Especially now, climate change has been an important and surprisingly controversial topic in today’s time, with large populations of people denying the existence of global warming and the harmful effects it will cause on our world. This issue has been an ongoing battle for years and years, since scientists noticed and began to understand the potential impacts of the alterations being imposed upon our Earth. However, politics and science do not always align in their opinions on what should be considered priority. Award-winning political cartoonist, Mike Keefe, created a cartoon for The Denver Post in 2010, one that continues to be relevant today, according to the decisions being made by our current political leaders.
Mike Keefe's cartoon highlights the irony regarding climate change and the perspectives of our politicians #bcsfh20https://t.co/6iubNyV9g6
— Naveera Arif (@NaveeraArif) October 24, 2017
The cartoon displays an image of the American Capitol Building half underwater, with a “Special Committee” coming into order to discuss the climate change “hysteria.” The point of this cartoon is the irony; the building itself is almost completely underwater, referencing the idea of rising sea levels as a harmful impact of climate change, while the committee is just beginning to “investigate” the idea of climate change. It mentions the word hysteria, the definition and connotation implying that climate change is simply a hoax meant to scare people into a panic. The interpretation I got from the cartoon is that despite the climate actually being altered as a designated fact, the people in power and politics refuse to acknowledge its importance to actually make an effort to aid in the reversal of our harmful practices. Instead, they cast it aside as “hysteria” only causing fear, because the practices that will help save the world are not beneficial to their own priorities, which for the most part, is money and power. By the time they even started to even consider the idea of climate change, they were already suffering from the impacts, and yet they still did not accept it as fact. In order to prevent the events of the cartoon coming to pass, in which we are too late in trying to help the earth, the people elected to power should be enforced to have a clear understanding of what climate change can mean for the people living on earth, and be able to enact measures that will help.
