The climate change elephant
The crew on the Rainbow Warrior got 2003’s cartoonist of the year, Malcolm Evans, down to Wellington’s Queens Wharf yesterday afternoon to paint an entire billboard. I had been going to show you a photo of his creation, but Greenpeace has gone one step better and provided a video:
Bookmark to:
April 4th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
‘When the Saints go marching in”???
April 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Religious metaphors are entirely appropriate. This is a green site, after all….
April 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
If you don’t mind my pedantry, I think it is the elephant that is the metaphor. And at the risk of over analysing this, I wonder if the saints are meant to be someone…
April 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Well whatever, obviously it’s greenpeace, ‘huzzah!’
April 4th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I liked the helicopter.
April 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I like red too, but only because I’m a Trotsky-ite.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I like Pie…..
Are you just taking the p*ss Stephen, or do you really not know why they used the “Saints go marcing in” for the music?
And the elephant….
What colour is the elephant?
What would be a better cartoon is one of Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist with “Developed Nations” written on his pinny and thousands of little Oliver Twists standing in front of him all saying “Please Sir, I want some more”.
And in the doorway behind Mr Bumble you can see the cook holding a huge Oil drum with the last drop coming out, and a little wind turbine powering a tiny light bulb.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
DougT, Stephen isn’t the only one who needs enlightenment. Are we supposed to be thinking New Orleans or Salt Lake City?
April 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
“The saints go marching in” is about the apocalypse or judgement day. The religious aspect is inconsequential.
It’s about the day that global warming jumps up and bites everyone on the bum.
The Elephant is a “White Elephant” because the politicians think that global warming is a white elephant.
Does that make any sense, or have I underanalysed it?
Would you like me to enlighten you as to what my cartoon idea means?
April 5th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Nah sorry DougT I don’t know anything about that song - obviously a scathing indictment of the quality of primary school ‘religious instruction’ period in the early 90s.
I didn’t think of the elephant as white cos it ended up pretty dark but i guess thats a fair point.
April 5th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I think I’m wrong about the white elephant. My wife recons it’s the “elephant in the room” (look it up in Wiki if your like me and never heard that saying before) which makes more sense.
I still like the idea of it being a white elephant though, ‘cos the main parties think (although won’t openly admit it) that throwing money at global warming is a waste of money.
I could be reading too much into the tune too.
Frog, can you tell us all why that tune was used please? And what elephant is it?
April 6th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Yup - it’s the elephant in the living room surely.
as in an obvious truth that is being ignored…
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/ElephantRoom.JPG
April 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
DougT, I can’t see how warming could be considered a white elephant since that normally means something that appears to be a valuable asset but is actually an expensive liability, eg railways and parliament are both white elephants.
My immediate association was the phrase memory like an elephant but I think your wife’s explanation is the better one.
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/memory+like+an+elephant.h tml
I think you are drawing rather a long bow comparing AGW with The Rapture. Unless of course you are suggesting that the IPCC is a new Church of Rome, that climate change models are a new Book of Revelations, which would make Hansen the new John the Revelator, and that Phil is a born again Vegan?
Of course AGW theory is scientific, just as medieval religion was scholarly.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I recon we could learn something from this little experience.
When each of us saw and heard this, we seem to have taken it in different context depending on first impressions, and how much we read into it.
It looks like there were at least 3 different interperetations of what the elephant represented, and Greenpeace is probably reading these comments and thinking, “What the *@%# are they talking about, it was just a nice tune to pass the time and the elephant was a big animal with pointy bits on it”
So if we see a simple cartoon in so many ways it’s no wonder we see climate change, overpopulation and all the other complicated stuff in different ways too.
April 6th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
What a hoot this thread turned out to be!
April 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
The blog-o-sphere for ya
April 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
The Disinformation Cycle
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/03/the_disinformation_cycle.php
I wonder if it would be possible to devise a set of broadcasting standards for particular debates?