{"id":4258,"date":"2020-04-10T15:47:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T15:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/?p=4258"},"modified":"2020-04-10T15:47:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T15:47:44","slug":"steal-this-joke-uplifting-climate-comedy-celebrates-earth-day-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/2020\/04\/10\/steal-this-joke-uplifting-climate-comedy-celebrates-earth-day-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Steal This Joke: Uplifting Climate Comedy Celebrates Earth Day 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Medium<\/a><\/em>
by Beth Osnes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, you can\u2019t steal these jokes on climate change because we\u2019re giving them to you for free. In fact, we\u2019re going out of our way to encourage you to give climate comedy a try. If anything in this article tickles your funny bone, it\u2019s yours. Go ahead, try it on. And, yes, this joke does make your butt look big. Whereas comedian and author Paul Tompkins<\/a> bemoans the reality of joke plagiarism within the field of stand-up comedy, we embrace it as a channel for disseminating creative climate communication. With my comedy collaborator, Max Boykoff at the University of Colorado, we\u2019ve led our students in performing live climate comedy, we\u2019ve run international climate comedy video contests, and have even published academic articles about the surprising benefits of utilizing comedy to communicate climate \u2014 all through Inside the Greenhouse<\/a>, an initiative at the University of Colorado for creative climate communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a comedian, I find that research is the most creative force on Earth. That is why we partner with Project Drawdown<\/a> which has researched a list of the top climate solutions. This list is a veritable snack platter of comic material. According to Drawdown\u2019s 2020 revised ranking of solutions, family planning is part of the third most impactful solution for reversing global warming \u2014 above solar. Who knew? This knowledge can help us invest our finances, guide policies, and<\/em> provide funny rhymes. Love the glove. Give the pill a free refill. Put your buck on the interrupted f \u2014 <\/em>\u2026well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When environmentalist Paul Hawkens, who is the originator and former director of Project Drawdown, learned in 2017 that refrigerant management was the top solutions he pronounced it a PR nightmare. It could likewise be thought of as a comedian\u2019s nightmare. What\u2019s funny about refrigerants? Yet even in the chill of this subject, there is comedy to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 1950s refrigerator walks into a bar, sees a good-looking refrigerator and asks, \u201cAre you Freon Friday night?\u201d Since this joke relies on chemical knowledge of how Freon factors into the process of refrigeration, this may be a lesson in \u201cknow thy audience.\u201d This joke would fall flat on a less informed crowd, but at our performance at the 2019 Drawdown conference in New York, this in-joke got a hearty laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When looking for comedic material beyond climate solutions, remember that nothing is more worthy or ripe for ridicule than us environmentalists. The only risk is that we can be seen as too easy a target. But regardless, we will gladly paint red concentric circles over our bleeding hearts. How do you get an environmentalist to change a lightbulb? Tell them its incandescent. What do you get when you cross F.D.R. with a liberal in the pickle aisle? The Green New Deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In giving these jokes away for free, we hope to unleash a rogue agent in an otherwise commodified world. Jokes, freely shared, can liberate us through that strange involuntary opening of the mouth and the mind known as laughter. In that moment, rigidity is relaxed, the single perspective is questioned, hypocrisy is exposed, and delight is released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get a jumpstart on your inspiration for creating climate comedy by watching Stand Up for Climate<\/em>, a celebration for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, released April 22, 2020 at 7:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time (go to www.insidethegreenhouse.org).<\/a> This \u201cbest of\u201d show features brief climate comedy videos from our five years of hosting this event along with this year\u2019s international climate comedy video contest winners. Max Boykoff and Beth Osnes will co-host, and Philadelphia comedian Chuck Nice<\/a> is a featured guest. This online offering is an example of something we call, \u2018good natured\u2019 comedy,\u2019 which our research shows helps process negative emotions, feeds hope, and sustains climate action. Reversing global warming is a mighty challenge to our survival that requires a steep incline in new behaviors. But like any huge mountain, there\u2019s only one way to get over it. Climate!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tompkins, Paul. \u201cJoke theft: Is it really an issue in comedy?\u201d Big Think.<\/em> January 5, 2020. https:\/\/bigthink.com\/videos\/comedy-plagiarism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Osnes, Beth, Max Bokoff, & Patrick Chandler. \u201cGood natured comedy to enrich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

climate communication.\u201d Comedy Studies. <\/em>10:2, 2019, 224\u2013236, DOI:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.1080\/2040610X.2019.1623513.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out #insidethegreenhouse, @everydayclimate, @ITG_Boulder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mediumby Beth Osnes Actually, you can\u2019t steal these jokes on climate change because we\u2019re giving them to you for free. In fact, we\u2019re going out of our way to encourage you to give climate comedy a try. If anything in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentaries","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-29 21:54:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4261,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions\/4261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}