Oh the humor of it all..

Finally I'm back on the site and blogging again!

For my blog post this evening, I started by looking at the many different forms that global warming has gone viral: From the spoofs, satires, songs, videos, jokes, scientific journals that were provided on Moodle, and others. I decided to focus on how I, as the audience, reacted to each piece. As we spoke about during class Thursday pathos is often much more important that the particular facts that they are presenting tho their audience. For instance, there could be a presentation being presented to a board of directors which has ground breaking new data, however if the rhetoric is too technical the point being made may be lost upon the viewers. At the same time there is an immense demand from the science community to provide the science behind the claims, explain the graphs, and describe how they came up with the calculations.

I examined a few different articles, and tried to contrast my reaction to each of them. The first thing that I did was look up some of the viral spoofs done on global warming, and came across the hilarious George Bush on Global Warming spoof by Will Ferrell. I had seen Will Ferrell’s impersonation of George W. Bush before so going into it I had some idea what I was getting myself into. The video immediately puts the audience into a state of satirical thinking simply because it is an impersonation. I felt myself on the edge of my seat, waiting for ‘President George Bush’ to say something stupid or ignorant. I did not have to wait long. The video is filled with funny lines covering general topics about global warming. Issues such as how it works (which is obviously because the sun’s rays are heating up the lava) and about the legitimacy over the data that these “liberal, godless” scientist s are trying to prove with these “facts.” The bit that stayed with me the longest was as Will Ferrell picked up a pop-up book, scared himself, and then argued with the camera man about what kind of books he should read, one filled with “Facts?!”

This video is an excellent example of modern day media’s comedic spin on public opinion. Because much of the video’s punch lines relied on the audience’s prior exposure to well-known and basic facts, it either 1) reaffirms what the audience member already believes or 2) it conditions the audience member to pick the side not being made fun of by Will Ferrell, and really who would want to be the one Will is making jokes about. With this line of thinking, the video made me automatically pick a reaction, whether it was defensive or amused, based on my political affiliations. Whether I was a skeptic of global warming or not the video was against conservatives, and I was automatically on-board with the liberal and god-less Will, wanting to join in the laughter and jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOjfxEejS2Y

But how would I react to a viral video based on the ideology that global warming is a hoax? Evidently I did not react the same way as I had thought I would have. I thought that I would have been sucked into the pathos of the video, and thus be conflicted with my basic global warming morals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqc7PCJ-nc

However after watching the infamous ‘Hide the Decline’ viral youtube video, I was somewhat enraged and entertained at the same time. The song is catchy-- don’t get me wrong, but unlike Will Ferrell who is making fun of the ignorance seemingly present in our modern day politics, it goes on the attack. It’s a brief two and half minute video, where the video makers attack Al Gore and Michael Mann for misleading the public into believing Global Warming by “Hiding the Decline,” but besides briefly popping up a graph showing this hidden decline in global temperatures, they do not provide any solid data to back their claims. If you are going to attack scientific claims in a video by stating that they are misleading, maybe don’t back up your own claims in a song where the majority of a song is screaming “NUH-UH!” … I mean “Hide the Decline” but basically the same thing. This video is successful in the fact that those who are going to watch it will be entertained by the cartoon figures with ridiculous pictures of Al Gore, and Michael Mann singing the lyrics to the song. Most of those watching the video will not read up on the actual science behind the claims, having a song back your own beliefs is enough.

In reflection, the “Hide the Decline” youtube video is exactly what Will Ferrell is making fun of in his impersonation-- Ignorant individuals who make public scientific claims in a manner that is misleading. While this can indeed be applied to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, at least he attempts to appeal to the baseline audience while still trying to uphold the scientific integrity of his project. The “Hide the Decline” video is simply accusatory, and doesn’t even show the entirety of the graphs in the video.

However somehow I believe that the anti-global warming group is winning. Not because of the pathos it plays on in its novels and videos, but because it is much easier to convince someone to not change their entire lifestyle. In addition I feel that the apocalypse mentality associated with the Global Warming Movement puts people in an automatic state of disbelief, and can be off-putting. I couldn’t help picturing Al Gore as a man standing on the street corner holding a “The End is Near!” sign. And I am a tree-hugging liberal who went to a hippy school for 9 years of my life! (..called Aldo Leopold nonetheless) So what does this mentality do to the uncertain or doubtful? It is hard to separate the religiousness from the scientific aspect of the global warming movement, and seems quite impossible at this point in the race.