British star leads a crusade of climate comedy on YouTube
Pic: Joel Telling/Flickr
By Sophie Yeo
Climate comedians and pranksters have had a fruitful week.
Among a surge of climate videos posted on YouTube this week is Russell Brand having a dig at “troublesome loony” Lenar Whitney, a Republican Congress candidate for Louisiana whose campaign video celebrates the heady days of America’s coal boom with pictures of miserable miners on overcrowded trains.
A video from Greenpeace attacking Lego’s partnership with oil company Shell is slickly produced but rather more sinister. Little plastic figures are slowly drowned in a rising flow of oil; proof that, contrary to the motif of the recent Lego movie, “everything is not awesome.”
Pranksters in the US and Canada have started posting videos of themselves “rollin’ coal”. This is the latest pastime of anti-climate campaigners, who modify their vehicles so they purposely emit huge plumes of toxic soot – or, as one magazine describes it, “pollution porn for dudes with pickup trucks”.
Outside of YouTube, one climate jester has unveiled a hilarious joke on the Huffington Post. It begins “A climate change scientist and a climate change skeptic walked into an Oxford pub…”. Tell it to all your friends.