{"id":18088,"date":"2019-09-30T01:30:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T01:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18088"},"modified":"2019-10-01T14:26:26","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T14:26:26","slug":"leave-em-laughing-instead-of-crying-climate-humor-can-break-down-barriers-and-find-common-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/leave-em-laughing-instead-of-crying-climate-humor-can-break-down-barriers-and-find-common-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Leave ’em laughing instead of crying: Climate humor can break down barriers and find common ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maxwell Boykoff<\/a>, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Climate change is not inherently funny. Typically, the messengers are serious scientists describing how rising greenhouse gas emissions are harming the planet on land<\/a> and at sea<\/a>, or assessing what role it played in the latest wildfire<\/a> or hurricane<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Society may have reached a saturation point for such somber, gloomy and threatening science-centered discussions. This possibility is what inspires my recent work with colleague Beth Osnes<\/a> to get messages out about climate change through comedy and humor.<\/p>\n

I have studied and practiced climate communication<\/a> for about 20 years. My new book, \u201cCreative (Climate) Communications<\/a>,\u201d integrates social science and humanities research and practices to connect people more effectively through issues they care about. Rather than \u201cdumbing down\u201d science for the public, this is a \u201csmartening up\u201d approach that has been shown to bring people together around a highly divisive topic.<\/p>\n