Climate Change Less Credible Than ‘Avatar’, Poll Shows

An article I wrote for the satirical news website cultsha.com. View the original here.
The proportion of adults who believe climate change is a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, in direct contrast to the percentage who believe Pandora, the fictional planet from James Cameron’s blockbuster ‘Avatar,’ actually exists, a new poll revealed this week.

Over 70 people were questioned in the survey, which took place outside the Wolverhampton branch of the Odeon cinema. The questionnaire asked each individual to rate climate change on a scale of credibility ranging from ‘as certain as a Toyota trying to kill you’ to ‘about as likely as Haiti hosting the 2016 Olympics’.

The results of the poll have caused alarm amongst environmentalists and scientists alike. One climate expert reluctantly acknowledged “three hundred years of regimented empirical experiment and analysis is no match for the wonders of 3D cinema. I mean have you seen that battle at the end? I was all like no way this is totally real!”.

It seems that the call of the Na’vi is impossible to resist, with even Climate Secretary Ed Milliband photographed on Hamstead Heath in the early hours of Sunday morning, covered in blue face paint and hurling faeces at passers-by while ranting incoherently about ’saving the Tree of Voices’.

Fluctuations in public opinion towards climate change have prompted many environmental groups to re-think their approach to campaigning. The executive director of Greenpeace Jonathan Herb admitted concerns that “after watching Avatar, people find it hard to empathise with the plight of humans, who they associate with those evil military-industrialist types depicted in the film. No one seems interested in saving the planet, unless said planet is inhabited by a race of blue-skinned cat people that seem to be constructed from a combination of several vaguely racist stereotypes”.

“As a result we’ve urgently petitioned James Cameron to produce a new film to
remind the public that climate change is a very real threat to mankind. I suggested he remake the 1992 children’s eco-classic ‘Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest’, except in 3D and really sh*t. But then I realised he’s just done that”.