‘We need new numbers’: Comedian David Cross cracks jokes to spread climate crisis awareness
David Cross is many things: a famed comic, an Emmy award winner, and a New York Times bestseller,But he is not a climate scientist,That fact might make him the perfect person to communicate the urgency of global heating to mass audiences,“You’ve got to speak to people in a way they can understand,” he said,That’s the purpose of a new video in which Cross co-stars with the renowned environmental scientist Michael Oppenheimer.
“Humor, as I think has been shown over centuries, is a very effective way to get people to absorb the information,” said Cross.The new video puts that theory to the test.In it, Oppenheimer plays the straight man, issuing a dire warning: “Heat records are being broken all over the world.In fact, last year was the hottest year since the industrial era began,” he says.Cross then interprets that message for laypeople.
“Translation: the shit is hitting the fan,” he says,“And the fan is on maximum,”The video was released by the group Climate Science Breakthrough, which has over the past two years has made videos with leading UK comedians such as Nish Kumar and Jo Brand in an attempt to “help climate science break through to many more people - and unlock action”,“We’re aiming to reach beyond the converted and depolarize the debate,” said Ben Carey, one of the video’s producers,If the new video is well-received, they will enlist more scientists and experts to produce more of them, he said.
The video series comes as part of a wave of climate-focused comedy launched in recent years,In 2023, the Oscar-winning director Adam McKay launched the non-profit Yellow Dot Studios to make content about the dangers of fossil fuels, and the following year, climate advocacy organization Gas Leaks Project launched a mini series about the dangers of gas stoves,These projects could help reach people who experts aren’t often reaching, said Oppenheimer, since “most of the training for young scientist is aimed at being able to communicate enough so you get your next job, not necessarily aimed at communicating to the public”,Sign up to Down to EarthThe planet's most important stories,Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialafter newsletter promotionIf it seems odd to use humor to build awareness about a grim subject, Cross says it’s a tactic with a long history.
Indeed, George Carlin railed against censorship in the 1970s, while Bill Hicks memorably used his platform to speak out against George W Bush’s foreign policy,“Even before standup existed, there was Molière and Voltaire and [Jonathan] Swift and Mark Twain – there is a huge precedent for artists using humor and satire to drive home a point,” said Cross,The use of humor may help drive the urgency of the climate crisis home for certain audiences, said Oppenheimer, particularly “when the news is so chock-a-block full of news that competes for people’s attention”,But comedy is not the only tool that can be used to better communicate the urgency of the climate crisis, he said,“Some scientists are excellent at communicating with religious audiences and can frame the issues in a way that resonates with them [while] other scientists are great at connecting with parents,” he said.
“The point is, more scientists are recognizing that it’s not always enough to lay out the facts or the data, that we have to find ways to encourage people to listen and take notice.”
Truss should be banned from ever running as Tory candidate again to show ‘we get it’, says former minister – as it happened
Conor Burns, a fomer Tory minister who lost his seat at the election, has welcomed Mel Stride’s speech this morning (see 10.19am), but urged the party to go further – and rule out Liz Truss ever again being allowed to stand as a candidate for the Conservatives.In a post on social media, he said:It is long overdue for the Conservative Party to draw a line under the ClusterTruss. It was a period of shame in the Party’s noble history. With a lack of any self awareness, zero contrition and deranged conspiracy theories she has made it hard for the party to rebuild
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Some things in life you just don’t see coming. Like a lottery win. Like Spurs winning a European trophy. You can now add to those two: Mel Stride getting a full house for one of his speeches. Not even standing room was available
Reform UK row as party chair calls new MP’s burqa ban question ‘dumb’
A row has broken out in Reform UK after its newest MP called on the prime minister to ban the burqa, with the party’s chair, Zia Yusuf, saying it was a “dumb” question given that was not party policy.Sarah Pochin, who recently won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, asked Keir Starmer in parliament on Wednesday: “Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he in the interests of public safety follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?”Her call was met with cries of “shame” from some MPs, and Reform later clarified it was not the party’s policy but that it could be part of a debate.Nigel Farage, the party leader, also weighed in later on GB News, saying: “I don’t think face coverings in public places make sense, and we deserve a debate about this.”However, Yusuf responded to the idea on X on Thursday suggesting the question should not have been asked.“Nothing to do with me
Labour’s £13.2bn warm homes plan will not face cuts in spending review
Ministers have decided not to cut Labour’s landmark £13.2bn fund to fix draughty homes and install heat pumps and solar panels in next week’s spending review, it has emerged.A government source confirmed Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, would not be making cuts to the flagship warm homes plan. The decision, which was first reported by the Daily Telegraph, marks a victory for Ed Miliband in his negotiations with the Treasury over the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s budget.Labour pledged in its manifesto to spend an extra £6
Fears Tata Steel could be excluded from Starmer’s Trump tariff deal
Ministers are reportedly working to stop the UK’s biggest steelmaker, Tata Steel, from being left out of tariff-free access to the US under Keir Starmer’s trade deal with Donald Trump.The prime minister said on Wednesday that he hoped his deal with the US – which has been agreed but not signed – would come into effect “in just a couple of weeks”, after the US president decided to pause 50% tariffs on British steel and aluminium products for five weeks.However, the deal could end up excluding Indian-owned Tata Steel, which runs the vast Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales, because of the origin of some of its products, its bosses fear. The company exports more than $100m worth of goods into the US market every year.Tata Steel shut down its blast furnace at Port Talbot last year owing to its transition to a greener electric arc furnace
Tories will never again put economy at risk like Liz Truss did, Mel Stride says
The Conservatives will never again put the economy at risk with unfunded tax cuts like those in Liz Truss’s mini-budget, the shadow chancellor has said, in the party’s clearest repudiation yet of the former prime minister.In a speech on the economy, Mel Stride went beyond any comments made by the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, to accept that Truss’s September 2022 fiscal plans, which involved about £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and quickly unravelled, badly dented the party’s reputation.“For a few weeks, we put at risk the very stability which Conservatives had always said must be carefully protected,” Stride said at an event in London on Thursday morning.“The credibility of the UK’s economic framework was undermined by spending billions on subsidising energy bills, and tax cuts, with no proper plan for how this would be paid for. As a Conservative, of course I want taxes to be as low as possible
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