Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Conversation, injecting humour into climate messages of impending death and destruction helps bypass people’s political filters.
A little humour may help with climate change gloom
November 11, 2019 12.06am AEDT
Lakshmi Magon, Dalla Lana Global Journalism Fellow, Science Communicator, University of TorontoThis year, three studies showed that humour is useful for engaging the public about climate change. The studies, published in The Journal of Science Communication, Comedy Studies and Science Communication, added to the growing wave of scientists, entertainers and politicians who agree.
In March 2017, the American Psychological Association published a reportdefining ecoanxiety as “chronic fear of environmental doom.” The report referred to literature that described an increase in depression and anxiety caused by peoples’ “inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change.”
With psychological stakes this high, humour may seem inappropriate. But Phil McCordic — a Canadian actor, writer and producer of children’s programming and the host of TVOntario’s Science Max educational series — thinks it could be a way to access “the attention of a lot of people you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“Humour is so useful for children’s programming because it grabs attention,” says McCordic, who adds he believes this can be applied to adults too.
“Climate-change humour stops people from worrying about their politics and lets them take in the information …. Scientists don’t always understand their audience. Getting someone to laugh is half of the work of getting them to understand.”
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/a-little-humour-may-help-with-climate-change-gloom-125860
I thought about trying out a few climate jokes, but trying to make fun of this latest climate communication effort seems a bit redundant.
Here’s a new wannabe David Viner, predicting the end of Arctic ice BU 2030. This should be saved for future reference:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191112114009.htm
Ancient Hopi Wisdom Drums In on Climate Change, Global Warming
https://youtu.be/OHIWeHtAE4g
Former Vice President Dick Cheney once remarked “In Wyoming, the climate has warmed by 50 degrees in the last three months. It’s called spring.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=golAjKMDuVk
I agree with Will 🙂
I’ve been making fun of the people who are predicting climate doomsday.
Is that close enough?
Sorry Eric, but your lead picture is captioned wrong.
Arthur is a human.
Ford is from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford after all.
This article about climate change humor made me laugh out loud several times:
From the article:
“This year, three studies showed that humour is useful for engaging the public about climate change. . .”
“In March 2017, the American Psychological Association published a report defining ecoanxiety as “chronic fear of environmental doom. . .”
“Humour is so useful for children’s programming because it grabs attention,” says McCordic, who adds he believes this can be applied to adults too.”
end excerpts
Instead of engaging the public with humor, how about engaging the public with evidence demonstrating that humans are affecting the Earth’s weather.
It’s no wonder people are suffering from “chronic fear of environmental doom”, the alarmists have been banging that drum for a long time, and weak-minded people are vulnerable to that kind of relentless pychological manipulation. Shame on those alamist liars.
They are programming children and now they want to program the adults, if they can just figure out how to do that.
All in all, it’s more sad than funny. Especially sad for the poor people who think they are doomed. The alarmist liars have lied to them and they believe the lie, and they suffer. The Liars hope the suffering of the unwashed will result in the Liars getting what they want.
The adults have programmed the kids to program the adults.
Someone like Greta Thunberg is raised on lies from childhood, believes the lies and regurgitates them with a sincerity the liars themselves can’t begin to feign. She thereby “launders” the lies of the lying liars,, doing their’ work for them without ever lying.
Did you spot this beauty in The Conversation article:
I wonder what orifice he pulled that magic number, sixteen, out of.
Far be it from me to question the science of pediatric psychology—not when it’s imparted ex posteriori by a magazine editor and failed Green Party candidate—but a more cynical person might almost wonder if Grant was going out of his way to avoid blaspheming the cult of Greta of Thunberg, the Swedish mystic who turned 16 this year.
Two cannibals were eating Naomi Oreskes, when one turned to the other and asked, “Does this taste funny to you?”
Maybe they can listen to Bono?
“The way we live in one place, affects life in every other place,’’ Bono said. “None of us is really an island.
“From rising sea levels in one country to catastrophic fires in yours, big crisis, global crisis but we can put out these fires if we act together as one.’’
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/u2-launches-epic-sound-and-vision-imagery-at-australian-tour-launch-20191112-p539wz.html#comments
If CO2 is causing these events Bono how about you reduce your massive carbon footprint?
A year or so ago when Matt Pritchett celebrated 25 years with the Telegraph here in the UK various of the subjects of his cartoons were asked to comment on them with all saying even if they were not overly flattering they liked his cartoons apart from Jeremy Corbyn who’s “aid” said that he didn’t find them funny and didn’t really look at them (sour grapes if you ask me).
I have found pocking fun at the outrageous claims of the climate faithful showing how ridiculous they are has more effect than trying to quote facts which go against their “beliefs”.
James Bull
One more for the road:
https://www.google.com/search?q=poisoning+pigeons+in+the+park&oq=poisoning+&aqs=chrome.