out of five stars. When he misses it’s still decent and when he hits it’s golden.
Offtopic, but maybe slightly humorous. If AGW is natural science of the post-modern era, maybe its signature melody should be John Cage’s 3’44, symbolizing achievements of the climate politics? Here’s the fascinating piece 😉
When I first read the Climate Audit post, I thought this seems out of the realm of the site’s intentions. Only reading the comment from Arthur Dent, about the SMC being the gatekeeper between scientists and journalists put it in perspective for me.
While I fundamentally disagree with their POV, you have to admire the way they have managed to infiltrate the whole debate. We see Connelly and his cronies at Wikipedia, DavidCOG (aka DavidCOG1, aka BlueRock, and probably a few others by now) on reddit, RealClimate and Romm, and now this.
These people have managed to pollute the “science” far more than CO2 ever will.
Inside baseball and out of the park, but only those sitting in the stadium see the ball. Those watching the revolution on the television will him him ground into a double play.
=================
er, ‘see him ground into a double play’.
============
Magnus A says:
October 16, 2010 at 2:54 am
Offtopic? I’d say right Ontopic and mighty humorous due to the piece’s bulls eye! 🙂
//TJ
Garfield sucks. How dare you. One of the greatest human beings to walk this planet. I know Garfield doesn’t believe in AGW. May he live long and prosper!
For Rattus Norvegicus. Well at least we have something in common. Here’s my cat “Minners”:

Saturday Unfunnies: “Finally, it was Al Gore’s turn to address the crowd.” “A giant screen showed the planet turning as Gore …”
National Socialist Nuremberg Rallies/Socialist-Communist Red Square May Day parades plagiarized by Red-Greens.
Whither Al Gore (WAG) ? (Formerly AGW. Now ED : “environmental damage”.)
Get ’em young: Red-Green propaganda machine oiled up/spinning.
“Some of the 18,000-plus students and teachers applaud during We Day at Rogers Arena on Friday.”
“Finally, it was Al Gore’s turn to address the crowd. The former U.S. vice-president and presidential candidate started with a story about when he met a 13-year-old Craig Kielburger and was moved by the power he had to initiate social change. “You can continue to nurture the idealism and passion in your hearts. Never give up,” Gore said.
reminded them that there is still so much to do to combat global warming. He urged the crowd to push for clean energy sources such as solar and wind power. Gore said future generations will look back on this day and note that these are the people who said it was possible to reverse the environmental damage.”
“Thousands inspired by We Day speakers
Rick Hansen, Al Gore, Martin Sheen and Rev. Jesse Jackson deliver stirring messages to Rogers Arena crowd”
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Thousands+inspired+speakers/3682377/story.html