Prior to Dr. Sachs’s talk last Wednesday, I had never thought using humor to help disseminate a environmentalist message (or concern.) But, growing up in a highly liberal and educated area, I was often exposed to many of the stereotypes that Sachs’s citations poked fun at– the judgmental neighbor from Modern Family, the misguided and emotional activists from West Wing, etc. Growing up and caring about the environment myself, I always found the pretentiousness of many other environmentalists off-putting. Much of the jargon surrounding the environmental movement implies an air of exclusivity and superiority: Solar panels (quite expensive), Prius, Tesla (flashy Prius), LEED Platinum renovation, Toms shoes, Whole Foods, etc. Point being: in our society, it is quite difficult to separate pure environmentalism and conservation from environmentally-focused consumption, which is for the most part prohibitively expensive. The deep irony exists that at face value, environmentalism cares about all, yet in practicality, as it stands today in the US, environmentalism caters only to a few.

Dr. Sachs argued that comedy can be a useful measure to improve environmentalism’s standing in public discourse. While I believe this could be true, I do not think Dr. Sachs went far enough: more than just comedy, some serious self-awareness is necessary. In my mind, this is lacking most from the environmentalist message, and if environmentalists wish to be successful in their outreach, they need to find ways to become more mainstream politically, culturally, and above all else, socio-economically.