What's Comedy Got to Do With Climate Change?
Rainn Wilson, "The Office," "Game of Thrones"; Tim Robinson, "I Think You Should Leave"
It must be Fun Friday here at Hot Globe winter headquarters high in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe, as we split log “rounds” with a 20-pound sledge to keep warm and fuel our wood-burning fireplace. Obviously, a contradiction. Burning carbon, releasing it, highly atavistic English castle stuff, and so we gotta laugh at ourselves. Fortunately, the comedy geniuses at Yellow “Don’t Look Up” Dot have provided us with some new and hilarious climate science videos which, my guess here, the PhD’s among you have not yet viewed:
First, Tim Robinson. You may not like his nose and his yelling but you know you laughed along with him in 8th grade algebra before you went on to pre-calc and he turned up years later with his own hit TV show. Here he speaks to how climate change should be broached to the average guy out there:
This video got 2.8 million views on Instagram in, like, 24 hours. Don’t laugh (or do) but it may have moved the climate needle more than a re-reading of the IPCC report.
And here’s one from Rainn Wilson, a Game of Thrones spoof called “A Tale of Fire and Ice” which savages Big Oil, science vs. magic, no dragons:
Rainn Percival Dietrich Wilson, a graduate of Tufts and NYU, starred in The Office, of course, and much else. “A Tale of Fire and Ice” got 1.75 million views.
These videos move the youth vote on climate change, along with stand-up clips by incredibly fast-talking climate influencers like alex.haraus on TikTok. No wonder President Biden and jack-of-all-trades advisor John Podesta, who disburses the billions in the Inflation Reduction Act and last week took over from John Kerry as special Climate Envoy, are listening up. Note that in response they recently postponed the decision to license the gargantuan Calcasieu2 LNG (fossil gas) export facility on the Gulf Coast, to the howls of oily conservatives. YellowDot’s imaginative short films remind me of the great (angry) election videos from author and filmmaker Don Winslow or the Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt, but targeted humor goes a long way.
I can imagine Joe and John shutting the door to the Oval Office and viewing these videos at the end of the day. At least they should be doing that. Would they smile, guffaw or frown?
We shall see if YellowDot mastermind Adam McKay is invited to the White House for a photo-op before the elections.
Lest you think the cold is making us silly, here’s the serious-message video that goes along with the wild stuff. It features climate scientist and Caltech physicist Peter Kalmus, a colleague of our partners at the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, and the
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