@article{1476889,
      recid = {1476889},
      author = {Sachs, Aaron, },
      title = {Stay Cool : Why Dark Comedy Matters in the Fight Against  Climate Change /},
      pages = {1 online resource :},
      abstract = {How gallows humor can bolster us to confront global  warmingWe've all seen the headlines: oceans rising,  historic heat waves, mass extinctions, climate refugees. It  feels overwhelming, like nothing can make a difference in  combating this ongoing global catastrophe. How can we  mobilize to save the world when we feel this depressed?  Stay Cool enjoins us to laugh our way forward. Human beings  have used comedy to cope with difficult realities since the  beginning of recorded time-the more dismal the news, the  darker the humor. Using this rich tradition of dark comedy  to investigate climate change, Aaron Sachs makes the case  that gallows humor, a mainstay of African Americans and  Jews facing extraordinary oppression, can cultivate  endurance, persistence, and solidarity in the face of  calamity. Sachs surveys the macabre tradition of laughing  during great suffering, from the Black Plague to the San  Francisco earthquake of 1906-and offers some of the  earliest examples of superlative dark comedy. He also  explores how a new generation of activists and comedians  are deploying dark humor to great effect, by poking fun at  older people's apathy about climate catastrophes,  lambasting oil corporations' "eco" rebranding, and even  producing an off-Broadway dystopian comedy called "Sea  Level Rise." Sachs offers suggestions for how  environmentalists can use dark comedy first to boost their  own morale, and then to reframe their activism in more  energizing and relatable ways. Environmentalism is probably  the least funny social movement that's ever existed. Stay  Cool seeks to change that. Will comedy save the world? Not  by itself, no. But it can put people in a decent enough  mood to get them started on a rescue mission.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1476889},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479819409.001.0001},
}