One of the criticisms laid at the feet of environmentalists is that they have no sense of humour. This was the charge that Donald Trump hurled at Greta Thunberg, when he said she needed to “work on her Anger Management problem”, earning an epic comeback. But this form of dismissal, or “tone policing” is not unique in being directed at climate activists. Other activists too have had tha charge flung at them – for being “too angry”, “too rigid”, “too boring”.

We do not really have a full theory of what is funny, though. We know that even babies seem to find things funny, but the scientific theories of what makes something funny are far and wide, encompassing everything from something that gives a feeling of superiority to something incongruous. Bluntly put, though, we do not really know.

Like many social constructs “funny” is something we agree to, and like all social agreements, there are a lot of discrepancies about what we agree with.

When it comes to issues of deep injustice, though, like the climate crisis, it is hard to summon a sense of superiority, or even a feeling of “dangerous but harmless” things that makes things sometimes feel funny. Neither drought nor flood are particularly funny. There would be something obscene at a laughing at a world where the poor and powerless pay for the bad choices of the wealthy and cosseted. This may be why our environmental disaster has not really become the stock of jokes for comedians and stand-up artists.

Nonetheless, there is no lack of incongruity in our rapidly warming world, of the moral grandstanding of economic titans declaring that they are saving the world with their immense wealth and power, and yet continue in their investments in everything that is destroying the world. One of the recent such pieces was the release of the Environmental Performance Index recently. While every such index has its own way of measuring things, it was somewhat incongruous, even darkly humorous, to find that the country ranked as the best performer in South Asia was… Afghanistan. Nor was that the end of the incongruity.

Both the two countries at the top of the EPI – Denmark and the UK respectively – are ranked amongst the lowest on the Biodiversity Impact Index. Both their levels of biodiversity intactness hover in the mid 40% level - in the lower 10% of the world. The average for South Asia is above 70%, and it ranks at the bottom of all regions of the EPI.

In a way, though, this explains much of our current problem. The countries most responsible for climate change and biodiversity loss, historically, are the ones often performing the best in maintaining the degraded ecosystems within which they live. The countries least responsible, historically, are the ones neither financially or institutionally able to protect the wealth they have, or are uninterested in doing so.

In conversation with Dr Martin Wolf of Yale, who led the research on the EPI, I asked whether this should mean that richer countries should be putting in funding to strengthen governance structures in poorer countries. He agreed. The sad, the incongruous, thing is that both of us knew this was a joke.

It is this tragedy that makes it difficult to find humour in the situation. And yet, the critics are right, too, to a degree. Humour is an enormous resource when it comes to communications. Yelling can get you attention, but humour stays with you, it starts and maintains conversations. In this edition of the newsletter, Sumit Kumar of Bakarmax comics explains how he has recently used environmental research – the retreat of glaciers – in one of their webtoons, and the role of humour and environmentalism. Enjoy, laugh, and maybe cry.

Sumit Kumar is a cartoonist. He is the author of graphic novels - The Itch You Can't Scratch, Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari and Kashmir Ki Kahani. He is the founder of Bakarmax - a comics and animation studio.

Q. Your recent webtoon "Small Thunder" started off with a nod to receding glaciers, where did you pick up on that idea?

When I was building my webtoon I wanted it to stand apart from the story I had adapted it from - The Mouse That Roared. For this I was looking for the flesh of the story. On this hunt I reached Bhutan where I walked into the offices of the Bhutan Observer. The editor was the one who explained this problem. This I then used as the beginning of my comic.

Q. Although it's a very tongue-in-cheek series, your first episode had a lot of research, why?

That was mostly because at that time I was making my Kashmir comic and research had become second nature. Although I later learnt that research should never overtake the story, which is reflected in the later episodes. In the first chapter - I had done, with my limited research even a story of the pre king era - including the scene where monks see dragons rise from the mountains I have attached that chapter which I later removed - it will be incorrect at a lot of places.

Do you think these issues provide material, like how much of writing like Amitav Ghosh and some music is looking at it?

I am now a believer in the idea that research should be in the background and writing should be simple. I would rather impress people with solid ideas that might not even be real. For example, what we discussed - Lunar Panels - an idea of how one could do fraud in the world of renewables because so much greenwashing exists. 

Bakarmax has a particularly irreverent style, which is characteristic of much humour, would you say this is something things like environmental issues need more of? How could these issues be addressed like that?

It sure can. For example - much of what I do is pointless and absurd. Which is fluff. Which I also like very much. Comedy with a purpose is good but it can get boring. On the other hand - I think people like Rohan Chakravarty of Green Humor will be remembered for having served some purpose to help the planet. His strip is currently the most important piece of work in my field. Small Thunder however is the story of a small carbon negative nation fighting the results of global warming.

How did you get into cartooning? What would you do differently?

Somebody pointed out that I was doing all the ingredients of cartooning - ideas, writing and drawing. And once that simple realization hit me - I started making them. If I would get a redo - I would want to start sooner - right out of 10th standard studying arts. I would also make tonnes of DIY comics and animation - which I never did because I was worried about the proper "method".

Critical reading

1. Unprecedented flood cripples Assam, massive loss of life and property reported: Assam faced two severe waves of flood this year, in May and June, which crippled its cities and rural areas. Silchar, the second largest city of Assam faced its worst flood in living memory with more than 80% of the city being inundated. Assam received 62% above normal rainfall in the pre-monsoon season from March to May this year– 672.1 mm instead of an average of 414.6 mm, the highest in 10 years. This is the primary cause behind the devastation, though human-caused disturbances have aggravated the situation. Assam’s neighbour Meghalaya recorded 93% above normal rainfall in the same season. Bhupen Goswami, former director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said “Earlier, if extreme weather events were happening every 100 years, then now maybe they will happen every ten years. But floods in Assam are also a result of bad management of dams.”

2. Hubballi-Ankola Railway Line Is Proof Our Green Governance Is in Shambles: The Hubballi-Ankola Railway Project (HARP) was first conceived by the Vajpayee government in the late 1990s. The Government of India had recently submitted to the Karnataka high court that the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has decided to constitute a committee to examine the proposal. HARP proposes to cut through a tiger corridor, but the constituted committee does not have any representatives from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) – a violation of the committee’s terms of reference. Yet, Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said on June 26 that work on HARP is in “the final stages of getting environmental clearances”. However, in the two-decade-long history of deliberations, various expert constitutional bodies – including the environment ministry in 2004 and the NTCA in 2017 – had categorised the project to be ‘recommended for rejection’ or ‘rejected on merit’ multiple times.

3. What Makes Indore's Narmada Water Project One of the Costliest in the Country?: Since the 1970s, three phases of the Narmada Project have been supplying drinking water to Indore city in Madhya Pradesh and a few villages along the way. However, the entire lifting and treating process makes the Narmada Project “the costliest in the country”, Madhya Pradesh’s former Urban Development Minister Jaivardhan Singh had stated in 2019, while adding that supplying such expensive water would not be sustainable in the long run. Yet, in April 2022, the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) earmarked 25% of its overall budget to launch Phase 4 of the Narmada project, even though it has not been able to recover costs from the project’s initial phases. Meanwhile, even where the Narmada water is supplied to homes, residents still line up in front of public taps, leading to immense competition and fighting.

4. Oceans Great Dying 2.0: Heatwaves sweep the oceans: The Indian Ocean has emerged as the biggest victim of climate change. The sea surface temperature (SST) of the tropical Indian Ocean has risen by an average of 1 degree Celsius from 1951 to 2015 against the global average of about 0.7°C. But the warming is not the same everywhere. From 1901 to 2012, the western part of the Indian Ocean warmed up by 1.28°C against an increase of 0.78°C recorded in its other parts. Between 2001 and 2019, the Arabian Sea also recorded a 52% increase in the number of cyclones, with very severe cyclones increasing by 150%--the term marine heatwaves being coined for the first time in 2011. According to expert analysis, the Indian Ocean will likely embrace a permanent marine heatwave situation by the turn of the century.

5. How increasing taxes and decreasing subsidies threaten India's clean energy growth: After a slowdown during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s renewable energy sector seems to be bouncing back in terms of investments. But recent studies raise doubts about the overall pace of the sector’s growth with finance emerging as a major impediment. Their findings suggest that renewable energy is facing a significant 59% reduction in subsidies, an increase in tax, and restrictions on the import of equipment for solar and wind energy projects. Further, funding for the renewable energy projects by India’s public financial institutions is inadequate–presently amounting to an investment of $14.5 billion per year against a need of around $30-40 billion per year for achieving its 2030 renewable energy target.

6. Researchers at WII Fear for Academic Freedom With New Govt Interference: The Union environment ministry has asked the WII, (Wildlife Institute of India–an autonomous body) to seek its approval before it publishes any documents and makes any of its scientific findings public. In fact, the ministry’s letter has directed the WII to seek the ministry’s approval for documents and publications that had already been placed in the public domain – effectively subjecting them to retrospective scrutiny. WII is one of India’s premier research institutions focused on wildlife conservation and environmental impact.  Researchers and scientists both within and beyond the institute are wary that the move will undermine its academic and research integrity. It is the first time in the institute’s existence since 1986 that it has been asked to take approval from the ministry. 

7. Trial by 'fire': A wake-up call for India's electric vehicle strategy: India’s plan to have electric scooters and bikes comprise 80% of its 2-wheeler market has hit a snag due to e-bikes catching fires that killed at least three persons last year. The Centre for Fire Explosives and Environment Agency (CFEEA) reported last month that unsafe batteries and faulty pack design may have triggered these fires. Its findings: EV two-wheeler companies may have used “lower-grade materials to cut costs” despite submitting A-grade cells for testing, taking advantage of the loosely framed rules. The cells had problems with thermal and battery management systems–problems that were specific to each company and there was likely negligence on the part of testing agencies such as the Automotive Research Association of India. 

8. CO2 Isn't the Only Gas Bad for Earth. What Are We Doing About the Rest?:  While carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions often dominate climate talks, we also need to cut emissions of several other climate pollutants to be able to meaningfully curb global warming. A recent study calculated these pollutants that together contribute almost as much to global warming as does CO2–most of them last a relatively short time in the atmosphere, so reducing their concentration could slow warming faster than any other mitigation strategy. Combined cuts can in fact slow the rate of warming by a decade or two earlier than decarbonisation alone and allow the world to stay below the agreed limit of 1.5º C. The study’s authors talk about their work, its implications in the fight against the climate crisis and how India can benefit by responding more effectively against a wider portfolio of ‘climate pollutants’.

9. How can you make a westward-flowing river flow east: Activists on Bedti-Varada interlinking: Environmental groups in Karnataka have criticised the project to link the Bedti and Varada rivers in Karnataka, calling it ‘unscientific’ and a ‘waste of public money’. Thousands of people had protested the project June 14, 2022. The activists also claim that the project, once completed, will not ensure water to the places that are intended to be the beneficiaries, but would only benefit contractors, cement, iron and granite industries as well as politicians’ lobbying groups. Over 500 acres of forests will be lost and there will still be no water, as both these rivers do not have enough water to feed three districts for both domestic and farming purposes. 

10. Unaccounted deaths lay bare the dark side of sand mining: The South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) studied accident cases and violence, caused due to sand mining in India over a span of 16 months from December 2020 to March 2022 and found that 418 people lost their lives and 438 people were injured during this period, in cases related to sand mining. Of the deaths, 49 occurred due to drowning in deep pits formed in the river because of sand mining. No official accounts are maintained to track deaths caused by mining accidents such as drowning and road mishaps. Environmental activists demand greater transparency in decisions taken by the Centre or state governments and recommend involving local people to monitor illegal mining. These deaths have been the highest in northern Indian states and union territories, including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh.