Wacco's Tuba Loons was in the Press Democrat Sunday!

[Clancy]

Tough topic, light approach
By HEATHER SEVRENS
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
https://www1.pressdemocrat.com/artic...NEWS/709920854

Warning: The planet is about to globally warm itself into the world’s largest saltwater swimming pool. Don’t forget to bring your floaties.

Eco-humor — using comedy to raise awareness about environmental issues — is a new strategy for green activism, and earth-conscious denizens like Carol Vanek are embracing it as a way to encourage others to think about their impact on the environment.

Vanek, a freelance artist and editor, runs a part-time greeting card business called Tuba Loons where she uses humor to create Jewish-themed cards with a twist. You can see her work online here https://www.tubaloons.com/index.html

Although most of her cards poke fun at the quirks of Jewish culture, Vanek also and has developed a series of cards that comment on the state of the environment. They include tanning polar bears, melting snowmen and “Benching Yentas” who mistake urban renewal for a man named “Irwin Renewal.”

Vanek initially got into designing eco-themed greeting cards through the Climate Protection Campaign in Graton, which is a nonprofit organization devoted to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and features one of her cards on its Web site.

“It’s based on a very old photograph of my mother and her friend,” she said of the card benefiting the campaign. It features two women sitting in sundresses on lounge chairs saying, “Global Warming. Don’t worry, it won’t affect us. ... We have air conditioning.”

Vanek believes that humor can awaken others to the seriousness of the issue. “Sobering facts completely shut the door on people. My feeling is that who can resist humor?” she said.

All of her cards are printed on recycled paper and can be found at Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol or Gado Gado in Santa Rosa.

Robin Lasser is a San Jose State University professor who uses humor and art to inspire others to change their consumption habits. She was inspired to examine American waste habits after visiting a dump in Egypt. She learned that the women and children there recycle materials from the dump and use them to create art that they sell while attending school.

When she returned to the United States, Lasser took a group of graduate students from San Jose State to the San Francisco Sanitary Fill for a one month residency, where they learned about waste management processes in California and created art from the materials they found.

“The dump was my American Gothic of understanding things. It’s not just what we waste, but also what we consume,” she said. “Dining in the Dump” shows Lasser in an I Love Lucy-esque version of a much calmer self, shoving food into her mouth from a speeding conveyor belt. As the food whizzes by faster and faster, it quickly becomes obvious that she is wasting far more than she can consume. Although the video is comical, the underlying message is serious, reflecting the way people mistreat their bodies as much as they do the land.

Lasser said she uses humor so they don’t become overwhelmed by the weighty and troubling issues of the environment.“I don't want to drag people down, but buoy them up and give them something to float on,” she said. Lasser hopes the video will encourage people to examine their consumption habits.

Her work can be found online at www.robinlasser.com.

Also using wit to spread the word, comedian and author Steve Bhaerman uses laughter in his act as Swami Beyondananda to promote his message of humor for peace.

A Santa Rosa resident, Bhaerman has been performing political and spiritually oriented comedy for 18 years. He uses the persona of

Beyondananda to point out absurdities in the world, and recently has started using eco-humor as an extension of his act.

“Swami is doing his part to shrink his ecological footprint,” Bhaerman said of one of his jokes. “He's wearing smaller shoes.” He stresses that even though his job is to make people laugh, he strives use his humor to get people to think about how they can live in alignment with the earth.

When talking about global warming, he jokes that the key to successfully keeping it in check is counter balance. “Every year the planet gets warmer, and each generation gets cooler than its parents,” he observed.

Bhaerman said that comedy is how he makes sense of the world, by taking serious issues and exaggerating them so people can see how their actions are affecting the earth and others around them. “People tend to take beliefs very literally,” he said. “Humor allows us to break through these barriers.”

While some people might think that humor take too frivolous a view of global warming and other important environmental issues, Bhaerman said that educating others needs to be about connection and encouragement as much as it needs to be about creating awareness.

“Along with laughter, I want to have people leave there feeling better and more positive about the impact they can make,” he said.

He will perform May 3 at an event at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds benefiting Sonoma County Conservation Action, a nonprofit group that engages the public on local environmental issues and policies.

More of Swami’s humor and event info can be found at www.wakeuplaughing.com.