Storm clouds for Romney

An ad, in which a clip of Mitt Romney’s climate change joke at the Republican National Convention is contrasted with footage of Hurricane Sandy, has gone viral.

In his speech, Romney made light of Obama’s pledge to tackle environmental issues. The joke garnered a laughing response from the audience, and the speech and the reaction were widely distributed on the internet. Back in August, a report in Forbes stated, “He didn’t simply dismiss global warming, or reject policies intended to address or mitigate against sea level rise, which is closely tied to global warming. … Romney took this a step further: he used the very idea of controlling sea level rise as a mere rhetorical device, a laugh line to mock Barack Obama’s grandiosity.”

The new ad, created by ClimateSilence.org, a project organized by nonpartisan political project Forecast the Facts, was released last week. It’s called “Romney vs. Sandy,” and starts with Romney saying, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet.” The audience responded with laughter and subsequent cheering, which the video then plays behind images of Hurricane Sandy, including footage of crumbling houses, drowned vehicles and children sleeping in temporary shelters. It concludes with a screen that reads, “Tell Mitt Romney: Climate change isn’t a joke.”