Brad Pitt’s Comedy Central Sketch On Climate Change Is No Joke

ThinkProgress - Joe Romm

Pitt's weather forecast is hilarious but terrifying

Screenshot of Brad Pitt returning as the "weather man" for Comedy Central's "The Jim Jefferies Show.

Actor Brad Pitt reprised his role as a cheerful but fearful “weather man” on “The Jim Jefferies Show” Tuesday night.
Pitt starts with a grim “joke” about how basketball superstar LeBron James asked him “How’s the weather down there?” and he replies, “the same as it is up there —  changing at a pace not before seen in the history of man.”



Then, standing in front of a map showing the hot weather everywhere, Pitt gives a forecast that ends, “and over here in the North the ice caps are melting and I am so so, so so scared.”
Of course, we have seen record warmth just about  everywhere recently. On Monday, a heatwave in Pakistan resulted in scorching temperatures of 122.3 degrees Fahrenheit (50.2°C) — making it potentially the hottest April temperature reliably recorded on earth, ever.
In January, NASA reported that “the five warmest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010” with a map that looks eerily like Pitt’s.
And the ice caps are indeed melting at a record pace. This recent winter was the hottest on record in the Arctic.
On Tuesday, we learned that the ice in the Bering Sea (which lies between Russia and Alaska) is at its lowest February-March level since 1850.

Record low Bering sea ice. CREDIT: University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Pitt has been concerned about global warming for over a decade, but now more than ever. In fact, it was President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate Accord that spurred his debut as the smiling, but gloomy weatherman reporting on rising temperatures everywhere.
While Pitt’s performance uses humor to discuss a scary topic, the accelerating trends we’re seeing in global temperatures and melting ice caps are no laughing matter.

Links

• Brad Pitt Discusses Energy & Climate
• Pakistan May Have Just Set a World Heat Record
• The five warmest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010
• Arctic temperatures are soaring, and scientists are freaking out
• The Bering Sea’s ice has never melted this early before