Climate change is no laughing matter. Or is it?

Climate change is no laughing matter. Or is it

In 2017, Rollie Williams was a struggling comedian when he came across a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s book on climate change.

While a New York Times review described the book as “bright, gripping and downright effective,” Williams was struck by its potential for comedy. It had been ten years since the former vice president’s impassioned appeal, and the planet had only continued to warm.

“I thought Al Gore on an ‘I-told-you-so tour’ would be a funny premise for a comedy show,” he said. The resulting production was a hit.

Mr. Williams, who lives and works in Brooklyn, now creates comedy videos about the environment. He is part of a growing movement tackling the climate crisis with humor. From Hollywood films like Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ to independent sketches on YouTube and TikTok, comedians – no strangers to tackling tough topics – are increasingly looking for punchlines in one of the greatest existential threats ever faced by the planet.

Many people find the topic of global warming exhausting or depressing because of the apocalyptic stakes involved. But even some scientists and activists agree: climate change has a messaging problem.

“Academics are trained to write in their own language, sending you to the dictionary every three words,” says Sarah Finnie, the founder of the 51 percent project, a Boston University initiative that aims to help people better communicate about climate change. “Humor is a really great way to calm the doomerism and panic that can paralyze people.”

During the two-year “An awkward talk show,” in which Mr. Williams played Mr. Gore as a talk show host, he noticed how easy it was to recruit top scientists for interviews. Guests included Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a renowned marine biologist.

“They were like, ‘Someone actually wants to hear about climate change, and it’s not like a bunch of depressed people already doing research on this,’” said Mr. Williams, who ended the show in 2020.

Scientists also interacted with comedians in “Climate science translated”, a British collection of short video clips that turns research and data into relatable banter. “Climate science is complicated,” the videos state in their introduction, “so we translate it to humans.”

The series plans to debut in the United States later this year in time for the presidential election, said Ben Carey, co-founder of Utopia agencythe group behind the project.

Climate activists have also noted the effectiveness of humor. Marc Weiss and Rahwa Ghirmatzion were part of one coalition who successfully campaigned for New York Climate Actlegislation passed in 2019 that requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and at least 85 percent by 2050. Last summer, they became concerned that pro-business groups were lobbying for soften the law.

Mr. Weiss, a fan of “Don’t Look Up,” in which a world-ending comet is a metaphor for climate change, was interested in working with its director, Mr. McKay, who had just started a new organization: “Yellow Dot Studios”, in May last year. The nonprofit media studio produces short videos – mostly comedic – about climate change.

A meeting with Yellow Dot resulted in a new comedy campaign targeting the fossil fuel industry in New York State to raise awareness of efforts to delay and question climate law. The campaign plans to target certain energy managers for sharp mockery.

(According to thousands of scientists, the main cause of global warming is man’s burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide emissions warming the planet from burning coal, natural gas and oil for energy would reach a record – 36.8 billion tons — for 2023.)

This is the first time that Yellow Dot has taken on a regional campaign. If things go well, Staci Roberts-Steele, director, said she would be interested in more collaborations. “It’s a bit of a trial run,” she said. “But it’s a really fun way to look at specific laws.”

For Mr. McKay, humor offers a way to get at the truth about climate change, rather than resorting to slick language. “The problem with communicating the scale and urgency of the climate crisis is that there is a tendency to want to use the approaches developed by advertising agencies, PR firms, corporate news and commercial entertainment,” he said.

For many of the videos it produces, Yellow Dot focuses on everyday scenarios that lend themselves to comedy. Sketches show, among other things, mothers debating whether they can leave their home babies on induction hobs and a gas nozzle who acts like a jealous boyfriend when he notices his driver swooning over an electric vehicle. It also taps into star power: A recent video features Rainn Wilsonwho is best known for playing Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” as a climate scientist who visits from the future to warn the characters in “Game of Thrones” about fossil fuels.

Humor has not only helped in messaging about climate change, but has often been an essential ingredient in many social movements or transitions, says Caty Borum, executive director of American University. Center for Media & Social Impact.

“Comedy played a role important role in the American civil rights movement, and the use of memes on social media was very important during the Arab Spring uprising,” Ms. Borum said, giving two recent examples.

Andrew Boyd, a humorist and one of the activists behind it the Climate Clock in Union Square believes that laughter can help people desperate about global warming.

In his new book “I want a better catastrophe,” Mr. Boyd applies the five stages of grief to climate change, and adds a sixth: gallows humor. “We are faced with an impossible situation, and that is exactly what gallows humor is designed to do,” he said.

During the pandemic, Mr. Williams obtained his master’s degree Climate and society at Columbia University. Now, his YouTube channel, Climate cityhas over 550,000 subscribers and he hosts a podcast: “The climate denier playbook”, with Nicole Conlan, a writer for ‘The Daily Show’.

He recently entered into a partnership with Climate change makersa nonprofit organization that recommends simple actions people can take to influence politicians and other leaders.

But Williams hopes his comedy can do more than convince people to sign petitions or forward links, he said. “My ultimate goal is to inspire people to make systemic changes, rather than trying to recycle additional difficult.”