3. Stephen Colbert
Colbert spent years doing great work on climate during his tenure at The Colbert Report, so he gets how to do this—even if he seemed a little out of practice on Wednesday night. He started off The Late Show with some zingers about the lack of international action from world leaders, then segued into some bits about age and making older people care, ending with some jokes about consumer products (insect-based pet food, white paint that could eliminate air conditioning).
Colbert even seemed to have some awareness that he and other hosts could be doing more on a regular basis, and made a meta critique of Wednesday’s united comedy front. “Okay!” he exclaimed. “Crisis solved—just as surely as when all those celebrities sang Imagine and ended covid.”
Watching his very good monologue, it’s a little frustrating that he didn’t cover the IPCC report when it came out, or that his writers’ room seems to have saved up all this great climate material just for this week. We want more from him!! Do climate more, Stephen!!
Hot Burn: “Hundreds of world leaders are meeting with climate activists to attempt the one thing to fight climate change that no industrialized nation has done before: anything.”
Cringe Line: “This paint is so white it has a favorite Jimmy Buffet song.” (Not a bad line, by far, just the easiest to predict in a very solid monologue.)
