New York agency Barton F Graf and activist group 350 Action have taken a unique approach to bringing shame on the names of climate change deniers: attaching their names to extreme storms.
As it says on YouTube: “Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organisation has been naming extreme storms after people. But we propose a new naming system. One that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy. If you agree, sign the petition at www.climatenamechange.org/#/petition.”
It’s not as mad as it seems. Maybe someone’s been having fun on Wikipedia, but in the tropical storm naming post it says “before the official naming of tropical cyclones began in each basin, significant tropical cyclones were named after annoying politicians, mythological creatures, saints and place names, or were just simply numbered with a set of code letters before it.”
For the storm watchers out there, the history of the naming conventions around tropical cyclones makes for moderately interesting reading. And if you want to impress your friends, tell them that “alternating male and female names began at the start of the 1975–76 cyclone season” in this part of the world.
