From the masters at the New Yorker:
That BP oil spill cartoon really works at many levels. See also “Luckovich cartoon: Wasting away in Petroville.”
Climate Progress
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Get ThinkProgress email alerts
About Climate Progress
Edited by Joe Romm, we cover climate science, solutions and politics. Columnist Tom Friedman calls us "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named us one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." Newcomers, start here.
Joe Romm's New Book
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga.
Joe Romm has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging — even your Tweeting.
Subscribe to Climate Progress by Email
Powered by NewsWhip
Got a Hot Tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
Climate Progress Archives
About ThinkProgress | Contact Us | Donate
No offense, Joe, but has anyone ever told you that you have a terrible sense of humor? I have only found one of the dozens of cartoons that you have posted amusing. You have many gifts, sir, but comedy is not one of them. :)
Other than that, your coverage of the destruction of the Gulf has been first-rate. I’m not sure if anyone has brought it to your attention yet, but Slate magazine has an interesting piece on how to punish BP.
http://www.slate.com/id/2255170/
Have a Happy Memorial Day!
[JR: It's killing me: What is that one amusing cartoon?]
Maybe I have a terrible sense of humor, too, but I generally find the cartoons amusing.
Not this one, though.
Thanks for everything you do, Joe.
Happy Memorial Day. :)
I enjoyed it.
Maybe I’m into gallows humour.
Don’t listen to ‘em, Joe: it’s a great cartoon, pointing out as it does how greed can overcome common sense even in the most desperate and inappropriate of situations, and doing it with the grace and felicity of line that the New Yorker is justifiably famous for.
Cartoons don’t have to be ha-ha funny to be great: they just need to be great. Please keep posting them: they’re a welcome “mood elevator” in the midst of all the serious science/news topics you cover.
This would be a great cartoon to send to Arthur Robinson, who is running on the GOP ticket for a congressional seat in Oregon’s 4th district.
In a 2004 column in his “Access to Energy” newsletter Robinson proposed dumping crude oil waste and low level nuclear waste at sea.
http://trueslant.com/charlesjohnson/2010/05/24/gop-candidate-arthur-robinson-dump-oil-and-nuclear-waste-at-sea/
Robinson has also suggested environmentalists have an evil, genocidal depopulation scheme to kill off hundreds of millions of the Earth’s poor and maintains that DDT is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
No offense, DreamQuestor, but you seem have a terrible sense of humor.
It’s called Gallows Humor and right now it’s all we’ve got, Eh? It really does work at many levels. We Americans are Rich and we all certainly have our hands in the dirty mess. Out, out, Damned Spot! As with the Queen though, the Ick won’t come off….
Don’t listen to him, Joe. This cartoon is funny as hell.
It’s all gallows humor.
My favorite is from Robert Mankoff .. you can find it in the New Yorker Cartoon bank; http://bit.ly/blgSOh
It reads: “And so, while the end-of-the-world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, we believe that the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.”
(CEO gives a speech at a board meeting.)
More precisely http://bit.ly/aMLmOB
http://i.imgur.com/yO6jm.jpg
This one’s not too bad:
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/05/25/this_modern_world/story.jpg
I’m with Rob and the rest of the gallows gang. The ones Richard and Ryan linked are spot-on too.
I found a funny one for this story: http://cleantechnica.com/2010/05/26/republicans-having-second-thoughts-about-dirty-energy/
The gentleman in the cartoon is suffering from the Black Midas Syndrome. But so, too, is our modern civilization that equates resource extraction with wealth. Loss for the many profits the few.
No offense, DreamQuestor,
but you seem have a terrible Understanding of humor?
it’s funny.
yep. It’s funny. And worth reposting to facebook, which I just did.
There’s an old Chinese story about the man who walked past the guards and picked up some precious gold object on display and started to walk away with it. Arrested, he realized and explained that he hadn’t seen the guards, or thought about the ownership; all he could see was the gold. It’s very profound, and deals with attachment, which drives out wisdom, which is always present in every situation if WE are present in that situation. The story of the West could be the story of that thief.
Not funny. But that’s true of the New Yorker most weeks now.
Have you thought about trying editorial cartoons? http://opedcartoons.com/2010/05/19/bp-oil-when-everyone-knows-your-name-but-nobody-likes-you/
Scientists have invented a car that runs on water…
Unfortunately, it’s only water from the Gulf of Mexico.
I can appreciate gallows humor as much as anyone, but effective humor parodies or mocks its target without hitting the audience over the head with an anvil. Mr. Romm does have a gift for sarcasm (though I suspect that is a survival trait for a scientist), but he also has an unfortunate penchant for cartoons that preach. As any comedian can tell you, a joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it.
I did enjoy this one:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/14/shareholders-call-on-massey-energy-to-fire-don-blankenship/
[JR: Hmm. While one's taste in humor is obviously very individual, I don't see how the cartoon I highlighted here can be described as one that preaches.]
“Oil! We’re rich!” is one refrain.
Another is “We build cars! We’re rich!” for economies rapidly self-destructing and the global environment at the same time.