NEW YORK – A dire new report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the horrific effects of the climate crisis has been swiftly overshadowed by news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the continuing COVID pandemic, and whatever Kanye West is doing at any given moment, causing Climate Change to wonder if there’s anything it can do to reach the top of the headline heap.
“I’ve never been all that glamorous. I’m not exciting, like a war – though I do cause wars, and will cause many, many more wars in the years ahead,” Climate Change lamented. “I think my problem is I’m always just there, in the background, so nobody notices me.”
“I’m like the mousy chick with the glasses and the ponytail who stands at the back of the dance and everyone takes for granted until she kills ten percent of the people in the room and makes life a living hell for the survivors.”
Climate Change has been consulting with branding professionals to figure out ways to convince the public that it’s not just a boring, chronic problem people can avoid thinking about, but is as dangerous and dramatic as the more popular crises.
“Every year pollution alone kills more people than COVID-19 has killed during its existence, and that’s not even counting the people who are killed by droughts and famines and heat waves and political unrest caused by Climate Change,” says branding expert Bethany Lowdell. “Environmental degradation is not only as deadly as war and pestilence, it is in fact more deadly and therefore more sexy. Climate Change is killing it at killing us, its problem is one of perception.”
“That being said, there are things Climate Change could be doing to get more attention. Killing more white people, that would be massively helpful in getting more eyeballs. Affecting the lives not just of the poor but of the wealthy would also be great, everyone pays attention when anything happens to the wealthy. I would also recommend Climate Change speed up to get more notice, but luckily it’s already doing that.”
With all the effort it’s putting into rebranding, Climate Change is hopeful for the future. “On the advice of my PR team, I’m gonna be looking into collabs with other catastrophes. A refugee crisis may only get limited airplay, but a refugee crisis driven by an uncontrollable climate disaster could be the hottest jam of 2025. And 2026, 2027, and 2028. And getting attention will be a lot easier in a decade or so, when forest fire season lasts all year and a couple of major metropolitan areas have been abandoned to the rising seas.”
“Although, there’s a part of me that worries that maybe there’s literally nothing I can do to get humanity to notice me. I mean, I killed hundreds of people when I turned part of Canada into an open-air oven last summer, you’d think that would’ve been enough to keep me trending for longer than a story about a billionaire taking a joyride into the upper atmosphere in a giant penis.”
At press time, news stories about the ominous IPCC report were quickly being buried under an avalanche of stellar reviews for the latest Batman movie.
