Pirate's Cove

These people are not funny, not when they are talking about politics. Well, OK, they are kinda funny in the “WTF are you doing?” kind of way, like, when some says “hey, y’all, watch this”, not like Robin Williams or Richard Prior live in concert funny. Not like Eddie Murphy at the barbecue.

Comedy can help us tackle the climate crisis – here’s how

Society’s defining issues are rarely presented as raw facts and stats, and climate change is no exception. From the performance of funerals for lost species and glaciers to the claim that the best we can do is adapt to impending catastrophe, climate change is often narrated like a classic Greek tragedy. Errors in human judgement set off a chain of events that once in motion inevitably bring extreme suffering, and a powerful sense of helplessness to change what we know is coming.

In many ways, such gloomy perspectives are appropriate. Millions of people are already being displaced or killed by the human-caused destabilisation of our climate. And yet, as environmental scientists and communication specialists point out, such narratives are problematic because they tend to inspire inertia and anxiety rather than action.

Narratives of hope might go some way to changing the script and galvanising a response. But there’s an even more suitable story we can supplement our tragic narratives with: comedy.

EVERYTHING IS DOOM!!!!!! Here’s some comedy.

This proposal might seem bizarre. There is nothing funny about the prospect of environmental collapse. But while comedies are meant to be funny, they don’t have to be lighthearted or trivial.

So, not really comedy.

Many philosophical approaches to comedy hold that comic effects arise from incongruities: mismatches between what we expect and what we perceive. For French philosopher Henri Bergson, one of the central incongruities used in comedy is when organic life – normally chaotic, changeable, and adaptable – instead acts in a machine-like way. Bergson argues that laughing at this incongruity is a social tool by which we mildly scold each other for not being adaptive and flexible enough.

The article doesn’t mention one bit of “comedy” from anywhere close to the modern era

I do not recommend that we turn away from tragic and apocalyptic narratives entirely – there is much truth and value to them. But we would do well to supplement them with comic reflections on our relationship with nature and our ability to act in the face of hopelessness. Comedy is not merely a way to allow us to process news about climate change in a less anxiety-inducing way. It allows us to reflect on who we are and how we do things in the world.

Sounds like a knee slapper, eh?

More specifically, comedy can point out where there are fundamental problems in our mechanical and technocratic behaviour toward the environment. And, finally, if we begin to think of our own agency more like that of comic heroes — not in control of their environment, yet often able to muddle through despite their own ineptitudes and repeated failures — this might help us persevere in view of the seemingly impossible tasks ahead of us.

One problem: Warmists are humorless scolds, who think it’s funny to wish death on people who do not believe in the climate crisis scam. Who want to put them in jail. They really are miserable. (and hypocrites)