This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
By Lakshmi Magon
This year, three studies showed that humor 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 report defining eco-anxiety 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, humor 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."
"Humor 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 humor 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."
McCordic's views are echoed by researchers such as Christofer Skurka, assistant professor of film and media studies at the Bellisario College of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has shown that humor is a useful tool for making 18- to 24-year-olds more politically engaged in climate change.
Beth Osnes is an associate professor of theater at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research shows that the creative techniques used in theater are a useful tool for climate-change communication. Osnes says that communicating climate change to young people using humor is "magical."
"Climate change isn't a laughing matter but sometimes you have to laugh at your pain to get to a solution," she said.
Climate Comedy Has Wide-Ranging Applications
The climate-change humor trend isn't isolated to research institutions. Using comedy to tackle climate-change debate is found in mainstream media, including in the comedy of comedian John Oliver and The Late Show host Stephen Colbert.
The Onion, a landmark American satirical media outlet, has headlines that include "Report: If Earth Continues To Warm At Current Rate Moon Will Be Mostly Underwater By 2400" and "Sighing, Resigned Climate Scientists Say To Just Enjoy Next 20 Years As Much As You Can."
YouTuber Adam Levy, who earned a doctorate in atmospheric physics from Oxford University and operates under the handle Climate Adam, uses humor to make climate-change science more accessible.
"Science should be serious! But it should also be funny, challenging, impressive and a range of other things," says Levy. "I want to make climate change less scary by tapping into that funny side."
Lakshmi Magon is the Dalla Lana Global Journalism Fellow, Science Communicator, at the University of Toronto.
Disclosure statement: Lakshmi Magon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond her academic appointment.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Nestlé cannot claim that its Ice Mountain bottled water brand is an essential public service, according to Michigan's second highest court, which delivered a legal blow to the food and beverage giant in a unanimous decision.
A number of supermarkets across the country have voluntarily issued a recall on sushi, salads and spring rolls distributed by Fuji Food Products due to a possible listeria contamination, as CBS News reported.
If you read a lot of news about the climate crisis, you probably have encountered lots of numbers: We can save hundreds of millions of people from poverty by 2050 by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but policies currently in place put us on track for a more than three degree increase; sea levels could rise three feet by 2100 if emissions aren't reduced.
Poverty and violence in Central America are major factors driving migration to the United States. But there's another force that's often overlooked: climate change.
Retired Lt. Cmdr. Oliver Leighton Barrett is with the Center for Climate and Security. He says that in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, crime and poor economic conditions have long led to instability.
"And when you combine that with protracted drought," he says, "it's just a stressor that makes everything worse."
Barrett says that with crops failing, many people have fled their homes.
"These folks are leaving not because they're opportunists," he says, "but because they are in survival mode. You have people that are legitimate refugees."
So Barrett supports allocating foreign aid to programs that help people in drought-ridden areas adapt to climate change.
"There are nonprofits that are operating in those countries that have great ideas in terms of teaching farmers to use the land better, to harvest water better, to use different variety of crops that are more resilient to drought conditions," he says. "Those are the kinds of programs I think are needed."
So he says the best way to reduce the number of climate change migrants is to help people thrive in their home countries.
Reporting credit: Deborah Jian Lee / ChavoBart Digital Media.
Reposted with permission from Yale Climate Connections.
- Trump Admin Ignored Its Own Data Linking Migrant Crisis to Climate ... ›
- How Climate Change Is Driving Emigration From Central America ... ›
Trending
Chris Pratt was called out on social media by Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa after Pratt posted an image "low key flexing" with a single-use plastic water bottle.