Climate Name Change has started a petition to the World Meteorological Organization to name extreme storms after policy makers who deny climate change.
Barton F. Graf 9000 has put together a clever video supporting the petition, and it’s pretty hilarious. It starts by asking what ordinary people, with names like Andrew and Katrina, did to deserve having catastrophic storms named after them. Following this setup comes the proposal to name extreme storms caused by climate change after politicians who deny the existence of climate change.
To illustrate how this would work, they’ve put together some fake news stories about these storms. Some of these are really funny, leading to such gems as “Senator Marco Rubio is expected to pound the eastern seaboard sometime tonight,” “If you value your life, please seek shelter from Michele Bachman,” “David Vitter is literally lifting boats out of the water and tossing them on to the land” and “…thousands of animals have been displaced or killed by Governor Rick Perry.” My personal favorite: “We’ve been here two days because of Congressman Paul Ryan. I have friends who are still out there. It’s scary, because I have no idea what Paul Ryan could be doing to them right now.”
While it would be amazing if the WMO actually enacted this policy, it’s clear that this is more a way to raise awareness about the dangers of politicians who deny climate change and their short-sighted policies. It’s a really clever and effective way to link climate change denial with the devastation that climate change causes, suggesting a clear link between climate change denial and the destruction of these catastrophic storms, while calling out many of these climate change deniers by name. “Climate Name Change” even provides a more complete list of “deniers and obstructionists” on their site, since there’s not nearly enough time to list them all in a two-and-a-half minute video.