Comedy And The Climate Crisis

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

Birte Loschenkohl, December 18, 2019 (The Conversation)

“…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…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…[But such narratives]tend to inspire inertia and anxiety rather than action…Narratives of hope might go some way to changing the script and galvanising a response…[And there] is nothing funny about the prospect of environmental collapse…

I do not recommend that we turn away from tragic and apocalyptic narratives entirely – there is much truth and value to them…[But comedy allows] us to process news about climate change in a less anxiety-inducing way…[and] to reflect on who we are and how we do things in the world…[It] can point out where there are fundamental problems in our mechanical and technocratic behaviour toward the environment…[And it] might help us persevere in view of the seemingly impossible tasks ahead of us…” click here for more

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