It’s easier to convey the catastrophe while laughing
Scientists can judge, analyze and explain the world. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us are listening. People involved in communicating climate change repeatedly say that we need a mix of sober (and often bleak) science and more personal or hopeful narratives. Maybe even a laugh or two, writes Will de Freitas, energy and environment editor at The Conversation am 21.02.2024 im Imagine-Newsletter – a weekly summary of scientific findings on solutions to climate change, published by The Conversation is provided.
Take climate catastrophe with humor – Photomontage © Gerhard Hofmann, Zukunft Agency
“This week we look at using humor to explain the climate crisis: Comedy can of course attract celebrities and their audiences. That’s what UCL’s Mark Maslin discovered late last year when he teamed up with British comedy legend Jo Brand to translate complex climate science into understandable and funny content. Maslin is already something of a celebrity in climate change circles. A renowned scientist, he has written for The Conversation on everything from carbon credits to the Anthropocene to Neanderthal DNA. However, he has found that his work can reach a much larger audience through comedy.”
“My video with Jo Brand has been viewed more than three million times so far and has attracted mainstream attention, with celebrities including Ellie Goulding, Gary Lineker, Rainn Wilson and Thom Yorke retweeting the videos. This brings the core message to a wider audience every time.
Maslin and Brand were invited on breakfast television to talk about their collaboration, and he notes that the presenter later asked a government minister a difficult question sparked by their videos. For Maslin, this is proof that: “Celebrities can reach a much larger audience than scientists. “Just imagine if Taylor Swift was dating a climate scientist and not an American football player.”
But there’s also something about comedy itself that makes it a medium well-suited to the climate crisis.
Maxwell Boykoff is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and has been working on climate communication for two decades. In a post about how humor can break barriers and find common ground on climate issues, he says that comedy exploits cracks in arguments:
“It creeps in, offends, and draws attention to the inconsistent, the hypocritical, the false, and the presumptuous. It can make the complex dimensions of climate change more accessible and the challenges more manageable.
Boykoff’s research shows that comedy can lower defenses: “It temporarily suspends social rules and exposes people to ideas and new ways of thinking and acting.” Maslin gives an example of this suspension of rules: “Comedians can say things that that scientists can’t say – for example, they can swear.” He himself doesn’t swear because “the public expects scientists to be calm, rational and stick to facts – as soon as we become ‘human’ we lose credibility.” A comedian can do the swearing for him: “In many ways Jo Brand is my human side, screaming at everyone to do something, and do it now!”
Maslin’s dilemma will be familiar to anyone who saw the 2021 film Don’t Look Up, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as scientists trying to warn everyone about a comet that’s on a collision course with Earth. The film was, of course, also a parable about climate change and the way scientists are ignored. For Josh Ettinger, a climate communications expert at the University of Oxford, it shows that simply hitting people over the head with facts doesn’t work. Instead, “communicating our ability to act on climate change – presenting a sense of efficacy or ‘constructive hope’ – is crucial.”
Many viewers (and probably most readers of Imagine) will be able to relate to the frustration of the protagonists. Ettinger says this can be useful: “A good comedy captures the absurdities we all experience in our daily lives. We then have the feeling that we are ‘in the game’. This is particularly important for climate action because the sense of group belonging is an important factor in individuals’ participation in activism. Therefore, the film could promote a sense of solidarity and shared identity among climate change advocates.” However, he also points out that such comedy can be polarizing: “It’s clear who is being satirized when the film shows Americans wearing red baseball caps with the words ‘Don’t Look Up’ and denying the existence of the comet . We can assume that those who are already concerned about climate change will be more likely to watch the film, while those who are being ridiculed will be less inclined to watch it.” He expects the film to resonate with people, those who are informed or concerned about climate change but not yet alarmed will have the greatest impact. The core metaphor in Don’t Look Up has some limitations: climate change won’t destroy the world overnight, nor can it be fixed simply by the explosion of a single comet. But for environmental geographer Oli Mold, who writes about the virtues of climate disaster films, these details don’t matter: “If cinema is to be used more as a tool to raise public awareness of the climate catastrophe, then accuracy is not essential: it is the emotional connection and compelling narrative that matter most.”
Climate scientist Mark Maslin teams up with comedian Jo Brand to explain the urgency of the climate crisis. Together, they discover that humor cuts through in a way that simple facts simply cannot. Let them laugh instead of cry: Climate humor can break down barriers and find common ground Migration is seen as an inevitable consequence of climate change. It could also be part of the solution. “Don’t Look Up” shows that overwhelming people with facts doesn’t work. Does “Don’t Look Up” wake people up? This is what research says about climate communication. Films about climate disasters find a resonance that never will in the news. This powerful new eco-drama suggests that “cli-fi” could play a crucial role in climate communication.
2024-02-25 06:02:59
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