The funny side of Climate Change

Sustainability Solved

In this episode we look at the funny side of Climate Change with award winning comedian, podcaster and business speaker, Stuart Goldsmith. He grabbed the headlines at the Edinburgh Festival in 2023 with his show about Climate Change, called Spoilers. Stuart talks about his journey in stand-up over the last 20 years, and his mission to engage a wider audience on Climate Change through comedy.

Why did Stuart Goldsmith decide to make jokes about Climate Change?

• Stuart talks about spending 10 years as a street performer and his increasing feeling of ‘eco-dread’. He acted on this feeling by writing and performing comedy about Climate Change.
• Stuart talks about the challenges of performing material about the Climate Crisis to audiences.

How does Climate Change comedy compare to activism?

• Charlie asks Stuart whether this was a form of activism. Stuart has attended Extinction Rebellion protests and a Just Stop Oil meeting. He respects their commitment but didn’t feel like these were his normal social group.
• Will highlights when we tackle a new way of sending a message, it is a kind of activism. Will compares it to when he worked in sustainability in the early days of his career.
• Stuart talks about his journey writing jokes on the Climate Crisis and soliciting climate confessions from the audience. But tries to go further and influence his more famous comedy friends to include the topic in their material.
• Stuart wants his audiences to feel more comfortable starting a conversion about Climate Change with friends.
• Stuart also shares a joke about flying business class.

How does Stuart gather research?

• Stuart talks about taking part in Climate Fresk, a workshop designed to teach the fundamental science behind Climate Change, and also playing EN-ROADS, an online simulator with the ability to test and explore cross-sector climate solutions.
• Will and Stuart discuss the impact of flying that’s both negative and positive to society.
• Stuart talks about interviewing people for his podcast, The Comedian’s Comedian, using one example of a global sustainability person for a huge US investment bank talking about Climate Change, politics, and Trump. This interviewee stressed that capital money has decided that [Climate Change] is real, so we can’t pretend it’s not real.
• Charlie offers the example of Trump supporting the reopening of coal mines, but none opened because no-one would invest in them.
• Stuart raises climate justice, and the fact people are already running for their lives. He asks what will humanity look like in the future?
• Charlie responds by quoting James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, where he recorded that if we hit an increase if 5-5 degrees above pre-industrial levels we could go from 8 billion people down to 1.5 billion living in the far North and far South.

What’s the worst thing Stuart jokes about?

• Stuart doesn’t communicate how horrible a topic is to his audience, or they will stop listening. He thinks we need to safeguard our mental health.
• Stuart talks about being a parent and offers a ‘worst thing’ joke related to his fellow playground dad’s kids.

Audience demographics and narrative

• Will asks Stuart about the type of audience he usually attracts. Stuart says it depends where he’s performing but usually white middle-class. If he was a 20-something Tik Tok sensation it would be different.
• Stuart talks about the conversations he has with his audience after the show, like when vegans ask him why he hasn’t told everyone to go vegan.
• Stuart likes to attract people from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, and diversities onto his podcast.
• Charlie and Stuart discuss how to change the narrative of telling people not to do x,y,z because of Climate Change to the benefits to a society by becoming more sustainable.
• Stuart mentions George Marshall’s book Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change (climateoutreach.org).
• Stuart mentions Sandra Steingraber’s save the world’ symphony quote.

What top things should we do to act on Climate Change?

• Will asks people to change their bank account and get an ethical pension fund.
• Charlie says change energy supplier and Will follows with energy efficiency in the home.
• Stuart mentions he used the Cheese Project, who offer thermal imaging surveys to locate draughts in your home.

Resources:

Comedian & Speaker Stuart Goldsmith | United Kingdom

Climate | Stuart Goldsmith

Podcast | Stuart Goldsmith

Climate Fresk

EN-ROADS

James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis

Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change (climateoutreach.org)

Cheese Project

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