Ever since the 1750s, when the writer, satirist, statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin put political cartooning on the map by publishing the first cartoon of the genre in America, artists have combined their talent, wit and political beliefs to create cartoons that enrage, enlighten or simply engage the viewer.
A picture may paint a thousand words, but a cartoon provokes, protests and entertains — all at once. It is this that makes cartoonists so valuable and influential in times of crisis. Today, that crisis is climate change, and clever imagery can give new impetus to our struggle to combat global warming. The organizers of Earthworks 2008, a global cartoon competition, believe that art and humor are simple ways to get the environmental message across.
“We set up the competition to give cartoonists around the world a platform on which to express themselves,” says John Renard, one of the Earthworks organizers. “We hoped that the competition would stimulate cartoonists to use their pens and wit to help combat environmental devastation and give new impetus to our desperate fight to stop global warming,” he says. “After all, humor is often a valuable key in the struggle to win hearts and minds.”
But despite the sharp wit that pervades the cartoons, climate change is no laughing matter for their creators. The 50 or so countries from which the 600 competition entries were sent are all suffering the effects of global warming, some more dramatically than others. Two cartoons were sent from Burma, where in May this year a cyclone tore through five regions along the western coast, killing at least 100,000 people, and leaving millions more without shelter, food, or clean water.
And although governments around the world are reluctant to suggest, officially, that the disaster in Burma is a direct result of global warming, there’s little doubt that it will have added to the cyclone’s destructive power.
Studies published in the journals Nature and Science have demonstrated a link between rising sea temperatures and increased wind-speed of cyclones and hurricanes, and even US-government-funded organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration admit that a warming of the global climate will affect the severity of storms. “Experiencing first-hand the catastrophic effects of climate change allowed these artists to give their cartoons a special poignancy,” says Renard.
“And it brought home to us the burden of responsibility to do our utmost to prevent such devastation becoming more common.”
But dramatic weather changes aren’t the only consequences of global warming and the cartoons reflected this, with some artists focusing on species loss or coral reef degradation, others on rising seas or water wars.
Certain effects of global warming, such as shortages of food and clean water, for example, clearly resonated with cartoonists from places like Yemen and Syria, where increases in average temperatures have already exposed the population, particularly children and the elderly, to potentially life-threatening diarrhoea and malnutrition.
Predictably, water scarcity and desertification were common themes among the entries, with many images showing parched landscapes, dry oceans and dying animals. These cartoons illustrate what is already occurring in hotter parts of the world such as Africa, Australia and South America, but dwindling supplies of fresh water potentially affect everyone.
Even in Britain’s supposedly wet climate, summer hosepipe bans have become routine. And, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, every continent is suffering, with water scarcity already affecting 40 percent of the world’s population.
