As many environmental advocates will probably tell you, the odds of tackling the gargantuan, entangled issue of climate change may sometimes seem insurmountably large. 

In their new film The Yes Men Are Revolting, longtime activists Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno learn this firsthand.

Dynamic and subversive, Yes Men Andy and Mike (the activists’ aliases) have employed another round of unique social activist tactics for their third film. They are pranksters who set up fake press conferences, go “on the record” impersonating officials, distribute false newspapers, and create elaborate pranks to draw attention to major issues.

This time, they target corporate and political bigwigs they want to hold responsible for failing to act on climate change.

The film begins in 2009, with the activists and their colleagues launching a protest across the East River from the United Nations in New York, where world leaders were convening to discuss climate change. The demonstration involved “a flotilla of 100 SurvivaBalls,” which are gigantic, rotund beige devices worn as self-sustaining units to protect against climate change. They look every bit as ridiculous as they sound, and were used to full advantage by the Yes Men’s crew to draw attention to the ridiculousness of climate inaction. The giant rolling human-encasing balls were stopped by police, but the event still caught national attention. Herein lies the ingeniousness of the Yes Men’s hilarious techniques—and their success in getting the media to proclaim their real messages.

“The fossil fuel guys have hijacked our political system,” they say. The corporate powers of the fossil fuel industry, and the political ties the industry has to the US political system, are the public enemies in this battle.

Another jaunt in the film includes a staged press event where Andy acts as a spokesperson for the US Chamber of Commerce. In front of a roomful of reporters, he states that the Chamber is supportive of a carbon tax and climate legislation to curb emissions. The hoax is shut down and a lawsuit filed against the Yes Men, but not before capturing media and eventually propelling the group into the news to speak their mind on Big Oil.

The Yes Men Are Revolting has a tone different from the earlier Yes Men movies, The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix the World. This film shows Andy and Mike as sometime pranksters and as real people, with jobs and personal relationships that can contend with their activism. The film highlights the complications of being an activist—the disenchantment caused when some ploys fail, when the lack of change in the face of formidable enemies and political inertia overwhelms. In this sense, it’s a sincere examination of what it means to be a dogged advocate for change in today’s social climate.

And while the profile of Andy and Mike’s work sometimes overshadows the issues around corporate and political authority they’re fighting, the film does demonstrate just how global an issue climate change really is. It covers North American tar sands, Native American indigenous activists, UN climate conferences, backdoor international oil industry agreements, Arctic oil development, and one Ugandan community suffering from “climate debt”—when developed countries’ polluting comes at the expense of developing countries’ health and safety. 

Through humor and pain, The Yes Men Are Revolting feels like an honest snapshot of environmental action in today’s world. The activists put it like this: “To keep going, we’ve got to be part of something bigger than ourselves. That’s the only way we’re going to win this fight.”

The film opens this week in select locations. Or, buy it on demand (use the code SierraClub  and get 15% off).

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