Climate Activists Turn to Political Humor, for a Serious Purpose

"Whoever has the memes has the power," Adbusters creator Kalle Lasn wrote in his 2000 book Culture Jam. Environmental activists, up against well-paid lobbyists and billion-dollar corporations, are hoping that modern adage holds true.

In just the last month alone, four major climate change stunts have caught not only the media's attention but the public's as well, as activists hurled satirical darts at major countries and fossil-fuel firms.

The Yes Men, a group that impersonates officials from organizations they oppose, has been a driving force behind the recent mockery.

On May 17, in the wake of Gulf coast oil spill, the group sent a press release posing as Shell and claiming that the oil company was planning to stop all offshore drilling and start remediating the mangroves it has decimated in Nigeria. The prank came just a few months after the Yes Man successfully staged a phony press conference claiming that Canada will completely shut down its controversial tar sands oil operations.

Likewise, environmental group Greenpeace has been stepping up its forays into satire.

Last month, as part of its campaign to unveil the greatest funders of the climate denial industry, the organization shone a light on the oil giants running Koch Industries, a business empire built on oil refining, by producing a series of mock "Climate Crime" videos. 

In one video, Greenpeace filmed a Law & Order spoof on the streets of New York City, asking real people if they have seen David and Charles Koch, the "wanted" billionaires behind the family business.

Meanwhile, in a more artistic attempt at climate change wit, Dutch sculptor Ap Verheggen recently placed a sculpture on a melting iceberg in Greenland. The sculpture is currently floating around and will eventually sink into the ocean as the iceberg continues to melt. Verheggen has three more installations planned in climate sensitive areas in northern Canada and Siberia.

In a similar vein, DJ Spooky, a hip-hop artist and world-famous DJ, spent several months recording the sounds of glacier ice melting in Antarctica as part of his Sinfonia Antarctica project. Through the project, the artist hopes to "create an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent," according to the statement accompanying the piece.

And most recently, the Twitter feed @BPGlobalPR has racked up over 100,000 followers in just two weeks, raising the hackles of the real BP, with tweets like:

"As part of our continued re-branding effort, we are now referring to the spill as 'Shell Oil's Gulf Coast Disaster." #bpcares" and "The oil leak was caused by a natural gas explosion, or sea fart, which is now having silent but deadly consequences. #bpseafart"

Pranks Expose Environmental Realities 

Political humor is nothing new. It has been used for centuries to point out the flaws of leaders and legislation. But in the environmental world — where most of the news is discouraging — activists seem to have found both a better way to deliver bad news, and a way to shift away from what William McDonough, the American "green" architect, has referred to as the "shrill message of environmentalists."

Perhaps more importantly, though, these gags are not only informing the public but also the media.

Both Greenpeace and the Yes Men are extremely media savvy organizations. The Yes Men's press releases and conferences almost always draw press attention, with some members of media realizing that the "news" is just a gag, and some not.