Hurricane Marco Rubio. Climate change gimmick taking newsrooms by storm

Numerous clever images shock and underline the great tumult of climate change. Now, the environmental activist group 350 Action has created a rather brilliant, if gimmicky stunt to get people talking about the key issues.

For a day. Or an hour. For five minutes on Twitter.

The organization has issued a video that seeks to change the way the World Meteorological Organization henceforth names storms. According to the press note, they’ve been naming extreme storms after people since 1954 but it’s time for “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.”

They mean US politicians obviously; those who deny global warming.

The video has droll spoof weather reports such as “Marco Rubio threatens everything in his path…” and “If you value your life, please seek shelter from Michelle Bachmann”. (She once notably said that the science supporting global warming is “voodoo”.

The organization’s reason for focussing on extreme storms is “rising sea levels and hotter oceans”, which it says will cause more “intense (and) devastating” storms.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the re-naming campaign had 8,193 signatures and 16,807 more were needed by November 30 (the goal being 25,000).

Not bad for a gimmick.