How to Save the World by Recycling Your Sex Toys

Environmentalists are rapidly depleting the world’s reserves of humour, says Noel O’Hare, the author of a new book "How to Save the World by Recycling Your Sex Toys".

“There’s a real danger than humour will vanish entirely from the planet as greenies become a dominant force in global politics,” he warns. He was speaking a week ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

"Greenies are so earnest and preachy that they are turning people off. Even if what they're saying is true, no one likes to be scolded and told what to do. For the sake of the planet they need to lighten up."

Environmentalists often use scare tactics to sell the green message whereas humour might be more effective, says O’Hare. “As comedian John Cleese once put it, ‘If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas’.”

Noel O'Hare says he is trying to do his bit with his new book. 'How to Save the World by Recycling Your Sex Toys' (New Holland Publishers, RRP $19.99) is a fierce and funny satire on green worriers.

The author’s alter ego eco guru Dr Green acts as ‘agony aunt’ replying to bizarre and deliciously cheeky questions from guilt-ridden greenies.

Can you harness your kids’ energy to reduce your power consumption? Will a solar-powered vibrator soothe your eco rage? Can your artificial hip be recycled when you die? Should you join the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement?

“Unless we keep replenishing the world’s supply of humour we could end as po-faced as the puritans of the 17th century.”

“We’re going to need all the good humour we can muster to get through the next few years of the global warming crisis.”

About the author:
Noel O'Hare is a freelance journalist, columnist, blogger and author. Northern Ireland-born, Noel has lived and worked in New Zealand since the early 1970s. In the 1980s he became a staff writer for the New Zealand Listener magazine and has written many award-winning features on subjects as diverse as reading, tantric sex, diet, mental illness and alternative therapies.

In 1994 he won the Senior Feature Writer of the Year in the Qantas Media Awards. He has won several Bravo Awards from New Zealand Skeptics for his articles on false memory syndrome and psychics. He has twice been awarded Media Travel Grants by the Asia 2000 (now Asia:NZ) Foundation to travel in, and write features, on Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

He was awarded a 2003-2004 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism Fellowship to write articles on mental health, in particular about the effects of migration on mental health. He is currently working on his first novel.