Arctic/AGW humour and satire

[idunno]

Hi all,

One of the big growth areas in the internet I've seen since my return from my sabbatical seems to be a big growth in the number of satirical reviews of anti-science sites.

I see this as a very positive development, and one which may prove as important in the "Climate Wars" as the still excellent, very important, but often rather dry material provided by sites such as "Open Mind" and "Skeptical Science".

The new, to me, "Hot Whopper" site is even prepared to trawl the comments sections of WUWT for unintentional humour - a thankless task, for which I cannot thank them enough, as it means I don't have to.

 http://blog.hotwhopper.com/

And they have a lot of excellent links on the side bar, to this sort of thing:

http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/an-open-letter-to-the-la-times/

I thought other regulars on here might enjoy some of this light relief from more serious stuff, and please do share any more good bits.

Finally, you've probably all seen it, and its not updating, but the first post in this thread would be a travesty if it didn't contain a link to the granddaddy:

http://denialdepot.blogspot.fr/

Enjoy! (and if you do, please return to share)

[pikaia]

Arctic Sea Ice Downfall:

[idunno]

Some classics from The Onion, as reposted by Joe Romm;

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/04/1135311/report-only-way-nation-will-pay-attention-to-climate-change-is-if-julia-roberts-dies-in-hurricane/

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/12/13/388712/report-global-warming-may-be-irreversible-by-2006/

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/21/372901/greenhouse-gases-the-onion/

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/11/10/207013/the-onion-global-warming/

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/02/234023/the-onion-planet-earth-doesnt-know-how-to-make-it-any-clearer-it-wants-everyone-to-leave/

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/07/313577/the-onion-on-climate-change/

... and there's more if you follow the links on the above stories.

[idunno]

Will denialist superhero Lord Monckton come clean as to his real-life identity?

[icefest]

Firstly, my apologies for necroposting.

I just came across the Sacha Baron Cohen/Lord Monckton skit for the first time but was disappointed to find that it had already been posted by idunno. 

Seeing as it made me laugh that much though, I feel that it deserves a bump.

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for the "bump" icefest, no apology required. Not least because it prompts me to mention that I was recently engaged in a conversation with Monkton@WUWT that might appeal to those with an "extra-dry" sense of humour:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/04/snow-white-is-actually-a-cowardly-cross-dresser/

[Sigmetnow]

The Guardian just posted a compilation of "Great climate change comedy moments in video clips."  Some have already been mentioned above.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/may/29/great-climate-change-comedy-moments-in-video-clips

Here is my favorite, a song by the group Tripod:

[JayW]

A funny, bit about two of my favorite historical visionaries.  I know the title is strange, but if you read the whole thing, you will see the relevance.  Enjoy.

How Nikola Tesla Made Mark Twain Crap His White Suit (…And How We Can Avoid The Same Fate)

http://thoughtcatalog.com/zaron-burnett-iii/2014/02/how-nikola-tesla-made-mark-twain-crap-his-white-suit-and-how-we-can-avoid-the-same-fate/

[Jim Hunt]

Here is my favorite, a song by the group Tripod:

A collection of some of my own favourite pieces of music:

http://water-connects-us.org/

I think "Oh Christ It's Christmas!" can reasonably be described as humorous. Not sure about the rest though!

[Sigmetnow]

Andy Borowitz:

After a report from the Yale Center on Climate Change Communication showed that the term "climate change" elicits relatively little concern from the American public, leading scientists are recommending replacing it with a new term, "You Will Be Burnt to a Crisp and Die." Other terms under consideration by the scientists include "Your Cities Will Be Ravaged By Tsunamis and Floods" and "Earth Will Be a Fiery Hell Hole Incapable of Supporting Human Life." "Any of these terms would do a better job of conveying the urgency of the problem," said a spokesperson for the newly renamed Yale Center for Oh My God Wake Up You Assholes.

[pikaia]

Freedom for Tooting! 

[Jim Hunt]

Freedom for Tooting! 

For those who may not initially appreciate the reference, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Smith

not to mention:

[skanky]

I think the first couple of lines in this song are to be taken with a fairly dry (excuse the pun) sense of humour:

http://standardfare.bandcamp.com/track/philadelphia

Crank the bass up for the chorus - PC speakers won't crack it. 

[crandles]

Edit: oops forgot to put in link
http://xkcd.com/164/
for mouseover text  - given below and title: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

[icefest]

@crandles, you forgot the mouseover text: 
Title text: There are so many well-meaning conservatives around here who just assume global warming is only presented as a moral issue for political reasons.

[Anne]

Thanks for that, icefest - I was hunting the xkcd site for the missing mouseover text!

[Laurent]

9 Political Cartoons That Put Climate Change In Perspective
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/07/niels-bugge-cartoon-award_n_5455509.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

[crandles]

[greylib]

Previously titled 'electoral campaign', it was renamed 'politicians discussing global warming', with considerable success!

http://futuryst.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/politicians-discussing-global-warming.html

[Sigmetnow]

Climate Change Denial Song ("Believe It Or Not")

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=slB5O4eEn8I&feature=youtu.be

[Laurent]

Remember the last one, here is the next...

[Pmt111500]

This is not exactly Arctic-related, but tangentially AGW-related, who knew that NATO eavesdrops even in the mental asylums: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2663075/Putin-plotting-halt-UK-fracking-warns-Nato-chief-Secretary-General-claims-agents-working-campaigners-make-sure-Europe-continues-reliance-Russian-energy-exports.html

[Sigmetnow]

Winners and favorites: cartoons from the Niels Bugge Cartoon Award, an international competition aimed at drawing attention to environmental issues.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/12/niels_bugge_cartoon_award_entries_look_at_climate_change.html

[Milret2]

I know this blog is an international community of observers,  people concerned about our global climate, scientists, amateur scientists (who do a nice job here in my non scientific estimate), and other interested parties. I am leaving here a youtube video made of one of our (USA) senators talking to an EPA expert about climate elsewhere in the solar system that has made me realize that the fight to find a solution will be very hard. Oh well. You might at least get a little humor out of it.

[TerryM]

OMG!!!
Could some bright 5th grader please set him straight. It's terrifying to realise that people like this are the ones making decisions.


Terry

[Lynn Shwadchuck]

I feel sick.

[solartim27]

Everything this man does is funny:
http://climatecrocks.com/2014/07/22/john-oliver-dont-go-to-antarctica/

https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

[NeilT]

I borrowed this one from climateprogress before it became so integrated into thinkprogress.

I've noticed links tend to vanish over time.  So I took it offline.

[Jim Hunt]

My apologies for blowing my own trumpet again, but I'm afraid we North Devon surfers have taken umbrage over what we perceive to be a piss poor piss take (PPPT for short) from the ToryGraph and plagiarists thereof about what it really takes to be able to surf the Arctic basin:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/08/the-worlds-leading-arctic-surfing-expert/

Fiddling with Photoshop in Fleet Street just doesn't cut the mustard!

[Hefaistos]

 HuffPost:
To hold back rising sea levels, Trump will build a sea wall and make the fish pay for it.

[shmengie]

Digging a hole without basic "facts" may get you wet.

Eg. playing golf on thin ice:

[logicmanPatrick]

On the soon to be inaugurated AGW denier-in-chief -

It's such a relief that the well-known fact-checker Donald Trump has finally come out against fake news

Because he's so determined to be refreshingly honest, with not a hint of suspicion his decisions might be influenced by his business interests, he's placed them with people entirely neutral and independent: his own family.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/mark-steel/its-such-a-relief-that-the-wellknown-factchecker-donald-trump-has-finally-come-out-against-fake-news-35366529.html

[logicmanPatrick]

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is rumoured to have turned down a request to sing a cover of the Elvis hit from Girls! Girls! Girls!

[logicmanPatrick]

The Rich Man In His Castle

All things bright and beautiful,
   All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
   Some rich guy owns them all.

Each little flower that opens,
   Each birdie in the woods,
He'll package them in plastic,
   And market them as goods.

All things bright ...

The rich man in his castle,
   The poor man at his gate,
The rich man eats the dinner,
   The poor man cleans the plate.

All things bright ...

The purple headed mountain,
   The river running by,
That's where they'll test the H-bomb,
   That brightens up the sky.

All things bright ...

The warm wind in the winter,
   The pleasant summer sun,
Make fruits ripe in his garden,
   Ain't global warming fun?

All things bright ...

The tall trees in the greenwood,
   The meadows where we play,
Are being bulldozed over,
   To make a motorway.

All things bright ...

He has no eyes to see this,
   And much prefers to tell,
How great is Gold Almighty,
   And we can go to hell.

All things bright ...

[Pmt111500]

Hollywood? Only for foreign release?

[etienne]

My last creation. It's not about global warming, but about limited ressources on earth.
http://schrondweiler.teemill.com

[kassy]

A timeline of Earth´s average temperature:

https://xkcd.com/1732/


It´s big so view it on the link.

[Pmt111500]

A timeline of Earth´s average temperature:

https://xkcd.com/1732/


It´s big so view it on the link.

Well, there are some humorous bits in there

[Sleepy]

Yes, xkcd is an old and good one. Unfortunately dated since expected positive feedbacks (leaders in the Americas) are missing at the end.

[Pmt111500]

Yes, xkcd is an old and good one. Unfortunately dated since expected positive feedbacks (leaders in the Americas) are missing at the end.

Well there's a new name for them and their kin... "The expected positive feedbacks"      thanks.

[sidd]

America's Finest News Source on a threatened species:

https://www.theonion.com/ecologists-discover-400-species-of-charles-darwin-livin-1830382825

sidd

[Pmt111500]

This thread lacks the self-referential link to a joke:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/board,21.0.html

[Sleepy]

#13 above still works.

[Sleepy]

The four pillars of SEO.
Pillar 1: Authority
Pillar 2: Relevance
Pillar 3: User Experience
Pillar 4: Site Health

[Pmt111500]

By E.Parviainen (original, E. Järnefelt 1893) #RakeNews

[Sleepy]

<sub>White Man Behind A Desk from 20150624. Not sure how funny it is anymore.


White Man Behind A Desk quits comedy, pivots to political commentary.</sub>
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/24-09-2018/white-man-behind-a-desk-quits-comedy-pivots-to-political-commentary/

<sub>The calculus of supply and demand has driven WMBAD to abandon humour and focus instead on hot takes. Here Robbie Nicol, Finnius Teppett et al pitch their wares

White Man Behind A Desk has given up comedy because it is a moral evil. Some people might think we gave up because of our inability to convert views into financial success or because we were never that funny to begin with. To those people, we would say, “Shut up.”

Luckily, we have discovered a job that requires neither knowledge nor humour – political commentary.

The White Man Behind A Desk writing staff now intends to devote their time solely to the production of inflammatory hot takes.</sub>

[vox_mundi]

[Tor Bejnar]

… Alexa, make the world simple ...

Wow, technology will save us!
 

[TerryM]

It wasn't so very long ago that the religious zealots were screaming that "The end is near", even as established science railed against Veliskovsky's  attacks on Lyell's Uniformitarianism.

Terry

[gerontocrat]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/08/trump-bezos-public-life-dignified-us-president
In the age of Trump and Bezos, public life is one big smutty ancient Greek vase
Marina Hyde

What’s the most dignified way to handle the scrapes your penis gets you into? Ask the US president and the world’s richest man

Is there a Russian piss-tape of Donald Trump? Did a government agency intercept Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s dick pics? How did Trump’s cheerleaders at the National Enquirer get them? Is this part of Trump’s willy-waving at Bezos as owner of the Washington Post? Does the Enquirer’s apparent blackmail threat to Bezos breach its plea deal with Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation, which gave its owners, American Media Inc, immunity in exchange for evidence about Michael Cohen’s role in its policy of buying and killing Trump sex exposés? Is Riyadh somehow involved, given AMI’s business ties with senior Saudi figures, and given that Bezos owns the Washington Post, whose columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by the regime last October?

Guys, I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I am enjoying this reminder of why literally every American president has had a penis and why more than 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs do, too. Face it: the plotlines are just better. Public life is one big smutty ancient Greek vase.

And so to Bezos versus National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who is real, and not the result of one of those “to get your porn name” games. As you may have read, the magazine has experienced problems …delivering the Amazon boss’s package to its readers. Last month it published details of his affair; this week, Pecker’s winged monkeys threatened to publish his sexy snaps. Instead of capitulating, Bezos published the full correspondence on Thursday, under the mimsily hilarious headline “No thank you, Mr Pecker”. Though this sounds like a porn sequel to Goodbye, Mr Chips, it concludes with a ringing, Jimmy Stewart-style call to arms.

“I won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” quavers Jeff, giving it the full Mr Smith Goes to Noshington. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. Sincerely, Jeff Bezos.”

Well now. I see Ming the Merciless Retailer has been widely praised for his “dignity”. And sincerely, I don’t want to be a prick here, because in this one particular fight, Jeff is arguably the less unpleasant of the parties involved, who are – in no particular order – Donald Trump, the swamp-rat publisher of the National Enquirer and the actual Saudis. But we can’t really have a Bezos-related conversation about “dignity” without mentioning that low-waged people who work for him sleep in tents and piss in bottles out of fear of being fired for taking a bathroom break.

On the other hand, those untangling the Trump web will take what they can. Occupying the moral high ground, then, is the richest man in the world, who is essentially saying that the way HE handles the scrapes his penis gets him into is so much more noble than the way the leader of the free world handles the scrapes HIS penis gets him into. He’s right. Hey – in the kingdom of the dignity-free, the guy who doesn’t pay people not to mention the Mario Kart mushroom is king.

Moving on to Bezos’s suggestion that an intelligence agency ordered the interception of his texts, the two possibilities fingered for it so far are the Mossad or MI6, but not, as some would hope, Vladimir Putin’s GRU. Still, going by what typical high-profile hacking victims tell us, it’s not really their calling card. This week, a Labour MP declared herself a victim of hacking, after it was revealed her Twitter account had liked a dick pic. (That’s the dread of this new cold war we’re living in – the thought that while you are sleeping, the Russkies could sneak into your Twitter account, like a single pornographic image but do nothing else, then leave as undetectably as they came. DAMN YOU, KARLA. We’re not so very different, you and I …)

Given its attendant liabilities, then, perhaps it is no surprise to find the penis itself at the centre of some of the most significant political currents of our time. Indeed, perhaps it was ever thus, particularly as far as the office of US president is concerned. During the 1800 election campaign, Thomas Jefferson bemoaned the lack of big dick energy in John Adams, branding him a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman”.

When the Basic Instinct and Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas came to write his book about Bill Clinton, he made the 42nd president’s penis the protagonist. According to Gennifer Flowers, Clinton called his Willard, and Willard narrates vast chunks of the thing. Even the eminent Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson biography makes space for Johnson’s penis, which Johnson apparently called Jumbo. (I know. How could he not call it his Johnson? That’s easily a worse missed opportunity than his failure to exit Vietnam after the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963.) According to Caro, Johnson was given to waving Jumbo around in front of subordinates, with the rhetorical inquiry: “Have you ever seen anything as big as this?”

Maybe it was into this rich tradition that Donald Trump sought to knit himself during his White House run. “I guarantee you there’s no problem,” he informed “Little Marco” Rubio of his penis size during a primary debate. “I guarantee it.” Two years later, the Enquirer’s “catch and kill” operation had not successfully silenced the porn star Stormy Daniels, who accepted Jimmy Kimmel’s invitation to pick the best Trump penis lookalike out of a variety of replica fungi.